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.

Shut Up and Dance your way out of that cave

This week I watched an episode of Black Mirror called Shut Up and Dance. We follow the main character Kenny, a seemingly innocent, harmless young guy. Kenny, and several others are being watched and are told to perform a series of tasks or else some unknown people, only referred to as "they" in the episode, will leak information that they cannot afford to let out to the public.


We are not sure of the full stories surrounding the other characters. We get the picture that Kenny was wrongly caught masturbating on camera, and that they would leak the video to everyone. We as viewers sympathies for Kenny, as it seems he has been unfairly targeted. He is made to do awful things such as robbing a bank at gunpoint and fighting a man to the death.


I cannot help but relate this to Plato's Allegory of the Cave. A group of people spend their entire lives chained in a cave only ever seeing shadows and noises unaware of the entire situation. To them the shadows are the reality. They do not realize that those shadows and noises come from something else, because they've never been shown anything else except of what is right in front of them. Well it turns out, we are the people in the cave. Towards the end of the Black Mirror episode we are hit with revelations that completely change our outlook. It turns out that these people were purposely targeted by a group of somewhat vigilantes who wanted to punish Kenny and the others for what they've done. Kenny it turns out was watching child pornography, so had the man he had to fight. We were given small hints to it during the episode such as him being drawn to the child at the restaurant, and the fact he was so scared of the video leaking. It all at the time just added to the perception that he was a nice and completely innocent guy.


Because we were only shown certain aspects of the story, we believed that to be the reality. At the end you are dragged out of that cave and are shown the light. Just like the acts of the characters in the story. Even though they believed that if they performed certain tasks, their secrets wouldn't get out, the reality is very different. Once you are shown what is outside the cave, your view of reality completely changes.


P.S. I now have a sticker over my laptop camera.

A Bear and Nozick Teach Happiness

          The Waldo Moment is a Black Mirror episode in which a cartoon bear, voiced by a man named Jayme, began as a comedic enterprise ended up running for an election. To be clear the cartoon bear, named Waldo, ran for office not the man behind him. If you are wondering how could this happen, basically the people became disenfranchised with their current politicians and believed they were not really cared about by the government and voting for a cartoon bear could vent their anger.
          The episode struck home with me because of how startling close the people in there and the people out here areand also how it portrays how a person thinks. For example it can be assumed that Jayme more than likely had a lot of money due to the fact of how successful Waldo was with the public. Even though he is not directly famous, Waldo is and thus he can reap the rewards that Waldo produces. Now having money does not necessarily mean happiness it also does not necessarily dwindle it either. But what we see at the end is that Jayme was tired of the success of Waldo during the election and was incredulous at why the people were voting for a cartoon bear. He sacrificed all of his potential success to make a stand for something he believed in. This just goes to show how the human mind works, and that happiness is not always the most important thing to a person. This point is also pointed out in "The Experience Machine," by Robert Nozick. In his thought experiment he states that humans want experiences of connections with others that bring about happiness rather than happiness in it of itself. We as humans would rather have fluctuations of happiness rather than happiness all of the time because it helps to contribute our life's meaning. I would personally rather live a thoughtful life with meaningful shared connections with other people rather than constant feelings of pleasure. We enjoy the internal feeling of pleasure as a response to something that we did. It makes it more meaningful to us.
          This episode put me in perspective and made me think what happiness was and how important it is. Now I personally believe that it is vital to a person and people should pursue it, just not in way in which it separates them from their common man. It is like the example of higher pleasures and lower pleasures. It may take a while and unhappiness to achieve those higher pleasures but when you do it makes all of the difference. Nozick quotes John Stuart Mill in his experiment when he says," it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied."

Reality vs. Fiction

The world is digitized. There is hardly a person left who doesn't have at least a TV in their home. Movies, TV shows, cartoons all provide an alternate reality that isn't permanent. However, sometimes, it feels real, at least while we're watching it. And sometimes, we'd rather it be real than what we have in our everyday lives.

In the episode of Black Mirror titled "The Waldo Moment," a man named Jamie voices a cartoon bear who accidentally becomes a political candidate for an upcoming election. Jamie struggles with the idea that people only like the bear; that he doesn't matter in the slightest. His feels persona as this fictional, rude, cartoon bear has overtaken his own personality. People like Waldo because he speaks the truth. Jamie can say what he wants because he isn't actually Waldo, but the consequences come back to bite him in the butt anyway. It may seem crazy, but the people actually vote for the blue bear over real people. As Jamie says, "Waldo is a bear. A blue bear," but for some reason, people don't seem to care. Suddenly, Waldo is a beacon of truth, and it doesn't matter whether he's real or not.

Robert Nozick's "The Experience Machine," the same idea is portrayed though with entirely different circumstances. The idea that people might rather prefer to plug themselves into a machine that gives them a false but realistic reality is similar to people voting for a blue bear in an election. To some, a cartoon that tells the truth seems the better option than the people who lie in order to gain favor. Just as with the experience machine, people can pick and choose what they want to experience. They don't have to worry about awkward, sad, scary, or annoying situations. The virtual reality is suddenly better.

However, when it comes down to it, are these really better situations? In Plato's allegory of the cave, the people are presented as not knowing the truth while in the cave. It's only once they're outside in reality that they can come to know the truth. It's uncomfortable, and they aren't used to the light at first, but eventually they get used to it. They learn more than they ever could have in the cave, but when they go back, they're shunned. Perhaps Waldo is telling the truth, but he's still a cartoon. There's a person behind him who is the one who actually thought of everything Waldo says. Perhaps if the people who voted for Waldo instead chose Jamie as their candidate, things might have been better. A cartoons simply cannot do something meant for human beings, as entertaining as he may be. Jamie was the brain behind everything, but at the end of the episode, he ended up homeless. 

And so, it seems that most people prefer the fictional over the real. Jamie gave Waldo a voice and thoughts and a personality, and yet, people preferred the cartoon over the human. This shows that it's dangerous to be too involved in the fictional world. It might overtake reality one day.

Virtual Escape

           It’s crazy how much of the world around us is digital: TV, video games, phones, tablets, even watches! In many ways, these objects make our lives so much easier and allow us to become so much more advanced as compared to our ancestors. However, the human mind is becoming so dependent on the virtual world, it can alter our perception of what is real. The other day, while at the grocery store, I noticed a toddler, sitting in the grocery basket, with his eyes glued to his phone. This makes his mother’s life a lot easier, as she doesn’t have to constantly watch him. However, the toddler is already exposed to the digital world at such a young age. Being exposed to this so young, makes the digital world an almost inseparable part of the child’s life. Due to this dependence, the digital world has the ability to influence human beings, even though digital characters, shows, etc. are not technically “real.”  

            On the surface, this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. After all, the digital world is a daily part of all our lives. However, as the Black Mirror episode, “The Waldo Moment,” portrays, since the digital world is so present in our everyday lives, it can blur peoples’ distinction between real life and digital media. The character Waldo is so loved by his fans that he gets second place in a real political election. While he didn’t win the entire thing, at the end of the episode, he is able to start a riot among the crowd because of how much power he holds over the people. While it seems extremely obscure to think that real human beings would vote for a fictional character, “The Waldo Moment” explains how this concept isn’t that absurd.

People enjoy video games and TV because they are an escape. If you’re tired of everyday life, it’s easy to hook up your gaming system and go get lost in the Victorian world of Assassin’s Creed for a couple hours. During the politician open question panel, Jamie uses the real life complaints about politicians to give Waldo more credibility and support. He calls out Gwendolyn, explaining how she’s dishonest because she is only using the campaign to boost her career. While Waldo is a digital character, his fictional persona is what causes him to hold so much power over the people. They like him because he isn’t a typical human being. On top of this, he is a TV character that everyone is exposed to because of peoples’ dependence on the media.

This episode presents the scary possibility that, due to dependence on the digital world, people could prefer virtual reality to “real” reality. In Robert Nozick’s “The Experience Machine,” Nozick explains how “plugging into an experience machine limits us to a man-made reality” (Nozick 122). He mentions how human beings would not be content with living out their wildest dreams within their mind while hooked up to an experience machine because they would not be able to physically take part in the experiences or be their own person (121). However, “The Waldo Moment” displays how peoples’ dependence on virtual characters, shows, and games can blur the lines of reality. By putting their support in a virtual character, the people are not displaying their preference to real life but to fiction.

            While the digital age helps makes our lives tremendously easier, it is becoming all we know. The voters in “The Waldo Moment” did not find it weird to vote for a fictional character because of how regularly fictional characters are in our lives. In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” the prisoners only know life in the cave. As time progresses, more and more younger children only know digital media. While helpful, this could also easily display the virtual world as reality.    

Perception and Deception

‘The Allegory of the Cave’ by Plato and Black Mirror’s episode of Men Against Fire have striking parallels. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Plato gives us a tale about prisoners, who are chained up to where they can only look at the wall in front of them. On this wall, the prisoners observe shadows projected on the wall from objects passing by the fire which is behind them. These confined prisoners are forced to determine reality based on their own perceptions. They assume what they perceive to be reality. They accept it as truth.

In the film Men Against Fire all of the soldiers who have Mass implants are like the prisoners in the cave of Plato’s allegory. The protagonist nicknamed ‘Stripe’ and his military squad seek to eliminate the ‘roaches’. Early on the in the film, we see Stripe and his squad mates on a mission to eradicate these roaches who raided a nearby town. They end up encountering the roaches, and eliminating almost all of them. As we see during the face-to-face encounter Stripe had with the roaches, the roaches appear to be inhuman, monstrous beasts. However, one of these roaches had a device that gave off ‘light’, which would soon take its affect on Stripe.

Light plays a pivotal role in Plato’s allegory and in Men Against Fire. Its leads to the eye-opening, epiphany moment of the escaped prisoner and Stripe. Light is the source of knowledge and truth. The light casts its bright beams into the darkness of the prisoner’s mind in Plato’s allegory, and the light does the same to Stripe in Men Against Fire. However, unlike the Sun being the cause of the escaped prisoner accumulating truth and knowledge, a device configured by a roach gives off rays of light. This device causes Stripe to gradually understand reality and see it for what it truly is.

I think it is no coincidence that the writers and producers of Black Mirror titled this episode “Men Against Fire”. The prisoners in Plato’s allegory are exactly like soldiers in Men Against Fire. Their backs are turned against or away from the fire. They are subject to only perceiving whatever is being shown in front of them. They determine to what they perceive to be reality.

Like Plato, I think the producers of Black Mirror were seeking to convey the idea that our perception might not always be the actual reality. In other words, we can sometimes mistake appearance for reality. For instance, a clear example of this is the monstrous appearance of the roaches to soldiers injected with Mass implants. We learn these ‘roaches’ actually look just like your average human. It is the soldiers who are falsely assuming what they perceive to be true. Reality is different. They were like the prisoners in the Plato’s allegory. They were subject to what was being projected for them to see. They had no control of it.

Are there instances nowadays where people assume truth based on appearance? In other words, do most people assume what they perceive to be true as reality? Do most people just automatically assume truth purely based on appearances?

I think a historic example of this is the Holocaust. Jews were specifically targeted and labeled as subhuman by the Nazis. Young German’s during WWII were raised to join Hitler’s youth, and become soldiers who marched with anti-semitic beliefs hardwired into their brains.  These Nazi soldiers were just like the Mass troops in Men Against Fire. In order to systematically kill millions of Jews, they had to view Jews as subhuman.

Can anyone think of current examples where people have determined another group of people to be subhuman based upon their appearance or how they perceive them? Why does this happen? Is it because of social media? The news? Are there examples of this going on right now?

The Plugged In Reality

The question of reality and experience is one that is often pondered upon by many. In a Black Mirror episode called San Junipero, this idea of reality is presented in a unique light. Once one is unable to have their own experiences through illness, death, or old age, they have the option to enter into the world of San Junipero. It is a city in a year of their choosing where everyone who has entered into this reality can have life experiences as if they were healthy, young, and/or living during that time period. Two women, Yorkie and Kelly, have met and fallen in love in this new reality. However, in the real world, Yorkie is about to be pulled off life support and has chosen to enter into this reality permanently. Kelly, on the other hand, is old and getting more sick, but does not wish to cross over permanently after death.

Like in The Experience Machine by Robert Nozick, there is much debate on whether or not one should enter into this new world. The argument between Kelly and Yorkie begins with Yorkie probing as to why Kelly would not want to live eternally in this perfect world with her. Much to Yorkie’s surprise, Kelly was married and lost a daughter before this technology was available. When Kelly’s husband passed he chose not to live eternally in this new reality because his daughter never had the chance to. Kelly had the same mentality; she has lived a full life. She was married, had a child, and lost both her daughter and husband. Yorkie did not have an opportunity to live her life. She was paralyzed in a car accident at a young age after coming out to her parents as a lesbian.

The Experience Machine addresses the different situations Yorkie and Kelly are in by addressing the question of experience. Is a false reality and experience worth living for? In Yorkie’s mind, it is because Yorkie’s experiences in San Junipero are the only life experiences she has had outside of adolescents. In Kelly’s mind, it isn’t because she has had a full life outside this false reality of San Junipero.

Kelly seems to have had some traumatic life experiences that she does not want to continue remembering into her enternal life. Yorkie did not have the opportunity to have as many life experiences and wishes to continue her life in San Junipero. Kelly does decide to life eternally in San Junipero, but I do not know if I would have made the same decision in her situation. 

Allegory to the Merits

In Fifteen Million Merits, it depicts the reality of a man named, Bing. Similar to the prisoners in Plato’s story, he only knows one simple truth: pedaling gets him merits. These merits are essential to his life inside the facility, which is symbolically his cave. The puppet masters, aka the people in charge, let him know that this is his only reality through the use of merit deduction and forcing him to watch the programs around him.

In the competition scene, Abi is only offered a position at Wraith Girls. After Abi’s predicament, Bing starts to question what he has previously believed, exactly like the free prisoner in Plato’s story, because he knows deep down that she did not warrant the future she was handed. This shift in thoughts is what led Bing to working his butt off to work up to fifteen million merits again. In his speech on stage, he even states, “Show us something real and free and beautiful. You couldn’t, yeah? It’d break us. We’re too numb for it.” This quote directly implies a similar tone to the prisoners in Plato’s story. The other prisoners were too ignorant to listen to the freed prisoner about what he saw and refused to partake in such silly thoughts. They were too broken in on their own theories to consider possibilities of others.

After his speech has wrapped up, one of the judges speaks, further mentioning that Bing’s take was, “Your truth, admittedly, but the truth nonetheless.” This clarification of different realities mimics the tone of the Allegory of the Cave. Lastly, much like the prisoners in the story at the very end, the other people refuse to accept his concept and cheer at him to take the judge’s radio show offer. Bing ultimately accepts the offer and gives into the flawed reality that he had previously rejected, which is exactly like the freed prisoner. In the end, Plato’s story and Fifteen Million Merits both show that enlightenment can free a prisoner but also hinder them by leaving them in a position of vulnerability.

However, I can’t help but wonder how drastically the story could have changed if Bing had not been cheered on from the audience. Also, do you think the incorporation of “digital” figures convey a certain point? Could the digital avatars been replaced with real people or would the point the producer is trying to make not be fully expressed without them? After all, even CNN wrote an article about how digital avatars could alter the world.

Becoming a Prisoner in Plato's Cave

In today’s age of rapidly occurring advancements in technology, it becomes next to impossible to keep secrets hidden. As shown in Black Mirror’s season three episode “Shut Up and Dance”, one of the strongest forms of punishment can be through the exploitation of the skeletons in our closets. In traditional Black Mirror fashion, there is a redefining moment in the last five minutes of the episode that causes the viewer to rethink everything they have seen up until that point. The revelation that these people were not chosen at random and that they all have secrets which are revealed to be much darker than originally thought causes the viewer to questions everything they have thought throughout the course of the episode. The most shocking being the discovery about why Kenny is so ashamed of his masturbation video and why he will go to such lengths to hide it. 

So why is discovering that Kenny watches child pornography so shocking? It is because the episode presents a sympathetic character who is seemingly being punished for a common activity in which many people partake. Looking back there where subtle signs, such as the way Kenny takes a special interest in the little girl at the beginning of the show, but these are offset by the assumptions that we as viewers make about him. In a way, this episode is very reminiscent of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, only in this situation the viewers of the episode are the prisoners who develop an inability to see the world as it is. Like the prisoners we see in shadows. These shadows being the result of the punishment the characters are undertaking rather than the reality of the purpose behind their punishment. Time and time again Kenny proves to be a sympathetic character, from wetting his pants during the bank robbing scene to being willing to kill himself so he does not have to kill another person, Kenny becomes someone you start to think doesn’t deserve this torture. I found myself as a viewer rooting for Kenny up until the moment his mother reveals that his secret isn’t just a video of him masturbating. After that, I was as disgusted and disappointed as his mother. It amazes me how quickly I can go from being disturbed that someone can put other people through these situations to happy that they received their punishment. 

Unlike Plato’s prisoners, I cannot return to the cave. I just have to face the fact that sometimes when the shade over reality is uncovered, the truth is so much worse. 

Music, Experience, Life: Discussing Score in "San Junipero" and the Immersion of "The Experience Machine"

Robert Nozick writes of the details and denial, the reasoning behind our hesitation, in using a machine that can emulate life itself. “San Junipero” seems to mirror his doubts in neon lights and decades of imitation, recognizable despite the viewer’s age. The Black Mirror episode begins with experiences that feel familiar, even to an audience that may not have ever felt the desperation or annoyance that Wes and Kelly feel respectively, the chase after someone who doesn’t love you back. Then there is Yorkie, walking alone and expressing a sense of uncertainty even in the way she walks, that feeling just before entering a party that has played across movie screens since film came about--familiar without certain experience. Those reflected experiences reverberate back into the audience, simulating the experience machine Nozick describes without any explanation or background knowledge of Robert Nozick needed. The parallel, once acknowledged, between the idea of the machine and the episode, is striking. Yet San Junipero goes one step deeper, taking the “suicide” described by Nozick as literal.

The score specifically highlights the difference between the machine and life. When inside the machine, the score plays slow and increasing in volume, in long drawn notes, just as in a movie. But in moments of quiet, of muted music, there is a sense of the distance from reality. In the quiet moments, Kelly and Yorkie talk of their lives, talk of sadness and pain. There is loneliness in silence, or minimal sound, and therefore reality as Yorkie is literally reminded of their reality as Kelly disappears at midnight while she is left behind when the music abruptly cuts off. The scenes in reality are all in silence or filled with dialogue, just as in our lives there is no score. Kelly chooses music, chooses neon, and so chooses Yorkie. Yet, as real as the town feels, Kelly earlier pointed out the irony in the machine. It cannot substitute life, but she decided it didn’t matter. Nozick argues that we will not choose the machine because it cannot substitute life--yet San Junipero suggests that perhaps despite that, it would still be chosen especially if it was as if life itself never ended. Even the music follows the similar idea, the couple driving away to the bright singing. It is interesting the San Junipero makes so much use of scoring to explain the unexplainable emotions of life versus the experience machine that Nozick even writes cannot be explained. This score immerses an audience, then breaks immersion, almost exactly as the experience machine might that Nozick describes. Why is the scoring of a film so important? How does a score express unexplainable ideas that even philosophers find difficult to express?