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General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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Cultural Convention and The Matrix
    #2575146 -

With all the philosophical views and different interpretations regarding The Matrix floating around, I really have no idea if anybody has considered the possibility that the main idea presented in The Matrix (a sort of confinement system for minds)..could almost literally be seen as an equivalent to our established cultural conventions. Maybe I have just been absorbing too much Mckenna lately (it seems I can't get enough of him) but in any case, the other day while listening to one of his lectures, the thought came to me, that perhaps the writers of The Matrix could have infact came up with the main idea as a metaphor for modern day culture as a whole. Basically, a materialistic-based distraction preventing populations of people from experiencing the present universe for what it really is. I guess I could make an attempt to put this into my own words, but the way Terence presents his thoughts through words really are beyond me, so I might as well take a few quotes right out of the lectures:

"Cultures are kinds of virtual realities..where whole populations of people become imprisoned inside a structure that is linguistic and value based. Psychedelics, as it were, shuffle the deck..they dissolve these cheerful cultural assumptions..whether you are a psycho-therapist, a shaman, or whatever you are..suddenly you discover you're outside your cultural values, and in a way, outside of cultural values is a domain like a superspace, a kind of hyperspace where the past and the future are not so dimly beheld as they are in ordinary reality. Obviously, evolution and habit has made ordinary perception the servant of paranoia..to try and keep the body alive, and fend off attacking sabre tooth tigers, and so forth and so on. But, the imagination..begins to look like a kind of faculty, or sense, which humans have which is non-local..and which is telling them about the larger picture, and is trying to co-ordinate them with the larger picture. And you know, some cultures celebrate the imagination, and some cultures seek to suppress it."

"The world is such an amazing and dynamic place..this is why I'm so down on ideologies, because I think they're dusty mirrors to hold up to the splendor of the felt presence of the living universe.."

"It's preposterous that we can entertain in our popular journalism the titillation of the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, and prop up all these reductionist guys, and trot them out to give the statistics on the distribution of G-type stars and all these sorts of things, because the fact is, what blinds us to the presence of alien intelligence is linguistic and cultural bias operating on ourselves. The world which we perceive, is a tiny fraction of the world which we CAN perceive, which is a tiny fraction of the perceivable world."

And for you free-willers:

"I think that what were going to discover is that how you move around in time is not mainly determined by the laws of physics, but determined by cultural programming. We are far more imprisoned by cultural convention than we are by physical law."

The usual disclaimer: It's hard to really say what my beliefs are as far as this stuff goes..but I do think I can see where he is comming from, and I can't ignore the fact that alot of his views do seem to hold a good ammount of weight to them.

Anyway, in looking at all this, it seems to me that it might be safe to say..if a person really wanted to experience reality and the universe in as pure a form as possible..they should try to recognize, and look beyond all of these cultural belief/value systems that may have been (intentionally or non-intentionally) constructed like walls in their mind..clear the fog, calm the ripples on the surface of the water..and just be.

Heh, well I guess this post didn't elaborate very much about The Matrix...but hopefully the basic idea is clear.


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Pot cures cancer.  Tell your friends.

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: ekomstop]
    #2575848 -

No, trust me, we are in what God made... Do not let fantasy get too you and manifest itself.

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: Mr_Gubjet]
    #2576116 -

Alright..I believe you.  :smirk:


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Pot cures cancer.  Tell your friends.

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: ekomstop]
    #2576150 -

This movie is what really started me on my questioning quest... I started questioning everything. I questioned religion and the government most of all. It all started in 8th grade  :yesnod: . It was then i started to discover some really shitty things about life...


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What?

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: Zero7a1]
    #2576262 -

You could be right about the matrix writers. :shocked:

As for what McKenna had to say. I agree with all of that. McKenna is a gifted man, and even though we could all come up with his points if we tried, he makes it so much easier for us to grasp by telling it in a way that you can follow. Good stuff. :thumbup:

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: ekomstop]
    #2576954 -

The way things are, is not the only way for things to be, but it is the only way for things to be NOW.

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: ZenGecko]
    #2576959 -

ZenGecko said:
The way things are, is not the only way for things to be, but it is the only way for things to be NOW.


I concur...

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: ZenGecko]
    #2578171 -

Quote:
ZenGecko said:
The way things are, is not the only way for things to be, but it is the only way for things to be NOW.



And that could be true..though isn't it nice that so many people's perception and outlook on life has basically been narrowed down into a neat little package of beliefs, judgments and assumptions because of cultural and religious influences and whatnot? =/

I mean, that's what The Matrix was about..keeping the population 'asleep' while people went about their lives, unknowingly serving the agenda of another process.. (Food for the machines, in the movies case..)

*shrug*


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Pot cures cancer.  Tell your friends.

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: ekomstop]
    #2580361 -

um ya sure, what he said

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: ekomstop]
    #2580803 -

Indeed that would be a wonderful thought if the directors of the matrix took into an account of our cultural prisons.

culture included religion, which is why there's a box inside the box.  then we have politics, which has basically a say on everything that goes on, including lawmaking and breaking, which is mixed with religion, which is mixed within our culture.  And to wrap up this barrier well, business are tied to the government, which is tied with politics, which is tied with religion, which is tied within our culture.

as far as psychedelics go, it depends on the person.  people do shrooms to get fucked up, some do it for other reaons.

why do we utter the name god when we are relieved, or angry, or upset, or anxious? 

isn't it all just programming?  heh, like the PROGRAMS on TV.  Oh, there's another BOX t ocontend with, that actually is a tool used to help you accept what's going on the word just a little bit more :wink:


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Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: ekomstop]
    #2581523 -

The real matrix-prison is your own thought system. All that is wrong with the world stems from the fragmentation of thought (Read David Bohm's "Thought as a System").

This matrix is undeniably very real. And it is almost impossible to escape from it (unless you take the red pill then :tongue: :thumbup:).

I think also that it is very possible that we may be "food" for hyperdimensional intelligence or hungry ghosts that feeds on our emotions and energy. The matrix is all about controll, and there is always a Matrix. Neo escapes the computergenerated matrix into the 'real world', but he also eventually penetrate the Matrix of this world as well. This is the living force of creativity, feared by everyone who wants to gain power and keep controll.

"The matrix is the story we tell ourselves of how the world really is" says Morpheus. Is it WE who have made this story or are we contained in the matrix of it?


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There are no differences between men and gods,
one blends softly causal into the other.
-Frank Herbert, Dune.

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: ZenGecko]
    #2581735 -

ZenGecko said:
The way things are, is not the only way for things to be, but it is the only way for things to be NOW.


No I don't agree.

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: ekomstop]
    #2583360 -

I think the Matrix is just a cheap rip off of Plato's cave analogy, in a high-tech setting with free kungfu moves. It wasn't a bad movie, but only for entertainment purposes.


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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: Alan Stone]
    #2583391 -

I pretty much agree with this, although I did enjoy them. (Except the second, which I thought was pretty bad.)

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: JacquesCousteau]
    #2583718 -

Hey, I enjoyed them, but they wouldn't have been as enjoyable sober, if you catch my drift.


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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: Alan Stone]
    #2585235 -

Plato's analogy is an analogy of the truth. The Matrix's analogy is an analogy of the truth, not an anology of Plato's caves.

This is probably one of the most widely used analogies of them all. From Plato's caves to the Hindu's Maya ('Ma' is the root for Matrix, and Matter) to St. Paul's "I see as through a glass darkly". And the more frequently an analogy is used, the more likely it is to be true (pointing in the right direction).


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What you're searching for is what's searching.

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: Alan Stone]
    #2585352 -

Quote:
I think the Matrix is just a cheap rip off of Plato's cave analogy, in a high-tech setting with free kungfu moves. It wasn't a bad movie, but only for entertainment purposes.



Someone once said, "There is nothing new under the sun."

It's ALL variations on a theme. As long as the creators bring something fresh to the table I don't see it as a ripoff at all.

Great movie (the first one) that can be taken in a variety of ways. You can take it purely as entertainment and forget about it in a month, or take in the deeper aspects and have something you can take with you for a lifetime.

The average person doesn't read Plato. But he does go to the movies.


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I am what Willis was talkin' bout.

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: ekomstop] * 1
    #24633392 -

I whole heartedly agree with McKenna. Culture and society plays a major role in limiting our understanding and experience.

The best way to break away from the social conditioning is to travel. Travel to far away places. Travel to places that are not comfortable. The stranger the country you travel the better. What most people do in this world is live in a small town where they were born, went to high school, and had family. When we do that we become one-sided. One sidedness is the source of many of our ignorances. Our individual ignorances then spell into the fabric of our group we call society. That society then, like an ocean, swipes away to places we never intended to go.

What does a flying(gliding) fish do when threatened by the creature in the ocean? It flies into the air and glides for a bit. When we feel suffocated by our own conditioning and society, it's time to pack a bag my friends.

Edited by comviz1 (09/15/17 06:53 PM)

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Re: Cultural Convention and The Matrix [Re: comviz1]
    #24633586 -

when the going gets tough the tough get going?


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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