# Anyone else have a problem with this premise of "The Matrix"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 11, 2003, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560 "2003-05-11T22:43:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![G.Cornelius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@G.Cornelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.Cornelius)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/61 "2003-05-13T10:37:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Achernar \* > \*\*I think the point was that if humans’ brainpower is used only to run the matrix, that rather defeats the whole purpose of the matrix to begin with. I mean, if the only reason for the matrix is to maintain the humans, and the only reason for the humans is to maintain the matrix, it’s kind of circular. \*\* Hmmm… substitute “the matrix” with “society”. \*I think the point was that if humans’ brainpower is used only to run **society** , that rather defeats the whole purpose of **society** to begin with. I mean, if the only reason for **society** is to maintain the humans, and the only reason for the humans is to maintain **society** , it’s kind of circular. \* Perhaps the whole movies is a metaphore for the struggle of individuals to escape the confines of society? ---
**Author:** ![Dryga\_Yes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@Dryga\_Yes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dryga_Yes)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/62 "2003-05-13T11:34:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by X~Slayer(ALE) \* > **Several hundred years into the future, mankind makes intelligent machines. Man becomes reliant on these machines and the machines grew sentient. Man wages war on the machines but he built them too well. In a last desperate attempt, mankind scorched the sky hoping to cutoff the machines main power source (sunlight) but the plan failed and the machines won.** This is where it all breaks down. _The entire ecosystem, including humans_, is also solar-powered. \*\* Basically, we get our energy from sunlight, eating vegetables and eating other animals. Those other animals have gotten their energy from even more vegetables or even more animals. Eventually, we see that the energy comes from the sun and from different kinds of plantlife. The plants get their energy from the sun, which powers the photosynthesis. This is why there’s still life on earth, despite the second law of thermodynamics – the earth is not a closed system, \*energy needs to be put into the system constantly to keep it going. \* In the matrix, they try to keep only humans without the rest of the ecoystem. This does not work. Period. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by X~Slayer(ALE) \* > \*\*To use them as fuel cells, they created a breeder farm. Artificially fertilized, gestated in artifical wombs and kept immobile by direct brain stimulation using programmed scenarios and networked thru the Matrix. Physically the body generates heat and power their generators. They are fed the nutrients from dead bodies and recycled waste products. Im sure there are added supplimental nutrients like plants or algae but that was assumed. > \*\* And here’s the catch. If there’s no sun, then the machines would have to waste more energy to create the plants and the algae and the supplimental nutrients, than us humans could possibly get out of it. _There’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine_. Jesus, it’s not advanced science. ---
**Author:** ![Scupper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Scupper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scupper)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/63 "2003-05-13T15:02:12Z")
As much as I defend the legitimacy of the movie as speculative fiction (in that we can’t really say it’s breaking rules that may not exist in its frame of reference), it is silly for anyone to try to argue that this is somehow a viable scenario _in our understanding of physics._ It just isn’t. There isn’t even the remotest chance that the machines could obtain more energy from humans than they put into keeping them alive. There are really only three possibilities: 1. The humans in the story have an incorrect theory about the nature of the Matrix and of the machines’ need for it. 2. The world of the Matrix follows different rules of physics than ours or has technology which effectively breaks them. 3. The writers of the movie have a very poor understanding of physics. I’d prefer 1 or 2. I suspect 3. I still like the movie. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/64 "2003-05-13T15:09:01Z")
Ok, how about this. Humans are special. We have sentience, language skills, and even “eternal souls” that no other creatures seem to have. See how special we are? In the Matrix world, humans routinely break the second law of thermodynamics. If we get proper mental stimulation, we produce exactly what is needed to power the chips in the Matrix. All the machines have to do is plug into the electrical current streaming out of our collective asses. Is the subconscious ability to generate more energy than received any harder to swallow than any other fictional superhuman powers? How can a mutant generate heat beams from his eyes without an external power source? ---
**Author:** ![troub](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troub/32/14802_2.png) [@troub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/troub)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/65 "2003-05-13T15:25:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Controvert \* > \*\*How can a mutant generate heat beams from his eyes without an external power source? \*\* I think you nail it here. Obviously, the X-men are comic book superheroes, not to be taken seriously, only enjoyed for fun. The Matrix, however, is so obviously _ **serious science fiction** _! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/66 "2003-05-13T15:47:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Magayuk \* > \*\*Look at cows. If some alien thing read a book about us, they might have a similar “Humans wouldn’t raise cows for meat, it doesn’t make sense. They would have to put much more food into the cow than they would be able to get out at the end”. So who know, maybe the machines really don’t make anymore sense than we do? \*\* So clearly we vegetarians are the only sensible beings on the planet, and should be put in charge! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lizard \* > \*\*Because the people who make movies work in Hollywood, not Silicon Valley. And if it were the other way around, movies would be incredibly dull and we’d all have lousy tech support. \*\* Wait a minute! Most movies ARE incredibly dull and I ALWAYS get lousy tech support. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scupper \ ***Ringworld** described a hull material that was completely indestructible, except when it came into contact with antimatter, at which point it simply disappeared. This doesn’t make much sense, but it’s perfectly acceptible in the course of the narrative.Snip… Actually the story was **Flatlander** –but the hull gets used in most of the “Known Space” series. And it doesn’t disappear (it’s already invisible) the pieces of it come apart and drift away. The explanation doesn’t conflict with the laws of physics. Your other points are well taken, however. Back to the OP’s question: If you accept the solipsistic assumption of the movie (“it’s all in your head”) then it doesn’t have to make any sort of physical/reality sense at all. Anything can happen because it’s just virtual–the explanations are virtual, the physics are virtual, etc. It’s a Philip K. Dick story! Neo just needs a can of Ubik!!! There’s no reason to believe that the “real” scenes are any more real than the “virtual” ones. Giant planaria (or whatever they were) that eat through the side of the ship to slurp up the operators? Puh-leeze! These guys (Neo, Morpheus, et al) just needed a little more exciting virtual world to keep them busy than the standard one supplied to most humans. In reality–hah!–the Kzinti landed years ago, decided they like the taste of humans, put everyone in little cubes (hold on, I’m writing this from a little cube) and put induction helmets on their heads to give them happy dreams. Whenever an order comes in from a resturant–“3 sides of human, to be delivered on Tuesday”–somebody in the simulation dies. (Dang it, I need a quote from Delany’s **The Fall of the Towers** here, but I’m away from my bookshelf.) And then all the nerds woke up and realized it was just a dream… > [@](#): > > The round Moon rolled behind the hill, > as the Sun raised up her head. > She hardly believed her fiery eyes; > For though it was day, to her surprise > they all went back to bed. Totally off thread–science fiction that does not contain either FTL or time travel: Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein Neuromancer, William Gibson (and seed of The Matrix, Snow Crash, and all who come after) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick (well, it’s not important to the plot) Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. On the Beach, Nevil Shute Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/67 "2003-05-13T15:49:43Z")
Whew! That got long, didn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Wumpus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8c91f0/32.png) [@Wumpus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wumpus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/68 "2003-05-13T15:59:53Z")
In fairness to the X-Men movie, it never even raises the question of how Cyclops’ beams work. It’s just the way things are in that world. Nobody in the movie is interested in explaining how or why they work, because they’re not really important to the heart of the plot. Since nobody in the movie cares, neither does the audience. The situation in the Matrix is different. It’s essential for Neo, and thus for the audience, to learn how this new, “real” world works. Why do the machines keep humans alive at all? Why do the machines bother to keep the Matrix running? These are key plot points. It’s natural for the audience to scrutinize them closely. If you’re building a stage set you don’t necessarily bother painting the back of it because the audience will never see it. But you make sure that anything the audience _can_ see looks great. The same thing applies to movie scripts. Judging by the length of this thread and the rather convoluted defenses of the movie, there’s a very noticable spot in the Matrix’s script that’s missing paint. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/69 "2003-05-13T17:07:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Starship Troopers described an infantry-led ground war against an alien species and faster-than-light travel. The first requires us to forget the existence of nuclear weapons, or even air-dropped high explosives. The second is impossible, so far as we know. I’m assuming you’ve only seen the movie. In the book nuclear weapons were very much in the mind of the mobile infantry, in fact, they were the reason behind a lot of their tactics, i.e. the soldiers kept themselves spread out in miles-wide formations where they rarely had visual contact with each other, to keep them from all being taken out by one nuke. The mobile infantry were not exactly ground troops, either, as they had limited flight and were inserted directly from orbit, no dropships. Oh yeah, they also used nuclear weapons themselves. > [@](#): > > Ringworld described a hull material that was completely indestructible, except when it came into contact with antimatter, at which point it simply disappeared. This doesn’t make much sense, but it’s perfectly acceptible in the course of the narrative. It makes perfect sense if you read the explanation for why General Products hulss were nearly indestructible - each hull was a single molecule. If you annihilate just a few atoms in that molecule, it’s going to break down into it’s component atoms. > [@](#): > > Snow Crash described a virtual reality technology in which the quality of your “avatar’s” appearance to other VR folks was dependent on your computer’s processing power. This is completely incorrect, as the other people’s computers are the ones that would have to process and display your image, not your own. The avatars in Snow Crash are not like the avatars we use in modern online games and such. The person behind the avatar, in most cases, was being watched by a camera on his own computer, which would then translate the user’s facial expressions and movements into actions of the avatar in virtual environment. Pretty much any computer in this time frame could render a photorealistic avatar, the lower quality you saw in the avatars of people with less powerful computers is because their computers were not able to process the user’s motions as accurately or as with much detail. Kinda like how a person playing an online game with a slow computer and a slow internet connection is going to have their in-game ‘avatar’ move in a jerky fashion and be slow to react, while it’s visibly obvious which players have a very low pint because of their smoother and more realistic movements. > [@](#): > > Ender’s Game described a weapon that caused spontaneous annihilation of matter when hit with it, including the effect jumping through a vacuum from spaceship to spaceship if they were close enough together. As far as I know, this is not physically possible. I’ll give you this one, but Orson Scott Card doesn’t really write hard SF, he mostly writes fantasy with a futuristic setting. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/70 "2003-05-13T17:09:18Z")
Lotsa typoes in my last post, the only one that isn’t very obvious is where I typed ‘pint’ instead of ‘ping’. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/71 "2003-05-13T17:18:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BraheSilver \* > \*\*Well, the Matrix’s program chose to simulate “the worst period of human history,” the mid-1990s. How long it’s been running the simulation, and if the computer just resets the clock after a set time, we don’t know. But since it’s simulating human society, can we assume that that the “history” that would lead up to that point had actually happened in the real world? So all human advancements that exist in the Matrix’s sim would have actually existed in the ‘real world,’ which makes it necessary that the laws of physics are the same - or at least work the same as far as we know. \*\* It didn’t say they chose the 1990s because they were the worst period in human history - in fact, they said the exact opposite - the '90s were the peak of the ‘age of humans’, they were chosen because they were the last era before the intelligent machines arose. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/72 "2003-05-13T17:27:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NoCoolUserName \* > In reality–hah!–the Kzinti landed years ago, decided they like the taste of humans, put everyone in little cubes (hold on, I’m writing this from a little cube) and put induction helmets on their heads to give them happy dreams. Whenever an order comes in from a resturant–“3 sides of human, to be delivered on Tuesday”–somebody in the simulation dies. Okay, so aliens are allowed to like the taste of humans, but machines aren’t. Got it. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/73 "2003-05-13T17:35:37Z")
Eh, that doesn’t make much sense either. The Kzinti took tissue samples of humans when they first encountered them, and they can clone whatever parts of a human they like to eat. The reason to take a live human is for the joy of the hunt, and even then there’s better choices than humans. On the other hand, maybe the Kzinti put the humans in the Matrix so they could have the joy of hunting them in a virtual world (though this doesn’t really mesh well with Kzinti thinking). That’s why some humans develop superhuman powers, that’s to make them more challenging to hunt. 8^) ---
**Author:** ![X\_Slayer\_ALE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/bbe5ce/32.png) [@X\_Slayer\_ALE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X_Slayer_ALE)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/74 "2003-05-13T18:04:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dryga\_Yes \* > \*\*This is where it all breaks down. _The entire ecosystem, including humans_, is also solar-powered. \*\* Basically, we get our energy from sunlight, eating vegetables and eating other animals. Those other animals have gotten their energy from even more vegetables or even more animals. Eventually, we see that the energy comes from the sun and from different kinds of plantlife. The plants get their energy from the sun, which powers the photosynthesis. This is why there’s still life on earth, despite the second law of thermodynamics – the earth is not a closed system, \*energy needs to be put into the system constantly to keep it going. \* > > In the matrix, they try to keep only humans without the rest of the ecoystem. This does not work. Period. And here’s the catch. If there’s no sun, then the machines would have to waste more energy to create the plants and the algae and the supplimental nutrients, than us humans could possibly get out of it. > > _There’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine_. Jesus, it’s not advanced science. \*\* Well, You have to take this under the context that the information Morpheus gave Neo is only what they know thus far. Humans scorched the sky as a last desperate move to kill the machines. It might have been a poison pill strategy, if you kill us, we’ll take you with us. However, there are several species of algae and animal matter that doesnt require direct contribution of sunlight. Some live well in goethermal eco-systems. But you may be absolutely right, without constant contribution of energy, the world may well be dying but the machines merely made the process longer. For all we know the machines ultimate goal is to clear up the skies and in which case, they will have no need of their human power cells. That might be a good reason to wake everyone up from the matrix. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/75 "2003-05-13T18:33:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Wumpus \* > **Why do the machines keep humans alive at all? Why do the machines bother to keep the Matrix running? These are key plot points. It’s natural for the audience to scrutinize them closely.** I just explained why. Humans in the Matrix world are “special”. They produce more energy than they take in as long as they receive the proper mental stimulation. I don’t see how this is different in Cyclop’s case. I bet if you discovered such a person in real life, the first question out of your mouth would be how does it work? Ans: He is “special”, too. ---
**Author:** ![ElJeffe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/76 "2003-05-13T23:12:48Z")
As to the humans blackening the sky, it’s possible that they had a plan for _un_blackening it after the Great Robot War was finished. And a superficial explanation for the humans-as-batteries theme could be as follows: Yeah, you can’t get more out than you put in, and perpeutal motion is a no-no. Still, you give a pendulum a shove, and it’ll swing for awhile. And you can get some useable work out of it in the meantime. Work that you can store, and save for later. Further, the pendulum has some feedback built into it that’ll keep it running. You get less and less power out of it with every counter-swing, but it’s still power. And eventually it’ll grind to a halt, but you can worry about that when the time comes. Maybe the PeopleBatteries are a temporary solution. They milk the bodies, feed the dead into the living, milk those bodies, and so on. It’s producing less and less power as time goes on (and they’re having fewer and fewer bodies), but it’s still putting out power. The machines can worry about what to do when all the people are gone later. Yeah, it falls apart if you look too closely, but so does any science fiction. Bottom line, the plot is just plausible enough to serve as justification for the movie, and not an iota more. And apparently most people don’t mind, because I hear there’s a much-anticipated sequel coming up. Maybe even two. Jeff ---
**Author:** ![tomyoung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@tomyoung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomyoung)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/77 "2003-05-14T16:39:28Z")
Personally, I don’t see much point in getting too worked up about why the machines put people in the Matrix, or the underlying physics. “Combined with a form of fusion” is sufficient for me to suspend disbelief. But for those who are interested in the back story, The Second Renaissance anime depicts the defeat of mankind and our enslavement happening, even if it doesn’t really get into the technical reasons why. So at least there is a version of Matrix-history (written by the Wachowskis) that’s independent of the human or machine perspective. Parts one and two can be found on the [www.theanimatrix.com](http://www.theanimatrix.com) The animation is fantastic, but the story is quite graphic, so consider yourself forewarned. ---
**Author:** ![Scupper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Scupper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scupper)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/78 "2003-05-14T17:26:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Badtz Maru \* > **I’m assuming you’ve only seen the movie. In the book nuclear weapons were very much in the mind of the mobile infantry, in fact, they were the reason behind a lot of their tactics, i.e. the soldiers kept themselves spread out in miles-wide formations where they rarely had visual contact with each other, to keep them from all being taken out by one nuke. The mobile infantry were not exactly ground troops, either, as they had limited flight and were inserted directly from orbit, no dropships. Oh yeah, they also used nuclear weapons themselves.** Rather than make excuses for this error, I will compound my error by admitting I have read the book and just plain misremembered and/or conflated it with John Steakley’s “Armor.” (Also a good book, but makes less sense than ST.) > [@](#): > > \*\* > It makes perfect sense if you read the explanation for why General Products hulss were nearly indestructible - each hull was a single molecule. If you annihilate just a few atoms in that molecule, it’s going to break down into it’s component atoms. > \*\* Again, I conflated two stories together (all of Known Space kind of blends together for me). Rather than try to figure out what struck me as wrong with this, I’ll just chicken out and say Larry Niven used reactionless drives and hyperspace, and they’re not kosher, physics-wise. Also scrith – what’s up with that? And stasis fields? And macroscopic teleportation? Psionics? Luck as a tangible and (to some degree) measurable force? Known Space is certainly more SF than fantasy, but it is full of stuff that, while maybe not simplistically incorrect like the Matrix, is certainly outside the bounds of even theoretical physics. > [@](#): > > \*\* > The avatars in Snow Crash are not like the avatars we use in modern online games and such. The person behind the avatar, in most cases, was being watched by a camera on his own computer, which would then translate the user’s facial expressions and movements into actions of the avatar in virtual environment. Pretty much any computer in this time frame could render a photorealistic avatar, the lower quality you saw in the avatars of people with less powerful computers is because their computers were not able to process the user’s motions as accurately or as with much detail. Kinda like how a person playing an online game with a slow computer and a slow internet connection is going to have their in-game ‘avatar’ move in a jerky fashion and be slow to react, while it’s visibly obvious which players have a very low pint because of their smoother and more realistic movements. > \*\* I don’t know about this. It struck me as extremely silly when I read it (a few weeks ago, actually), particularly that the “cheap avatars” were black-and-white and fuzzy. The cameras may be recording movement, which would explain laggy motion, but the idea that the avatars would be of poor resolution, when they don’t even represent the actual body of the person in question, seems illogical to me. It should be the other way around; people at cheap teminals should have really cruddy pictures of everyone else, not vice versa. > [@](#): > > \*\* > I’ll give you this one, but Orson Scott Card doesn’t really write hard SF, he mostly writes fantasy with a futuristic setting. \*\* Harder than many, and certainly harder than The Matrix. It just seems to me that it is a silly gripe that The Matrix doesn’t follow physical laws. Lasers aren’t generally visible, don’t make much sound, and are invisible in vacuum. Does that make Star Wars a bad movie? (Episodes I and II notwithstanding.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/79 "2003-05-14T21:03:13Z")
The Cyclops analogy doesn’t hold water. I can accept that Cyclops is special. Heck, it’s not impossible that he directly converts the matter he eats to energy, or some such. He’s a mutant superhero metahuman, he can do that. But in _The Matrix_, we don’t have mutants or metahumans, we have just a few billion ordinary specimens of _Homo sapiens_. Maybe Cyclops can totally convert the food he eats, but I sure as heck can’t, and neither can you. And yeah, it’s science _fiction_, so it’s allowed to change a few of the rules. But you’ve still got to keep at least **some** of the real world’s physical framework, and the First Law of Thermodynamics is pretty fundamental. ---
**Author:** ![teemingONE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b4bc9f/32.png) [@teemingONE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teemingONE)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/80 "2003-05-14T22:11:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rusalka \* > \*\* > It bugged me because it clearly violated one of the Laws of Thermodynamics. You need to feed people and most of that energy you used to feed them is going to be given off as waste heat and there is no net gain in “energy”, so what are the “machine” intelligences really getting out of the deal? \*\* I know people already stated this: It violated the Matrix created world laws. Think about how it works for a second. First the machines create a different world so that the humans don’t complain(or whatever people in pods would do). Then it fills the world with so many laws that the humans can’t do anything about it. That is why Neo and the bunch must be stopped, they know the laws are bogus. Thats why they do all that funky stuff, if the laws of thermodynamics being violated bothered you so much, you must have pissed yourself out of anger when you saw what happened to good old gravity. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rusalka \* > \*\*Who are you calling a “cretin”? You obviously don’t get the point. The point is that there is no such thing as “special electricity” from human brains, there’s no such thing as a human “catalyst” energy, there’s no such thing as “energy” being a “catalyst” for other energy, (you obviously don’t know what the term “catalyst” means either) and it doesn’t matter a whit that there’s also “fusion” involved - why don’t they just use the “energy” they have directly and dispense with the humans? > \*\* I thought humans did make electricty, like when the heart beats or something, and doesn’t the brain make a form(if you can call it that) of eletricity when sending information? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560.md?page=5)