Baudrillard - Reality and the Matrix

Baudrillard argues that in our post modern society the simulacrum precedes the original and that difference between representation and reality disappears. There is only the simulacrum i.e. there is no reality and to talk of an underlying reality is to talk about a meaningless concept. He distinguishes four stages in the relationship between sign-order.

The first stage is denoted by our belief, whether well-founded or not, that a sign is a "reflection of a profound reality" (p6 Simulacra and Simulation -Baudrillard 1994); in the second stage we believe that the sign is not an accurate copy of the reality although we continue to believe that there is a reality that the sign is unable to faithfully represent; in the third stage signs and images claim to be linked to reality but that reality does not exist; and in the fourth stage the sign has no relationship to reality and signs point to other signs so their legitimacy rests only on the existence of these signs but these in turn may well seek legitimacy from the existence of the signs that reference them. Baudrillard refers to this final stage as hyperreality.

"In postmodernism, hyperreality is the result of the technological mediation of experience, where what passes for for reality is a network of images and signs without an external referent, such that what is represented is representation itself" (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism). In layman's terms no matter how exhaustive the search for the underpinning reality the searcher will always find yet another sign.

In the film Matrix the humans exist in a world of signs that have no relationship to reality. The reality, offered in the film, is the reality that is occupied by a 'superior' race of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Humans exist to serve the needs of the Artificial Intelligence beings that need the existence of the humans who represent a vital energy source.  In this case we have one 'reality' populated by the AI beings and another that only exists in the collective minds of the human population.  The film centres around a group of humans who for some unexplained reason have become aware of the existence of the two realities and fight to take their place in the reality dominated by the AI beings. In a sense this group are able to exist in both realities at the same time.

Of the two realities it can be argued that the 'reality' of the AI beings is that of the first stage and the 'reality' of the humans that of the fourth stage but the only referent system we are offered is that of the script of the film. It may be the case that the AI beings are as deluded as the humans and that they are under the control of a greater being. There is no way of knowing what is reality even under Baudrillard's stages as all rely upon our belief system. I may believe that I am the only one who is living in a 'profound reality' and that everyone else is mistaken in their beliefs. Yet my only referent system is the one that I think I occupy that can of course be of the fourth order stage. It is interesting to consider whether, if I am correct in believing that I am the only one living in reality, why I created the reality in which I live and how I keep it populated with others of whom I can have no experience.