# 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:** 8\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Rusalka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecd19e/32.png) [@Rusalka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rusalka)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/81 "2003-05-14T22:39:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chronos \* > \*\*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. > \*\* Plus, there’s an official explanation within the Marvel universe: Cyclops’ eyes are windows to another dimension or something, and the particle beam (or whatever) flows from there, it is not _generated_ by him. The glasses act as shutters, shutting of the continuous flow of this energy. I know it sounds silly, but Marvel is more fantasy than science fiction, IMHO, and alternate universes pop up a lot throughout their stories. You don’t expect Marvel stories to be realistic. “The Matrix”, on the other hand, relies on some expectation of reality, or else the story would lose its tension “if anything goes”. It’s supposed to depict some human future, after all. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/82 "2003-05-14T22:50:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by teemingONE \* > \*\*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. \*\* But The Matrix isn’t designed to be some fanciful world that never existed, complete with it’s own idiosyncratic laws of physics – it’s a _simulation_, specifically a simulation of the late '90s. The Matrix emulates gravity and the laws of thermodynamics because those rules are part of the real world – the same real world inhabited by the machines and their human-energy-pods. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/83 "2003-05-15T00:15:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by teemingONE \* > \*\*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. \*\* No one is complaining that the laws of thermodynamics are being violated _inside the simulation_. Anything can happen inside the simulation, because it’s a made up world, and it doesn’t defy the laws of physics. We’re talking about the real world - all those little capsules that they store humans in - not the simulation. If the motive for that whole setup is humans as power plants, well, that’s just silly. > [@](#): > > \*\* > > 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? \*\* Yes, but the point was that the machines were using them as power sources. You put a lot more energy into a person in the form of food than you’d ever get out through that electrical signal. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/84 "2003-05-15T01:45:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*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. There are some micro-ecosystems on Earth that aren’t solar powered at all. Some bacteria – and the critters that feed on them – live off of the heat and chemicals released from deep-sea volcanic vents. Perhaps the evil Matric comupter guys are feeding all of their unwitting human slaves with volcanic biota. Of course, then you’d have to ask why the evil Matrix computer guys don’t just use geothermally-powered electric generators to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/85 "2003-05-15T08:09:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tracer \* > \*\*Of course, then you’d have to ask why the evil Matrix computer guys don’t just use geothermally-powered electric generators to begin with. \*\* The residents of Zion complained. They couldn’t sleep for that goddamn drilling going on all night. ---
**Author:** ![Vlad\_Dracul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/50afbb/32.png) [@Vlad\_Dracul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vlad_Dracul)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/86 "2003-05-16T05:03:51Z")
That movie, technically-incorrect though it may be, made more money in a year than all of us who have commented, COMBINED, will ever make in our lives. If someone offered to give YOU the money that “The Matrix” made, on the condition that the Laws of Thermodynamics would be permanently removed from your mind… would you take it? I thought so. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/87 "2003-05-16T05:35:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RealityChuck \* > \*\*It helps take your mind off an incredibly dull move. \*\* Well put. They dropped the ball in every regard with that movie. ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560/88 "2003-05-16T18:19:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Badtz Maru \* > **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.** Right! I made a mistake! I didn’t mean Kzinti, I meant Glig! from Gligstith[click]tcharf! How do you know you can believe the story that Dorpheus told? Certainly you don’t believe what the agents of the machine said, do you? Are you drinking your PowerAde? On the other hand, maybe he was trying to tell the truth, but didn’t have the words. The words “special electricity” and “catalyst” are metaphoric. Using “aura” would have been worse, no? Or Kirlian Field? Anyway, hiring a real scientist to make up a believable explanation would have taken away from the special-effects budget, and we couldn’t have that, could we?!?!? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-have-a-problem-with-this-premise-of-the-matrix/174560.md?page=4)