Finally was able to see Matrix 2 last night. Very entertaining. Good thing Bruce Almighty came out this week (the line for that movie was crazy) -- meant that less people went to see Matrix 2. In fact, there were plenty of empty seats for Matrix during my viewing. I don't want to spoil it for those of you who haven't seen it, but the themes in this movie that you will encounter (and I will relate some of them to biology) will be:
1) Man needs machine to survive and in the world of the Matrix, the opposite is also true. We all know what symbiosis in biology is -- should have been something we all learned in 3rd grade?
2) "We" all learn from past mistakes -- in the story of the Matrix, "we" includes humans, machine, and computer programs. I guess mutation can in a way be thought of as a process of "learning" -- i.e. improvement. BTW, mutation of computer programs in the Matrix is possible.
3) Love can make you do some crazy s@*# and love is a human emotion that no machine will acquire, that no program can simulate. Or can they?
4) Choice in the Matrix is an illusion -- the age old argument of nature versus nurture. "Did that guy go psycho because it's genetically inherent in him to do so or did his environment cause that in him, or a mix of both?"
5) The them of choice leads to the common theme of cause and effect, action-reaction.
Lastly, I'll close with a question that was hinted in the second movie and will probably be answered in the third installment: if humans can "tap" into the Matrix, can the reverse situation be true, i.e. can programs within the Matrix, come out of the Matrix and learn more about the human environment? What are consequences of such a possibility? How extensive is the reach of a human "tapping" into the Matrix, and vice versa?
That's it for now, got to get this presentation done for this coming Friday. Been dragging my feet to put together the slides.
Posted by johnvu at May 24, 2003 07:28 PM