again, thanks crew for the great podcast.
I have to say the only reason Matrix is a great move that deserved two squeals is because of its depth. Take away the philosophical questions it makes the viewers take home and chew over it for a while, it’d just be another sci-fi action film that you forget in about a week.
The thing that intrigued me the most in this podcast is whether or not Neo was destined to be the one. Did he became the one because he was able to free his mind? Or was he the reincarnation of all the previous “One”.
Both of these implications have philosophical roots in Indian religions, i am just gonna use Buddhism because i am only familiar with Buddhism. But the two concepts also spawn from different schools of Buddhism.
I tend to agree with Chuck on this one. I think Neo had the potential to become the one, and he became the one because he freed his mind.
I think this relates to the most basic defining principle of the Buddhist faith, that “Everyone” and “anyone” have a chance to attain enlightenment. This is what makes Buddhism different from most religions, and the only reason i spent anytime understanding it.
In the Matrix case, I’d rather believe that everyone and anyone have a chance of becoming “The One”. In Buddhism, you have to spend an incredible amount of time in many different life times to collect the wisdom and merits that will finally get you on the verge of achieving enlightenment.
If you take democracy for example, it’d be like saying everyone and anyone can become the president. Though that doesn’t mean you are going to become the president. You have to work hard to build for it and then have the fortune of being in the right place at the right time. Most likely, you won’t be the president.
So that’s why i choose to think of “The One” in this way. Every single one of the human batteries freed by Zion has some ability to bend the Matrix. Morpheus and Trinity are capable of some pretty amazing feats. Neo, before he became the one was almost super human. But it came down to Neo willing himself back from the “virtual” death, and completely understood the fabrics of Matrix to actually becoming “The One”.
So, I think none of the machines/programs have any idea who the next “One” is going to be. It’s not like the machines fed royal jelly to baby Neo so that he will become the one or anything.
On Sean and Audra’s side, the reincarnation with a will or a goal to achieve sounds a lot more in the veins of Tibetan Buddhism (or another Mahayana Buddhisms).
In that case you can argue the machine can only control the human body, but not their souls. So the machines still don’t know who is going to become The One.
But the machine did build the structure of “The One” as the Matrix’s reset button. So they should know something about the nature of how someone becomes “The One”.
Anyway, that’s my rambling for now. And I look farward to you guys talk more about Monica Bellucci in the white rubber dress.
