To what extent is the bluepill life a "lie"?

**zeroone506**

I guess everyone remembers Anome's attempt to free a bluepill politician hindered by a group of Cypherites.

Reading the logs, I started wondering about something I already used to think about before MxO:

Anome keeps saying that "everything" in Robert's life is a fake, his family, his campaign, his lost election, and the only way to escape that lie was to take the red pill. However, that's what I don't understand: the Matrix is a collective virtual reality for the entire humanity, not a Vanilla-Sky-like individual simulation. Apart from the Machines' monitoring and eventual memory manipulation in critical situations, do they actually control everything the bluepills do in their life? Don't they and their fellow men make their own choices just like in the Real world, just without knowing about the nature of their surrounding?

Aren't Robert's wife and children actually real bluepills who, for some reason, decided to leave him, and his lost election just a misfortune caused by the number of voters or maybe even by an internal political conspiracy/manipulation? In that case, Anome would've lied all the time.

Or is the life of each bluepill an own Truman show with all the happenings and fellow men being written up and planned by the Machines? Honestly, that doesn't sound like real to me.

Any thoughts?

**FrozenFyre**

No I don't think that the machines take direct control over bluepills
lives except in extreme circumstances, within the simulation, life is
very much real. The point is that the Matrix is a lie in it's very
existence, not that the machines overtly control people's lives- I
think trinity put it best when she said that "The Matrix cannot tell
you who you are" so despite Neo's experiences being part of a
simulation they were still "real" experiences that shaped who he
became.

As for Anome's discussion I believe it is possible that the machines
rigged the election so that he would lose, most likely because they
were aware of his doubts about the simulation, they wouldn't want a
redpill in power would they!! However I do also believe that Anome has
a big fat mouth, so I guess you can decide for yourelf what happened.

Gattsuru

"I don't
like the idea that I'm not in control of my life"
“But if you already know, how can I make a choice?”

- Neo.

The Oracle is able to predict, to a certain degree, outcomes. Her ability to do so is not, however, without limitations. She can not see beyond a choice that she doesn't understand, and more importantly, at no point could either she or Neo see beyond the Matrix.

The former limitation doesn't matter much to us here. Understanding comes with time, and that means that eventually she could predict any event inside the Matrix. But why she is unable to see past the Matrix?

In many ways, the Zionist line is correct. His family wasn't born from his seed, and never looked up at him with their true eyes. His family was no more his family than a Faction is mine. His campaign and his lost election may very well have just been code, independent of what people wanted. And the offices were no more real than Faction leader or Supreme Ruler of teh Intarweb.

In many ways it's not.

Of course, if Anome wanted to actually help the man instead of get another good soldier, he might have mentioned the blue pill, or how the truth was hard.

**zeroone506**

Gattsuru wrote:

In many ways, the Zionist line is correct. His family wasn't born from his seed, and never looked up at him with their true eyes. His family was no more his family than a Faction is mine. His campaign and his lost election may very well have just been code, independent of what people wanted. And the offices were no more real than Faction leader or Supreme Ruler of teh Intarweb.

Or maybe it was? We don't exactly know how humans are grown in the Real, since they don't seem to be clones at all. But ok, let's assume you're right; I guess the emotional tie still matters more in this case than the biological one -- his wife wasn't his relative anyway, and in a bit different scenario, his daughters could've been adopted aswell. However, he could get married in the Real, start a family there and still be abandoned by them if he, well, let's say, doesn't make it to Zion Infantry ensign. And that again could've happened because a few arses might not like him and have manipulated the vote results.

Things like these just happen anywhere, no matter how material the environment is -- unless the Machines were responsible for these happenings for some reason, or differently, had their fingers in the pod. If they hadn't, the Zionists should really rethink their recruitment tactics.

**Illyria22**

There would have to be some biological relationship between bluepill family members, otherwise there would be no family resemblances in the Matrix. Also, genetics is an established science by the end of the 20th century -- people know about DNA and heredity. So it's unlikely that a bluepill's family is just a bunch of random people thrown together by the Machines...given the fact that humans know how genetic traits are passed on, it would be easier for the Machines to use DNA from mom and dad to create a new child.

Illyria

kwnart

To 99% of the bluepills, life isn't a lie to them. Its life. They grow up, have a family, go old and die. They have good experiences and bad. They have no other frame of reference to judge it being a lie. To those that 1% that reject the simulation and have been taking out of it, see that the life they lived as bluepill was a lie.

Its a matter of perspective really. Is one "life" more correct than the other? Depends on how you look at it.

And to be honest, contrary to what Zionites think, if a bluepill was offered the "active" choice and not the "passive" choice they have now, most of them wouldn't take it. It may not be the 99% the machines think, but it would be at least 90%.

As for the family thing, that isn't always biological. I have 2 friends who I consider more my family than my blood relatives. Heck, the man I consider my grandfather wasn't even related to me, he was a friend of the family and he treated me more like a grandfather than my real grandfather did.

Again, it's all a matter of perspective and what lense you look at it through.

Message Edited by kwnart on 05.31.2006 12:03 PM
Message edited by kwnart on 05/31/2006 11:03:53.

**zeroone506**

kwnart wrote:

To 99% of the bluepills, life isn't a lie to them. Its life. They grow up, have a family, go old and die. They have good experiences and bad. They have no other frame of reference to judge it being a lie. To those that 1% that reject the simulation and have been taking out of it, see that the life they lived as bluepill was a lie.

That's right, but the question is, a "lie" to what extent? Is it just that their environment is a computer generated virtual reality and there's a real world, free humans and Machines keeping them in the virtual word, monitoring them and sometimes manipulating their minds or at least their sources of information (media, mostly)? That most of the history and science (macro and micro worlds especially) are actually fabricated? I agree, that's a big fat lie. However, nothing compared to the Machines' full control over a human's life. Anome portrays his misfortune as a global conspiracy, which wouldn't apply if this conspiracy would only concern his fellow men and not the Machines' (the System's) influence.

However, if the Machines don't treat those rejecting the Matrix and those who aren't, their lives really don't make much difference, except that the 99% believe what they see and the 1% doesn't. In this case, their personal experiences or points of view don't really matter because there's still a clear truth behind the ignorance. ...

Its a matter of perspective really. Is one "life" more correct than the other? Depends on how you look at it.

... In this case, their personal experiences or points of view don't really matter because there's still a clear truth behind the ignorance.

And to be honest, contrary to what Zionites think, if a bluepill was offered the "active" choice and not the "passive" choice they have now, most of them wouldn't take it. It may not be the 99% the machines think, but it would be at least 90%.

Yea, nobody can tell you what the Matrix is... that's what they're saying to the potentials, at least. I wonder, if they just said "Hey look, the world you're seeing is a virtual computer program...", and so on, instead of the lofty "A prison for you mind, like a splinter in your mind" speeches, would the potentials still take the red pill? To be honest, when the Cypherites aren't chasing a confused bluepill to death at the moment, their views are quite comprehensible.

As for the family thing, that isn't always biological. I have 2 friends who I consider more my family than my blood relatives. Heck, the man I consider my grandfather wasn't even related to me, he was a friend of the family and he treated me more like a grandfather than my real grandfather did.

Yea, his biological relation to his family really wouldn't matter here.

Again, it's all a matter of perspective and what lense you look at it through.

Gattsuru

zeroone5069 wrote:
If they hadn't, the Zionists should really rethink their recruitment tactics.

Why?

Zionists aren't interested in the full truth. That's fairly evident - if the truth was what mattered most, they'd have long ago either began stating the whole truth before offering the pills, or have taken Code Bombing to heart. They're at war, and all's fair in those circumstances. They don't want to illuminate, educate, or free. They want to win, and to win, they need soldiers.

For that, they don't need the truth. They need the best possible lie.

And it's hard to find a better one than their current setup.

**zeroone506**

I can't deny a certain logic there, but that's exactly what the convinced Cypherites were waiting for all the time :smileywink:

FeralBoy

From a purely practical standpoint, here's how I see "families" coming about in the Matrix, in conjunction with the fields where humans are harvested. My theory is that the harvesting field reacts to situations that occur inside the Matrix. Let's say a man and a woman inside the Matrix have sex. The Machines at that point can then decide if this merger is going to be successful.

Obviously a child can't be born from two RSI's copulating, so the illusion of pregnancy is purely fabricated. What's really going on is that the DNA from these two people are extracted from their physical bodies that are in the pods, then sent to the fields where a child is grown. Nine months later, the infant's physical body is plugged into the Matrix and its RSI "delivered" in the Matrix. This child is technically theirs, and even though it's the equivalent of a test-tube baby, it's theirs nonetheless.

Obviously, this is all guesswork but it makes sense to me. I think about the fact that 1) parents expect their kids to look like them, and 2) according to the movies, your RSI resembles your physical body. Put those two together and it just makes sense that children born inside the Matrix really do have the DNA of their parents.

**GlueVane**

If you watch the matrix movies, there is a very weird thing. The "fake" world (in the sense its existence is virtual, not physical) looks much more real than the real world. Inside the matrix you see "Business people,
teachers, lawyers, carpenters", houses, skyscrappers, parks, etc. In the real world you see ruins, you live in a cave, eat a weird "single
celled protein combined with synthetic aminos" (tho, proteins never had cells, lol), you travel with a floating hovercraft and get attacked by machines that look like as marine monsters.

In that way, the life in the matrix is even more "true" or more "human" in the form we undestand it at the beggining of the XXI centuary. That is why some people (represented by Cypher in the movie) after trying the "real" life for some years, decided to get back to the matrix (even if he need to betray and kill his fellows and, possibly, friends).

In the matrix, as a blue pill you never knew that the world is not "real" (in the sence of physical). Even if the simulation is not perfect, you won't notice any difference, since you never knew how you feel in the real world. (Indeed, the first time Neo gets back to the matrix after beeing freeded he looks to the streets in his car amazed... that might mean that he notices the imperfections on the simulation, now that he know how reality looks like).

In that sence, the life of a blue pill is a "lie" in the same degree that the life of an adopted son is. The matrix adopted them, and lets them be free and choose (according to what the architect said, the oracle found a solution of the equations that let people have choices, and that was accepted by almost 99% of the population, till the appearence of a systemic anomaly).