Reality or Fantasy?

 

The Matrix is not at all what I was expecting. Initially, I was confused, but the question it posed was prominent from the beginning: "What is real? How do you define 'real'?"

There was nothing real about this movie, but really how should I know, right? Isn't that what the film is asking? There were enough questions in the movie and the three stories for me to question my own existence. Is this life real or am I living a dream? From this, I wondered if people that say they have lived in another lifetime were actually “awake” at some point, or so to speak. Did they experience the outside world while I’m tied up inside this dream world working and going to school? Or were they having dreams while I’m living in the real world?

Needless to say, Second Meditation by Rene Descartes did nothing to help me answer these questions. In fact, he left me with even more questions. He says, “I consider that I possess no senses; I imagine that body, figure, extension, movement, and place are but the fictions of my mind. What, then, can be esteemed as true? Perhaps nothing at all, unless that there is nothing in the world that is certain.” I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling pretty uncertain about life. We believe what we want to believe. The best example I can come up with is God. Many people believe in the Almighty being, but has anyone seen him? Was he, or has he ever been, real? Real is trivial term in this sense, because people who believe there is a God (or gods) are going to continue to believe even if you ask them if they’ve seen Him. So wouldn’t that make the word “real” trivial in all other cases we use it in?

I’ve most likely confused you while you’ve read this (believe me, I’ve confused myself), but after watching something like this and reading stories that have the same general concept for the first time, I find it extremely hard to decide what is real and what is fake. However, I’m going to remain in my little bubble and say that we are indeed real. We are not in a fantasy world. Our senses that tell our brain how to react to certain things, like touching a hot surface or eating cold ice cream, are real. Our brains aren’t hardwired to some machine to tell us how to think and feel. We are alive and we are real.

Side note: I’m extremely sorry if this is off the wall crazy. It’s hard not to get carried away with something like this. Especially after seeing The Matrix for the first time in my entire life. I was taken aback for sure.