The Matrix features an apocalyptic future where artificial intelligence has enslaved humans to use them to produce energy. To do this, each human is placed in a cell where their bodies are used to create electricity while the mind of the person is downloaded into a simulated universe called the matrix. This computer simulation is completely indistinguishable from reality for most humans in the movie. This concept raises an interesting epistemological question: How can one know whether or not they are experiencing reality or a simulation so similar that they have been tricked to think it is reality? To explore this question, one must focus on the protagonist, Neo, and how he discovered he had been dreaming the world he was living in. This will give a measure of the merit this …show more content…
When Neo first appears in the movie, he is living his life as if he were experiencing reality as it truly was. He thought that the universe he was living in was real because he used his cognitive senses to perceive things like any other human being. He could touch, see, and hear things; on this basis he concluded, like most would, that what he was experiencing was genuinely real. It is not until he is shown the truth by people living outside the matrix that he accepts that the world he was living in was a computer simulation. A similar situation was pondered by Rene Descartes. In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes declares, “… I see so manifestly that there are no certain indications by which we may clearly distinguish wakefulness from sleep that I am lost in astonishment. And my astonishment is such that it is almost capable of persuading me that I now