Are We in the Matrix?

While pondering on what to blog about today, I reflected on an interesting chat I had today with @kyriacos about this post: There Is No Such Thing As Free Will.

The post drew quite a bit of conversation, most of it with contradictory views. However, kyriacos and I had an interesting side conversation about it (see below). This post caught my attention because I study this kind of stuff and I read books like “The Power of Your Subconscious Mind” and “Power vs. Force”. I’ve been accused of being a bit weird because of it but I find matters of the mind, heart, soul and spirit very fascinating.

Here’s the conversation:

@amarie: Wow @kyriacos, thought-provoking post. I do believe though that we have free-will but yes it can be influenced by circumstances or events. But that is not arguable. This is a cause-and-effect universe. Every effect has a cause whether known or unknown and whether seen or unseen. This does not negate that we are free to will things and to make choices with whatever options are before us or however the deck is stacked for or against us. It's just like in The Matrix when Morpheus gave people the choice of taking the Blue pill or the Red pill, even though the Matrix controlled everything. Free will exists, to a point, but it exists just the same. My 2 cents...

kyriacos: If everything is bound by cause and effect then how do you know which actions decision belong to you? Neo was found there to make that decision because a series of events predetermined that course of action. That act of choice itself was not even his.

amarie: You don't know all the time. But SOMETHING causes everything. Neo still could have gone against the grain and chosen the Blue pill, but he was compelled to take the Red pill due to the series of events that led him to the decision in the first place and the type of person he was. But he still had the power of the choice. Granted, if he had chosen the Blue pill, then another series of events would have taken place. Predetermined? My view is that each choice has a preset outcome, just like with a computer. For example, If I hit the space bar, I'm going to get a space on the screen, unless there's a malfunction with the keyboard or the computer. If we think about that, we see that everything revolves around that concept.

kyriacos: If something causes everything all the time then everything Neo did was predetermined.

amarie: Ahh. But my point is every little thing we do must have some sort of predetermined outcome, depending on the choices that we make. I look at it like a tree with branches. The branches represent paths based on choices. Each path leads to a "pre-programmed" outcome via an event or it could be a series of events, and each of those series of events have their own branches and each of those branches have branches, and so on. So, there are literally an infinite amount of outcomes for each path, branch, and sub-branches, to infinity. But, my theory is that each path leads to some sort of pre-determined outcome.

For example, if someone chooses to walk out into the street in front of a moving truck, then the outcome of that chosen path will be being hit by the truck, but branches of that include death, paralysis, being missed by the truck, etc. Or one could choose not to walk in front of the truck, which would lead to an alternate path, but there is still something waiting on that path as well. We can choose because of free will, which includes the ability of knowing right from wrong, etc., but choices have outcomes, which are predetermined or pre-programmed, like with a computer. This stuff is deep. This is the kind of stuff I spend time studying. It's all so fascinating!

So are we in a Matrix for real?

I always said the concept in the movie The Matrix is really not that far-fetched.

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