Mind boggling - MXO Forum Archive

#36300053834 09/20/2006 11:49:28 Mind boggling

The matrix. A dreamworld.

In the jump training we all see Neo fail. Neo falls ,SPLAT yet he survives due to the safety protocols of the program. Jacks out and back on the neb asks Morpheus "I thought it wasn't real?" referring to his bleeding mouth. With Morpheus simply replying "your mind makes it real".

Now if this is the case a number of mind boggling questions appear in my mind.

1) Lets take two guys in the Matrix, one good guy, one bad guy (to be generic). The badguy is carrying a beaker of what he knows to be water. The goodguy not knowing what this liquid is can only guess by its appearance. Here's where it get's messy.

If like Morpheus said "the mind makes it real" what's to stop the badguy from fooling the goodguy into thinking the beaker of water he is carrying is in fact highly concentrated acid of some sort.

Now if the goodguy's mind is so utterley convinced that what the badguy is carrying is acid what would happen to the goodguys face if the badguy was to throw the water over him? Would his mind (convinced that it's acid) cause his face to burn within the Matrix or would it simply have the same effect as the water it is coded to be.

The same can be said for being stabbed in the back. If said goodguy was completely unaware of the badguy behind him. How can his mind "make real" the wound sustained by a stab to the back if the mind is not aware of what is coming?

These probably sound like stupid questions but i'm generally interested in what your responses to them are.

#36300053865 09/20/2006 12:16:29 Mind boggling

Kasyade wrote:

The matrix. A dreamworld.

In the jump training we all see Neo fail. Neo falls ,SPLAT yet he survives due to the safety protocols of the program. Jacks out and back on the neb asks Morpheus "I thought it wasn't real?" referring to his bleeding mouth. With Morpheus simply replying "your mind makes it real".

Now if this is the case a number of mind boggling questions appear in my mind.

1) Lets take two guys in the Matrix, one good guy, one bad guy (to be generic). The badguy is carrying a beaker of what he knows to be water. The goodguy not knowing what this liquid is can only guess by its appearance. Here's where it get's messy.

If like Morpheus said "the mind makes it real" what's to stop the badguy from fooling the goodguy into thinking the beaker of water he is carrying is in fact highly concentrated acid of some sort.

Now if the goodguy's mind is so utterley convinced that what the badguy is carrying is acid what would happen to the goodguys face if the badguy was to throw the water over him? Would his mind (convinced that it's acid) cause his face to burn within the Matrix or would it simply have the same effect as the water it is coded to be.

The same can be said for being stabbed in the back. If said goodguy was completely unaware of the badguy behind him. How can his mind "make real" the wound sustained by a stab to the back if the mind is not aware of what is coming?

These probably sound like stupid questions but i'm generally interested in what your responses to them are.
Very interesting points raised here and I will throw in my opinions to this conversation.
1) Imagine you lived in a room all your life and were only given coke to drink, you are released only to be told that a glass of water a man has in its hand it acctually acid which will kill you but no matter how much you belive it, it is still water and therefore would do no damage when it touched you. This is what I belive happens in the matrix.
2) Again when stabbed by a knife the Matrix is programmed to pirecr through your skin and do damage no Matter what you belive.
These are just my views on how things happen in the Matrix.

#36300053894 09/20/2006 12:46:44 Re:Mind boggling

There are restrictions because what if someone believed they were 'The One', they wouldn't suddenly have the same powers as neo. The programming of the matrix determines what something is and its affect so if that liquid in the beaker was programmed to be water it is water and if you're RSI is programmed to get injured from stabbing (which it should if the simulation were to be realistic) then you will get injured. The mind is what makes something real in the real world.

#36300053951 09/20/2006 13:59:09 Re:Mind boggling

Heh heh, not bad Kasyade, not bad at all.

What happens is what would happen in the real world.

If Badguy threw the water, then Goodguy would flinch, or duck, or HJ because he was afraid of getting burned. If the water actually hit, then Goodguy may start to react, but once his 'senses' detect that it is not acid, then he will act accordingly. Similarly, a knife in the Matrix has the same properties and does the same damage as a knife in the Real.

An RSI is subjected to the "rules" of the Matrix program, such as "Gravity pulls downward", and "knives are sharp". We can often bend the rules (such as HJ and healing), but we cannot break them. There was only one who could do that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

More on target with where you were going I think, I wonder about this: what if the acid is really acid? Will a face that is exposed to acid or fire be as horribly disfigured in the Real as it would be in the Matrix? If non-lethal wounds (say, a gunshot to the leg) occur, do they appear on the body in the Real?

Say you were standing by the ectochair of a person jacked-in. Would you see the wounds appear on their bodies? I don't recall Neo's chest bleeding at the end of The Matrix. Perhaps it is just the internal trauma that manifests as a result of the mind "making it real".

#36300054017 09/20/2006 15:13:28 Re:Mind boggling

Regarding Neo at the end of The Matrix even though we don't see his actual chest bleeding we do see him cough up blood indicating some form of internal bleeding of some sort. This is what get's me thinking, how does the mind cause this kind of self-inflicted harm? Especially with the safeguards that are built into the human body to prevent such self-harm. Take asphyxiation for example. It's impossible for someone to suffocate themselves to death by holding their own breath. Natural impulses force you to breathe, you can't willingly stop that. Same goes for any other form of self-harm, sure you can cut yourself but the alarm bells are still there trying to stop you.

So how comes in the matrix these safeguards aren't in place. Surely if your mind detects pain in the matrix and starts to harm the body there are safeguards in place that scream STOP?

Regarding RSI's being subject to the "rules" of the Matrix. I find myself understanding where your coming from. It'd be interesting still though to see other people's opinions on these matters.

#36300054233 09/20/2006 19:02:09 Re:Mind boggling

Well, the way I understand it, the matrix links itself into essentially every aspect of your brain, so that your brain isn't really sending signals to your body anymore, only the matrix, and vice versa. So, your brain would not recieve signals that are saying that you are hurting your own body, only the signals from the matrix telling it that you are in fact hurt. And if you don't believe how powerful is, it really can kill you. Although maybe the blood in real life I can't really explain (but I'll try in paragraph 3) it is quite easy to manipulate the body using the mind. A simple example is headaches. With some concentration, you can convince yourself the headache is in fact an illusion, and that you are fine, and it really will take effect, I do this often.

So applying that to the matrix, one could argue that somebody could simply allow themselves to be shot in the matrix and just think, "It's not real, I am fine" but I would theorize that because the matrix has a direct link to your most vital nerves and brain, it would require an intense amount of concentration no human would have to override such direct signals from the matrix. As opposed to general effects, such as gravity. That's why laws can be 'bent' but not broken. Although Neo has boundaries lifted off of him, he can override more of these signals and therefore do extroardinary things.

This also leads to a theory on the bleeding, although I can't back it up very well at all, it occured to me that if your brain does send subliminial, instinctive signals that sneek past the matrix, that may be the reason right there. Like, when you are cut, and a scab covers it up. But what if a scab tried to build without a cut actually there? Maybe it would cause the, or a similar, problem. But like I said, I can't back that one up.

So, to use your suffocation example, it would not be the brain making you suffocate. But the brain would recieve signals from the matrix simply telling it that you aren't breathing. So, even if you really are breathing fine, all it would take would be for the mind to belief you aren't and it would shut down, killing you.

Maybe these don't add up to one evidential conclusion, but these are just my thoughts on the subject. But it leads to other questions, like is there anything Neo couldn't do? If not, why would he not do more? And yes, similar questions towards machines, except that where humans are bound by the matrix signals, machines are also bound by the way they were coded into the matrix. A lot to think about.

My final thought is how differences affect redpills compared to bluepills. Because bluepills have jacks not only inn their heads, but also other essential parts of the body, maybe this prevents things such as bleeding inside the pod? Whereas redpills do not have those extra jacks, so maybe their body feels it directly instead. But, as we see in World Record, humans do have the potential to become concentrate so hard, that even the matrix can't hold back the signals, as we see the runner actually begin to run inside of his pod, severing the connections.

Very deep stuff.

#36300054970 09/21/2006 15:32:48 Re:Mind boggling

after a very brief conversation with my brother we established this which helped not only me but i hope others to understand easily. It is not the mind that controls the effects in the matrix but rather the matrix that controls the effects of the brain. If the matrix tells your body (which you truly are) that you are getting hit you will feel it. If the matrix tells your body that there is water being thrown at you, you will feel wet. No matter how convinced you are that the water is acid your brain cannot over-ride the signals the matrix sends you. Like dominent and recessive allele. The Matrix is the dominent, the Brain is the recessive.

#36300058061 09/25/2006 06:20:53 Re:Mind boggling

So then, if you get drunk in the Matrix, and then you jack out, you will still be drunk? Even though there is no alcohol actually present in your system?

Hmm. I suppose this is possible. If the Matrix manipulates the brain, then it does so on an electro-chemical level. The chemically-induced state that is produced by the effects of alcohol, could be easily reproduced by the Matrix.

But, what could cause a wound to physically manifest?

I'd say that we're halfway to answering this question! SMILEY