On The Matrix
Its meaning and relevance to these
pages
Henry H. Lindner
If you ve seen the movie The
Matrix and especially if you took a real interest in it, I can use it to
illustrate just what these pages are about. We are indeed living in a Matrix
a web of false ideas that distort our thinking, our lives, and our
societies and which effectively enslaves us all.
The Matrix is set at some time in the future
when a man-made artificial intelligence--software--has taken over the Earth and
controls a vast army of robots. Humans are exploited as sources of electrical
power for the machines. They are grown in vast nurseries and live out
their lives in vats, with tubes to supply food and remove waste, and with their
brains hardwired to a neuro-interactive simulation. The simulation is
called the Matrix . It serves to keep the humans inactive and docile
while the robots gather the electricity that their bodies generate.
The authors of this story no doubt
understood some of the obvious implications for our present situation, and
knew that our subconscious grasp of this meaning would make the movie all
that more attractive. We do, in fact, live within mental matrix of words,
ideas, ideologies and theories with which we represent and interpret our
experiences. How has this come about? All animals are conscious to some extent,
they experience pain, hunger, desire, pleasure, etc. much as we do. Homo sapiens are animals whose
consciousness enhanced by, and whose minds are made immeasurably more powerful
by language. We are apes that evolved the ability to speak. With words and
the ideas that they can represent, we spin a web of meaning around our
sensations around the inputs we receive from the Cosmos with which we interact
and of which we are a part.
Since the actual nature of Cosmos and
the causes of most things are hidden to us, we must operate on the basis of
assumptions and theories. The ideas and theories that we are taught as children
become a part of our mental structure we use them to interpret everything that
we experience and do. These assumptions and ideologies guide and control all of
our thinking and therefore our actions. They are the foundation of our mental
matrix and of our social systems. Richard Dawkins and others have described
these ideas as memes. Memes
which accurately represent Cosmic and human reality allow us to survive and
thrive. False memes act just like viruses, preventing us from
understanding reality and causing us to harm ourselves, our children, and other
human beings.
Here's the problem. The memes that
inhabit our minds, such as God, freedom, immortality, soul, reality, sin,
innate evil, obedience, capitalism, communism, law, etc., are for the
most part very old ideas. Most of them originate in the Old Testament of the
Bible and are false
and destructive. No serious thinker today can begin to take them
seriously. However, these memes stubbornly persist because the very
structure of our society is based upon them and they are transferred
like viruses from the minds of the previous generation to the next generation.
As the Matrix in the movie was used to facilitate the exploitation of humans,
so the current ideological Matrix was created for, and serves to exploit us,
turning us into unthinking workers and consumers slaves of the ruling elite who
themselves are trapped in the Matrix.
Very few of us are able to
escape the Matrix. We do not even know
that it exists. And even if we get a clue to its existence, we usually
don't have the free time or the inclination to investigate it,
nor the belief in our own mental capability to understand or to escape it.
The Matrix is sustained by the very
institutions and behaviors that it has created: coercive parenting, religious
indoctrination, universal government schooling, corporate mass media
and authoritarian political systems. The Matrix turns every parent into an
oppressor and "trainer" of their own children preparing them for a
life of obedience to authorities a life of mortgage and tax slavery.
As our species past was largely superstitious and authoritarian, with some
persons controlling other persons, our theories and memes that come from that
time continue to support today s more "sophisticated" forms of
authoritarianism.
Capitalism, far from
being the highest form of freedom as we are told, is an authoritarian system
where the few exploit the many via fractional reserve banking, the
government and its corporations, and the legal system. Fractional reserve
banking is simply a legalized scam in which private banks are allowed to create
money from nothing when issuing a loan, and therefore they effectively enslave
every person who takes out a mortgage for the next 30 years of his/her life.
With this scam, bankers have accumulated the money needed to control the media,
the political process and higher education.
As in the movie, freeing oneself from
the Matrix is not easy. For some ideas on how to do so, see the many
articles at this site including So You Want to be a
Philosopher? As in the movie, the single most effective means of
grasping the nature of the Matrix is to get outside of it. One way of doing
this is to leave one s society and live in a third world or even an enemy
country. You will need to go through a very long process of
questioning everything you've learned from your church, school, media, and
state. You have to confront the myths, the lies, and pure evil of the
religion you were taught to embrace. You must ask yourself if you really
believe that X is true, and why. What is the evidence? Is there a better theory
to explain it? And just like in the movie, you will find that learning the
truth is liberating but is also very painful and depressing. You will
start to see the lies and the unnecessary suffering that is all
around you. You will begin to see the Matrix s cost in human life and
potential. You will become a stranger cut off from most people in your society
even from the members of your own family.
As in the movie, here in real life
it’s also true that after a certain age, most
adults cannot be unplugged from the Matrix, no matter what they see, or
experience, or are taught. The only real hope for mankind is to raise
children outside of the Matrix. For this, parents need to deprogram
themselves as much as possible first. They need to learn about humane childrearing
principles. They need to practice natural childrearing (attachment
parenting). They need an entirely different attitude towards their
children--concerned to supply their needs, answer their cries, never
abandon them even for a few minutes, respect their individuality and choices,
never train them to obey commands, allow them to think for themselves and to be
responsible for their own education, and never send them
to any school unless/until they are old enough to decide to go on
their own, for their own purposes.
Let me turn to illustrating more
aspects of our own Matrix with quotes from the movie:
Morpheus: The Matrix is
everywhere, it is all around us. It is the world that has been pulled over your
eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo:
What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave. Neo,
like everyone else you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you
cannot smell or taste or touch; a prison for your mind.
Indeed, the web of old, inadequate
and contradictory ideas that creates and sustains our
"enlightened" society is a prison of ideas. It prevents us
from seeing reality as it is and from understanding it. It prevents us even
from knowing ourselves. We are trained by parents and school to label ourselves
as lazy and stupid and our own minds as inadequate. As powerless children,
we try to conform to the dictates of parents, churches and schools in order to
be good. The normal childrearing we experience is calculated to impede
our emotional and intellectual development.
Fractional reserve banking allows an
elite to enslave us with credit. The state taxes our labor at a rate similar to
that of a medieval serf. Indeed, the vast majority of us are raised by
slaves, to be slaves. The government we have today, this capitalistic,
welfare state "democracy", enslaves our minds and thus our lives more
efficiently than any system that has ever existed. Instead of a whip or a gun,
it uses ideas to control us hence its need for the unprecedented governmental
control and brainwashing of children throughout their developmental years.
Mass public schooling was created in
Prussia in the 19th century to create a population of technically proficient
but intellectually undeveloped people who would make the state and its
industries a powerful and efficient machine. This coercive schooling was
brought to America and instituted in the late nineteenth century here by the
capitalist controllers of society for the very same reason. They wanted to turn
the independent, self-taught American people into obedient workers in their
factories and soldiers in their armies. (See John Taylor Gatto s Underground
History of American Education and
Weapons of Mass Instruction.)
Schooling impresses every child with
the idea that everything they cannot learn on their own. They are stupid and
must be trained. Everything that is worth knowing is already known by the
experts, and their job is to absorb that knowledge and follow the experts'
guidance. They are taught that success comes from fitting into the system,
succeeding in the system by its rules, and making a lot of money.
Today, our Earth has been carved up
into slave states. Each country is owned and run by an elite who use the
population for their own purposes. These elites cooperate with one another,
creating a planetary ruling class. Laws, regulations, and government
interventions into all aspects of life make it very difficult to live an
independent life. Human beings have nowhere to run to escape this
slavery. The best that they can do is flee from a worse slave state
to a better one.
Morpheus: Unfortunately, no
one can be told what the Matrix is, you have to see it for yourself You take
the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole
goes...Remember, all I m offering you is the truth, nothing more.
I have worked for over thirty years
to deprogram myself from the Matrix in which I was raised as an American
Protestant--the American version of the Bible's "chosen people". I
was very fortunate. I had all the advantages I needed to allow me to deprogram
myself. I was always the top student and learned very easily. Therefore I
did not have the handicap, that most students acquire, of believing that I was
not as intelligent as the experts and authorities that created and that run our
society.
Once I left home, I began to
challenge every belief that I d been taught. I grasped opportunities to live
in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon. I discovered history and began
to grasp its significance and meaning. I had the time to read every intelligent
book that I could find that could shed some light on the nature of reality and
of every aspect of human life and society.
I was amazed to find how deep the
rabbit hole goes and I m still following it. I can t deprogram you or
anyone else, but I can help you along the same path I’ve trod. Deprogramming,
like all real learning, has to come from within. You have to decide to
live a life of total honesty. You have to decide to follow your
intuition and intellect wherever they lead. You have to trust that
your mind is as good as anyone else s mind. You have to decide that
knowing the truth is more important than fitting into the system. Why should
you do all this? So that you will know the truth; so that you will improve your
mental health and happiness; so you will not distort and destroy your own
children; and so that you will be able to help your fellow human beings to
eventually produce an enlightened, open society.
Morpheus: The
Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in
order to change a human being into this (battery) As long as the Matrix exists,
the human race will never be free.
This accurately describes the Matrix
of old religious and political ideas that allows an elite to enslave us
today. For the religious/metaphysical foundation of our Matrix, see The Pentateuch.
Most citizens are raised to be worker ants and cannon fodder. They are
inculcated with a blind, unthinking patriotism. The system of government
schooling combined with government-created corporations leaves no space for
natural and independent human development or society. We must obey authorities
at home, school, and work every day of our lives, feeding this corporate
capitalist military machine.
Just look at the immense web
of laws and you will see the chains that distort every aspect of human
life. In order to be truly free, we need to discard all old ideas and take
a fresh an honest look at our situation--as language-using animals who evolved
on this planet.
We have to discard some of our most
precious ideas, like a personal God and personal immortality. The teaching of
immortality is used to encourage us to suffer slavery this life, since we have
the hope of perfect freedom and happiness after death. Yet the evidence
indicates that the Cosmos is all that exists, and that we are part of it. The
Cosmos has produced us in the process of its own evolution towards self-consciousness,
towards greater self-awareness, self-direction and perfection. We are part of
the Cosmos, animals that can think. When our brain dies, we cease to exist.
Children who are never indoctrinated
with spiritualist/immortality memes have no problem understanding that this
life is the only one we have. We have to realize that the religious
justifications for authoritarianism are invalid, therefore no person or
institution has any right to control or harm any other person. We must
dismantle the Matrix, or we will never be free.
Morpheus: The Matrix is a system,
Neo. That system is our enemy. And when you re inside, you look around, what do
you see?: businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters; the very minds of the
people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a
part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to
understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged, and many of
them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight
to protect it.
This is a warning to every person who
sees through the system and tries to inform and warn others. The system has
powerful defenses with which it neutralizes or destroys all opposition and
those defenses are ideas planted in the minds of its victims. Our minds are
controlled by memes. False memes are equivalent to viruses. They prevent
the normal functioning of the intellect. Like the AIDS virus, our mental
viruses have sophisticated defenses that include disabling
the body's intellectual immune system--the individual’s ability to think
philosophically. You and I were raised in this system. We were inculcated
with its ideas and its defenses. We have to overcome these defenses and learn
to trust our own minds in order to questions our memes and to think
philosophically.
We are creatures that depend upon
language to think: If we do not control the memes in our minds, then the
memes control us. To master memes, to master ideas, we must become
philosophers. It we do not examine and discard every false idea in our heads
and replace it with a better theory, then we remain slaves to old inadequate
and false ideas. These mental viruses protect the religious, political and economic
principles of the system against all challenges. The viruses’ defenses
include rules mostly unwritten that describe what is acceptable speech. If you
step outside those boundaries, you are judged to be insane and everyone is
supposed to ignore what you say. These defenses work very well against most
people most of the time keeping them in the system’s power. Let s try to
list some more of the memes that act as defenses for this Matrix:
1.
Your
mind is impotent to grasp reality unaided. You need to be forced to learn.
Teachers, textbooks, and years of schoolwork are necessary to become
knowledgeable about anything. (Learning=submission to
authority=brainwashing)
2.
You
are born lazy and immoral. You must be forced to be good and you must be
controlled at all times by punishments in accordance with laws. (Innate
depravity and legalism)
3.
We
live in an enlightened era the end of history. There can be no significant
improvement on how the world is run today. Debate about minor problems is
welcome, but the foundational principles of our religion and government cannot
be questioned.
4.
Outside
of academic descriptive/mathematical Science, everything is just theory
and unprovable. (Anti-philosophy protecting religion--see Philosophy
over Science.)
5.
No
one is to be believed on any topic except academic experts in the given
field, or those "experts" from think tanks that are selected by the
government and the free (banker-owned) media. (This defense limits media
access/influence to the most brainwashed people of all those with many years
schooling and thus of obedient service to the system)
6.
Anyone
who digs beneath the surface of society, history, and the news to find hidden
causes and collaborations is a crazy conspiracy theorist. (This is
another form of anti-philosophy.)
7.
Anyone
who condemns his enlightened democratic government s powers and policies
is mentally ill.
8.
Any
accusation of immoral or criminal behavior leveled against the government, a
religion, or those persons who actually control the government behind the
scenes, is hate speech .
9.
Anyone
who doesn t submit to the will of his government and its officials is full of
hate , a "terrorist", etc.
10.
Religion
must be respected and should not be held up to rational criticism.
Neo to the machines: You re
afraid of change. I don t know the future. I didn t come here to tell you
how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it s going to begin. I m
going to show these people what you don t want them to see. I m going to show
them a world without you; a world without rules and controls, without borders
or boundaries, a world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a
choice I leave to you.
Long before I saw The Matrix, I
began to try to show my fellowman the nature of his prison, and the route of
escape. So I identified with the character Neo. My web pages reveal many
truths that the system doesn t want you to know and I m discovering more every
day. I hope that they stimulate you to think thoughts that you ve never dared
to think. Like Neo, I envision a world that is not divided up into slave
states, a world without borders where any person can travel wherever they
please; a world where our relationships are humane, personal, and ethical; a
world where politics is truly local and functional, a world in which every
child s needs are met, and world without coercive schooling.
There is a need for limited
governments, and perhaps some form of world government to manage certain
planet-wide issues, but its powers too will be tightly limited to aiding
consensual adult interactions. Among the powers of governments will be a
monopoly on the power to create money from nothing for the public good, so that
taxes will not be necessary.
On a planet where all human beings
are raised with love, raised without authoritarian schooling, and allowed to
develop philosophically, slave states will be consigned to the dustbin of
history. We will all be free citizens of planet Earth. We will have specific cultural
characteristics and languages, for sure, and we will share the natural religion
of all mankind philosophy. There will be no dogmatic, irrational religions
or nationalisms to pit us against each other or cause us to exploit or harm each
other. The coercive schooling of children will be banned just as forced
child labor was. Every human will be able to develop freely and to attain a
livable prosperity. We will work to make sure that every human on this planet
can live a life of dignity as they wish. Humans won t have to leave their homes
en masse to escape one lousy slave state for a better one, but neither will
they be prevented from traveling or moving to any place on Earth.
Like Neo, I envision a world without
rules and controls. Rules are just word formulas they are always inadequate and
inapplicable to any specific situation. They reduce morality to a word game
played by lawyers and judges where all that matters is winning. Living our
lives according to laws is just the modern version of living according to the
commands of the Bible, the Talmud, or any other sacred text; only now the law
is a sacred text is created by corrupted men and women. Disputes
should be brought before elected wise men who have earned the respect of the
community. All such decisions will be made by persons chosen from among us who
have a philosophical understanding of mankind and of society, and who will
take cognizance of individual circumstances.
Rather than prison and punishment,
infractions against other persons will be handled by reconciliation and
restitution. The perpetrator will remain a part of society. A sane society will
stop producing traumatized persons who traumatize others. Of course there will
always be some small percentage of persons who are so disturbed that they will
need to be confined. There will be zero tolerance for any kind of
violence, but complete tolerance for human activities that harm no one else. We
must live according to true and effective ideas, not according to government-imposed
rules and controls.
I see, as the Biblical Jesus saw,
that a rule-created, rule-controlled life is not worth living. Indeed, we
are still living a pharisaical society. Our authoritarian system
is based on cruelty and control it increasingly drives natural love
and feelings from our society and produces violence and greed. Our
society is deteriorating morally and intellectually. This system cannot be
reformed. It must be deconstructed and reconstructed upon a new foundation.
Society must be based upon love and philosophy if we are to ever enjoy a
peaceful, cooperative life together on this planet. Governments should have
only strictly limited powers: defining property rights, creating money,
regulating pollution on the basis of damage to the shared property of our
Earth, air and water, and preventing, redressing non-cooperative
behavior. There should be no control of any sort on personal behaviors, or
on consensual adult interactions of any kind. Individuals must be allowed to be
completely responsible for their own education and behavior.
As you’ll see in my paper Consensualism over Coercion,
almost everything governments do today is outside these few basic rational
functions, and everything that governments do beyond these limited functions
destroys human prosperity and happiness. As Neo said, I cannot tell you
exactly how society will evolve when people rediscover themselves and
reality. I can’t tell you exactly what kind of society will be created by
a generation of loved, respected, unschooled children who trust their own
minds. I can only tell you what s wrong with this system and its ideas,
and point the way towards a cooperative society of loving, free-thinking
philosophically competent human beings.