Essay 3

We need to distinguish between the real and the unreal world so we know the truth.I agree with Gracia and Sanford‘s assessment, need to have knowledge and beliefs. Gracia and Sanford in the book use “source” and “ontological status” to determine the difference between the real and unreal world. But what is the real world? What is virtual world? With the help of the sources actually the causes we can answer those questions.
In the movie “Matrix”, Neo says: “If you are killed in the Matrix you die there?” Then Morpheus responds: “The body cannot live without the mind.” Which means the mind makes it real, everything is real or unreal. Whatever is real is not unreal, and whatever is unreal is not real. Neo doesn’t know the difference; if it wasn’t for Morpheus he wouldn’t know that the Matrix is actually a virtual world. If Morpheus did not lead him out of the dream world and free him, he wouldn’t know the truth. But he had knowledge and from his experience knew something was wrong with his world.
Neo has a lot of questions: “What is the Matrix?”, “What is reality?”, “What is a person?”, and “What is a relation between mind and body?” (Irwin 56). To answer these questions we need the metaphysics. From the dictionary, metaphysics means branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality and the relationship between mind and matter. The metaphysics in the movie “Matrix” refers to the film itself and refers to the virtual world that is presented in the movie. With the causes we can distinguish between the real world and the virtual world. The causes for the real world are not the same with the causes responsible for creating the virtual world. The real world is the humans, and the virtual world is the machines. Actually the Matrix is a computer program that is made by intelligent machines. Aristotle states: “All human beings by nature desire to know.” (Irwin 55). The mind need to realize what is real and what is unreal. In the movie they use a lot the word “mind.” Includes Neo’s mind, Morpheus‘s mind and the other humans minds. For a difference, in the virtual world are the machines that don’t have minds. The word ontology is mentioned in the book too, means branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being. The virtual world depends from the machines, and the machines depend from the humans. This is why they are using the human energy and body heat. The virtual world depends from the real world; as a result unreal world is weaker. On the other side is the real world that doesn’t depend from somebody or something.
Ontological status is the senses, things and language. With our senses, how we feel and perceive the world, with the things around us, how they came, and with the language we can distinguish the difference between the real and unreal. But like Pedro Calderon states: “Life is a dream.” (Irwin 55) maybe we can’t tell the difference between our life and our dreams that we have. When sometimes, the dreams appear so real to us.