/lit/ - Literature

Read some classical Neoplatonism. Oh, and the Parmenides.

The rest is commentary and CGI.

One of the ideas is that the machines actually used the human brains for a massive, parallel processing device. Since you can't get more energy than you put in, for human bodies especially, and the machines are certainly aware of this. But speaking to a general audience about all of this would probably bore them to death or alienate them so it was cut out.

>>1120710
was about to say this -- the premise of the movie is not consistent with the original conception of the story.

as far as why the matrix is a shared reality, in terms of the writers' motivations it was so that they play with the idea of our perceived reality as one big dream.

to venture an in-universe explanation as to why the machines implemented a shared--rather than individualized--reality, i would guess that the human mind requires the sort of external stimulation that only other human minds can offer. the dream must have some semblance of reality in order to make it convincing. i remember morpheus telling neo that originally the machines created a shared utopia, but that the humans rejected it because it wasn't real enough, or soemthing to that effect.

I got the impression somewhere that the robots kept humans around because deep down that was what they were built to do. Without humans to serve in some fashion they had no meaning.

No clue how valid that idea actually is.

>>1120730

Smith actually, the utopia was essentially too perfect, "Entire crops were lost." That is, crops of human batteries. The brain develops to connect dots and take in fragmented information and make sense of it. It processes imperfections that the senses pic up and perception of reality is created. If there is nothing to process- everything falls apart.

It may also have something to do with humans being social animals too, who knows.

>>1120735

I don't think their original programming had anything to do with it. They were simply surviving with what they had. The Second Renaissance from the Animatrix explains how the humans blacked out the sun permanently after the machines rose against them. (In retaliation to a genocide of all A.I.) After the machines won, they just took the body heat of humans and used it for energy. (lol sciense)

It is ironic really, because self preservation is a trait seen in living things, not machines. So, you may be half right, the machines became sentient and behaved like their masters who created them, but not to justify their existence.

>/lit/ philosophically deconstructing a work that's in /tv/'s jurisdiction

>Why not just use human bodies as batteries and let them dream whatever their brains allow them to dream?

Because humans are net consumers of energy, not producers.

>>1120885
Batteries are not supposed to be a net producer of energy anyways. They act as temporary storage.