In the movie the Matrix, the Oracle has the ability to predict or see the future. When she is visted, however, Morpheus and Neo must go back into the Matrix instead of visiting her in the real world. How can something inside the Matrix predict occurrences outside of it?
Is the Oracle supposed to represent a renegade artificial intelligence? If so, then that means she/it is a part of the program. Why would the program allow this?
Could the Oracle be a virus in the Matrix?
Not necessarily, I think it’s like a phone call to London versus boarding a plane and flying there. Rather than drive their hovercraft all over the place, it was probably quicker to just enter the Matrix to meet with her. Also, she can interact with all of her child prodigies at once when in the Matrix.
There are many holes regarding the Matrix. Couldn’t the system just identify Neo and kill his “Matrix body”? Couldn’t the system just let the agents carry weapons more advanced than 20th century handguns?
Well, first of all, Neo’s “Matrix body” is on the ship, not the power plant, so the only way to kill him in the real world is to send something to the ship to do it, and they seem to do a good job of hiding. Then there’s the matter of killing him in the matrix, which they do, but since he’s The One, he comes back to life. Yipee!
I’m waiting for parts two and three. 
About the Matrix killing Neo’s body…
Agent Smith initially asked Neo for his help to find Morpheus under the premise that Morpheus had committed acts of terrorism. At the time Neo was their best opportunity to get to Morpheus; therefore, they didn’t kill him. Shortly thereafter, of course, Neo left the Matrix.
In the film, the system/bad guys can change the environment. Why not just put a big cage around Morpheus? It seems as though that’d be much easier than chasing after him.
This is entertainment though, I shouldn’t really expect a science-fiction/action movie to make perfect sense.
The Matrix fed on energy provided by host bodies.
Apparently they tried to create a perfect world, no one believed it, and crops of humans were lost.
It would seem to be important for the Matrix to provide as much of a reasonable world as possible. If the agents did fantastic things, it could cause the humans to question their reality (as in the perfect world) and die.
The Oracle also realizes the importance of keeping a low profile and not calling attention to herself. Hence she appears as a pleasant woman baking cookies in a flat and caring for children. Like the agents, our heroes have to walk to her and open the door just like everyone else.
The part that gets me about the movie, is why use potentially dangerous humans? I mean if you need bioelectric energy, wouldn’t cows do the trick. It would be a lot easier to provide cows a virtual reality than humans would. Cows are less likely to hack into your infrastructure and overthrow the Matrix.
FWIW Here’s my take on the 'Humans as generators "
I thought the ‘Humans as bioelectric generators’ was a stretch. While watching the movie, I thought that the ‘real’ use of humans was their brains as CPU’s. All of those stacked-up, interconnected, humans looked to me as one Massive Parallel Processor (MPP). Anyone else have this thought?
Therefore, to the OP, maybe she’s wetware and part of a renegade segment of the MPP. (If that’s what it is.)
Sadly, many people I know did not like the movie because it made them think, and that’s to bad. God forbid a movie should be thought provoking.
i hope we’re not getting into this again.
yes, that would make a really thrilling movie. watching row upon row of cows hooked up to machines for two hours, completely complacent.
you’re brilliant. what were the wachowskis thinking?
Well, it’s a little more complex than that. If you’re making a film/novel/game/composition that you intend you audience to think about, then it’s incumbent on you to provide consistency and logic. You can’t cop out and say, “Oh, you’re overanalyzing it. It was more interesting this way.” There’s got to be an internal reasoning.
Granted, I’m sure the writers had a good reason, as the whole film seemed pretty tidy and well-planned. But looking at things in terms of a metgame, well, that takes away from the experience.
I always liked the concept of the Matrix using human brains as computers. That might actually make sense, because if they wanted bioelectricity they would get some big mammals, like whales or even gorillas, or just vat-grow the equivalent of heat-producing plants. You know, that would be interesting. Warm-blooded plants with fur or hair and the Matrix’s big black insectile appendages and servo systems tending them. They wouldn’t need much. You could keep nutrient-saturated saline flowing past their ciliated intestine-roots and pump oxygen and moist air into their trunk-sinuses. Of course, you would have to get the heat from their fleshy leaf-structures. I doubt the beings would be cerebrated. What would they think about, with no senses except touch? But they could move towards more comfortable surroundings with tentacle-shoots (like what vines use to cling to trees, but with muscles) and close their leaf-structures in reaction to touch with little more of a nervous system than a jellyfish or hydra has. In fact, such things would resemble hydras in that they would be sessile and have tentacles. But they would have leaf-structures, unlike hydras (or any other animal for that matter) and be warm-blooded. Interesting to think on.
Actually, in General Questions, it is exactly that complex and no more. The General Questions answer to any question like “in this movie, why did they…” is "because that’s the way they filmed it. Additional cites to interviews with writers, directors, &cetera are always appreciated, of course. But the real answer is “because that is the fictional entertainment product that the studio choose to release to the public.”
Yeah, The Matrix makes absolutely no sense if you believe that ‘humans as power plants’ part.
There is the alternate theory that they are using humans because we have big brains and they are somehow dependent on our minds to continue functioning. Maybe the people who are outside of the Matrix are misinformed on what it’s for. Maybe the Matrix consists solely of human brains, which are inhabited by artificial intelligences, a sort of host/parasite relationship. This would explain why the Agents have limited reality-altering powers, and have to displace human avatars to get around sometimes.
My favorite theory is that Neo is having a psychotic episode, and he is being manipulated by subliminal messages being sent to him by terrorists through his computer.
Badtz: Of course, then you’d have to believe in the effectiveness of subliminal messages, evidence for which is sketchy at best. Anything is possible in fiction, but the best stories are not complete bullshit.
Using human beings as a power source sounds plausable to me, assuming you have the technology to do it. The human brain can really light up a light bulb.
As for using cows instead of people, well I dont know if cows would have enough brain power. There not the smartest animals on this earth. In any case it’s only a movie to entertain.
That’s a Band-Aid on a plot hole. The only reason Agent Smith does the whole “we tried a perfect world but they wouldn’t buy it” routine is because otherwise we’d all be asking “why didn’t they just make the Matrix so wonderful nobody would want to leave?” It’s a plot device used to cover a serious plot deficiency.
Similarly, why do people die in real life if they die in the Matrix? According to Morpheus, it was some Zen rationale that basically boiled down to the old wives’ tale that if you die in a dream you really die. The REAL reason, of course, is that if the combat isn’t life-threatening, the movie isn’t as exciting.
Why do they use humans as power plants? Because otherwise there’s no reason for the Matrix to keep humans alive, and then you can’t have Neo go from ignorance to awareness.
Why doesn’t the AI just make a big cage appear around Neo/Morpheus/Trinity to capture them? Because then the plot goes nowhere.
The Matrix was a fun movie, but the plot is completely illogical; it’s not even consistent with itself. It had to be, because they started with the concept (imaginary world in which computer hackers can do kung fu) before they designed the plot.
Let’s be honest; everything about the plot is basically an excuse for a computer hacker to do karate and shoot the place up. There’s no underlying logic or backstory. The Matrix’s story exists simply to fulfill the wet dreams of teenaged boys; You may think you’re a hopeless computer geek, but this guy thought the same thing and HE got to do awesome karate stunts, shoot guns, and get kissed by a pretty girl. It’s a marketing ploy, nothing more and nothing less.
RickJay, much of what you just said could be said about any number of stories. For example, The Iliad is nothing but propaganda created by Romans disgusted by their own brutality in Troy and embarrassed that it took them so long to squash one little city. The Odyssey is simply pandering to the masses’ desire for gore and the nobles’ desire for praise from every corner. Obviously, this means Homer has nothing to say. Romeo and Juliet is full of mindless violence and gratuitous premarital lust, Hamlet is all about incest and killing (‘nobler in the mind’ my left asscheek), and A Midsummer Night’s Dream is banal, escapist pap chock full of sex and idiocy. Shakespeare is a complete loon.
Okay, settle down. I’m just being sarcastic. But reading such cynical nonsense tends to do that to me. If you were to turn that cynicism of yours to any other field, you would easily be able to conclude that everything is complete and utter bullshit and nothing is worthy of your precious time. You would also be missing the point entirely and making an unmitigated ass of yourself. To be that cynical is to demand more than life will ever give you. I sincerely hope you can find joy in some fields of life, because going to the grave a snarling cynic means going to the grave unhappy.
It is quite interesting to read the responses both to the OP as well as my question regarding cows as bioelectric energy.
The Matrix is a work of fiction, but fiction can also be ART.
If an artist inspires people to think, dream, and make conjecture about their work: then the artist has accomplished his/her task.
One can look at Whistler’s Mother and see nothing but an old lady on a rocking chair, others can see there is a lot more to the story behind the picture than just that.
Someone can look at The Matrix as nothing more than a story; others can look into it and see a lot more.
True Art Truly Inspires!
OK, one more time. Of course you COULD use humans as a power source. But the trouble is that humans require power to run, they need food. So, in order to use humans as a power source, you’d have to provide them with food of some sort, even just the slurry they eat on the Nebucanezzer. And that food requires energy to produce. And the laws of thermodynamics show that you will always, always, always and without exception get less energy out than you put in.
If the machines need power, they could get much more just burning the food/slurry themselves. Or much much more by using the energy needed to produce the food/slurry to power themselves.
Sheesh. NOW do you understand why using humans as a power source doesn’t make sense? Or do we need another elementary physics lesson?
Yeah, why didn’t the computers use nuclear fission? A simple, reliable power source, and not dangerous at all if radiation doesn’t bother you.
re: why the AIs didn’t use cows, nuke energy etc. instead of human batteries…
…because humans were their enemy (remember humans tried to kill off the AIs) and the AIs enjoyed the irony of keeping humans around as their slaves. Plus, we’d continue making TV programs in the Matrix for them to watch.