>Meantime, to placate the Wachowskis and those geeks (like me) who took the
first film seriously, they give them a smaller budget to do "The Animatrix"
shorts which contain all manner of conceptual and
philosophical nuggets deemed unfit for the larger commercial enterprises.
>Still, as I've said, "Revs" does offer some beautiful visual sequences,
only minus any kind of understandable philosophical framework.
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20031110/027186.h
tml
Contrast with with:
From: Dylan Evans [mailto:ensde at bath.ac.uk] Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 6:37 AM To: evolutionary-psychology at yahoogroups.com Subject: [evol-psych] Matrix III and Evolutionary Psychology The third film in the Matrix series, 'Matrix Revolution', scheduled for worldwide general release on Wednesday, contains several references to evolutionary psychology in general, and to my book 'Introducing Evolutionary Psychology' in particular. The Wachowski brothers, who directed the series of films, asked the actors to read a book to prepare for each film. For the first film, they had to read 'Simulacra and Simulation' by Jean Baudrillard. This book appears in the first film and is cited by Morpheus on more than one occasion. For the second film, they had to read 'Out of Control' by Kevin Kelly, and this book is also cited in the film. For the third film, the actors had to read 'Introducing Evolutionary Psychology' by Dylan Evans and Oscar Zarate. Will the book be cited in the film? Find out when it comes out on Wednesday! For a video clip of Keanu Reeves talking about the book, see my home page http://www.dylan.org.uk I wonder if they picked my book because it has lots of cartoons in it, and so Keanu might have a chance of understanding it... ;-) Dylan Evans Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Bath http://www.dylan.org.uk
So you can understand the philosophical framework for Matrix Revolutions as an evolutionary psychology perspective. I think this helps explain a lot of the themes of the third film. Take the the seemingly contradictory views on destiny and indeterminacy laid down in the dialogue between Niobe and Morpheous in Reloaded, in Revolutions the character's contending perspectives are transcended, "Some things in this world never change, and thankfully some things do." This is the viewpoint of evolutionary psychology, humans are equiped from evolution with a variety of instincts and those never really change, we still have stone-age brains, but where and how those instincts get directed are always in flux, e.g. the human ingeniuty that was originally selected for an evolutionary niche of crafty hunting and gathering is now directed towards figuring out the physical laws of the universe, creating engrossing narratives that illuminate the human condition, making incredibly complex mathematical models to get the highest yield on financial speculation, making the case that a new wu-tang album could be really good in spite of all evidence to the contrary. I think this is also why Neo and the Oracle stress the issue of choice and reflecting on why the choices were made. Choice is the point where fate and free will meet up, or in evolutionary psychology, where innateness and creative application interact. You may have a pre-established genetic path but there are a million different ways to walk it. You have instincts for agression, instincts for morality, but how they are applied is mediated by your immediate understanding, past experiences, and a sense of who you are. As the it is says in the Oracle's kitchen, know thy self. The evo-psych perspective also clarifies the third film's harping on love. Evo-psych sees romantic love as a possibly evolved contract of irrational behavior, i.e. the best way to prove you care for someone and aren't just waiting until someone better comes along is to really be crazy about them. That human capacity for getting all goofy and tongue-tied about somebody has genetic roots (I incidently think that this perspective is somewhat behind the excellent Flaming Lips song "What is the Light?" http://www.lyricsondemand.com/f/theflaminglipslyrics/whatisthelightlyrics.ht ml). So this is why in Revolutions the actors have those lines about love, Merv's line on how the EEG of a brain in love is indistinguishable from that of a psychotic, Agent Smith's line about love being something so twisted it could only come out of the human species, etc. Irrational love is also a good starting point for understanding what sentiments the otherwise egotistical human creature (machine?) can draw from for acts of revolutionary self-sacrifice, such as with Neo's martyrdom. As Che Guevera put it, "at the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality." The love theme also corrects what I think was a major flaw in the first film. I remember a friend and I were talking about how much we liked it, but then he pointed out the cheesiness of how Neo was saved by a kiss. Even on the first viewing of the original this struck me as a silly hollywood add-on, but in the context of the triology it's given some meaning. Also, I think the points about the superior crafting of the original in comparison to the sequels is a little bit over hyped. The original had plenty of unnecessary stupid action-film dialogue ("Neo, this is loco"), and the exposition of the plot for first matrix was tighter and more suprising than the sequels but I think that was heightened by how most people didn't go into the film with very high expectations beyond a standard sci-fi/action flick. And the sequels took on the unqiue act of depicting the the racial diversity you would end up with when trying to rescue the human population on a world scale, Zion wasn't your standard sci-fi, post-apocalyptic collection of inexplicably lucky white people. I do agree the animatrix is much more thought-provoking than the matrix sequels, but I appreciate that such an interesting series could get the chance to be made at all. It's a much richer world now that cinema has gotten the portrayal of competing philosophies out of the confines of "slice of life" drama and into direct, winner-takes-all, martial arts combat.
And on this point:
>how do the machines survive without human batteries?
>
>DP
I thought the implication of the peace was that those humans who were free stayed free but those not outside of the matrix stayed in the matrix.
Arash