From: steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 12:17:08 +0100 (BST)
Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_Ethics_of_Matrix_2?=


Glen

Personally my favorite consumptive objects were the Ducatti 996 and the Lamy
Pen. 

Why is code equivilant to text - would you argue that in the actual world
manipulation of DNA reduces us to 'text', to the status of virtual beings? 

regards
steve


> 
> Eric,
> 
>  
>> Doesn't every ethical system begin where a lonely individual somewhere
>> says no in the face of an overwhelming power?
> 
> I am not sure... That sounds more like a romantic notion of the nomadic
>  vagabond. I was thinking that the conditions of an ethical system
> begin  with the possibility of a there being an ethical system (or the
> end  product of which is a 'truth'). How much of the system is ethical
> and  how much of the ethical is systematic. 
> 
> I just saw the Matrix 2 again. A few other things jumped out of the 
> screen. When the pseudo-french (fallen pseudo-Marxist!) Mr 'No Choices!
>  It's all causality! Choice is an illusion! Choice is there to keep the
>  powerful in power...' talks about how he wrote the cake, so everything
>  is code, ie a text. Besides that, such a position could never be 
> ethical, as the possibility of ethics is not allowed, however, perhaps 
> the most ethical 'system' is, paradoxically, one in which choice is an 
> illusion... or the choice was already made by an individual to be part 
> of the system (a system in which there are no choices), the 
> exact 'situation' of the Matrix and its inhabitants ("90% accept to 
> choose the programming..."). I am not sure if my reduction of ethics to
>  a choice (to choose the 'right' possibility) is entirely ethical... 
> Actually the most ethical decisions are those in which choice is 
> refused ("but, as we know, you have already made your choice" or "I 
> have no choice"), maybe it is the possibility of the refusal of a 
> choice (the conditions of the choice, that which makes it a 'choice' a 
> choice, the 'either/or' ('/') part of abstract thought) that determines
>  whether or not a system is ethical. 
> 
> Bah... the cgi needs some tweaking too. Some of it looked sooo fake. 
> Car chase seen was cool (especially the Camaro!).
> 
> Ciao,
> Glen.
> 
> PS Eric, have you read the essays at the Matrix website?
> 
> 
> -- 
> PhD Candidate, Centre for Cultural Research
> University of Western Sydney