Premise #1: There are benefits to physical touch. We all need it. It has been shown that babies and children that do not get physical touch develop various health problems on the physical, emotional, and mental levels. Without spending too much time on Google, I’ll posit that it has benefits to the auto-immune system, pain relief, emapthy, etc. A common practice in old folks homes is to bring in pettable animals once a week or so. The residents seem to do better with that.
Premise #2: In the future (or perhaps it’s happened already), we will be mere batteries in the Matrix, separate from each other in our own little pods, with plugs in our necks to stimulate thoughts in our brains.
The debate: If the Matrix programs make you think that you are receiving physical touch, will your Matrix body reap the benefits? Will your actual body?
I believe so. The hormone that gets released does so because the nerves tell the brain that touch has happened, just like the nerves tell the brain that the genitals are being manipulated.
I’d agree with that, with one sticking point. I’ve always assumed that the Matrix programming works directly with the cerebral cortex. This may be an incorrect assumption. But so many things that happen – sexual arousal, for one – skip the “thinking” part of the brain. There’s a lot of autonomic stuff going on, and I wonder if the benefits of touch are part of that.
However, it’s also shown that some people can tell, at a deep, instinctive level, that the Matrix is NOT real, and they AREN’T satisfied with the way things are. So, maybe it’s just the insensitive, gullible types that can live and be happy with the Matrix equivalent of warm fuzzies.
Epitomized of course by the question, “Why, oh why, didn’t I take the blue pill?”
I’d tend to think the benefits of touch would not be inhibited by the Matrix; remember also that sex is possible inside the Matrix, even to those who are aware they’re in the Matrix (cf. Mouse selling meetings with the woman in red from the Agent Training sequence).