If it was a dream, then the programmers clearly attempted to incorporate background realism. For example, the characters get dirty; like sweat, dirt is not something that the programmers would need to create to have realistic humans, but there is dirt on people. If one accepts the premise that the entire story is a dream, it is not difficult to take an additional step and assume that the programmers would think to have a character, who is supposed to appear nervous, sweating while he was on screen.
7. There are clues throughout the movie that the hero could use to discover whether his experiences were veridical or not. Perhaps the best clue is foreshadowed at the beginning of the movie and comes at the end of the movie; the appearance of the blue sky on Mars. Having never been to Mars, I have to rely upon my own conjecture, but I am under the impression that a blue sky on Mars would be impossible. If one is in a society where Mars has been colonized, an element that almost certainly must be true in the story whether or not the rest of the story is a dream or reality, because the company could not implant a realistic fantasy about an adventure on Mars were it not colonized, then one would have that knowledge. If a blue sky on Mars is, indeed, impossible, then Quaid could use that knowledge to investigate his dream. While that does not exactly address continuity, it does address the lack of reality in dreams that Descartes discusses. Dreams frequently fail to adhere to known laws of nature, so that, if it were not a dream, it would defy everything Quaid has known as reality. Moreover, the fact that the blue sky does not appear until the end of the movie demonstrates a lack of internal continuity, suggesting a dreamscape.
8. The characters in Inception and The Matrix approached their worlds in two very different ways. In Inception, the characters were intentionally choosing to leave reality and enter the world of dreams; he chose to escape into fantasy, thus needing a manner of keeping touch with reality. He chose the spinning top, but a scene in the film shows other dreamers choosing other touchstones. In contrast, in The Matrix, the character has not intentionally entered the world of dreams; he was captured in the world of dreams and has entered the world of reality. Because, once he is awake, he is aware that he is "dreaming" when he enters the matrix, Neo-would not seem to need that same type of touchstone. However, having been conditioned that the matrix is reality, he falters in his belief that, in that reality, he can do things that are beyond his capability in the real world. Another significant difference is that, in Inception, the characters can manipulate the external environment of the dream, not just their interactions with the dream world (for example, the creation of the tsunami), which differs from how characters can interact with the matrix.
Locke begins with the belief that no person could really mistake a dream for reality. He thinks that there is a distinction between something conceived of by the mind and something experienced in actual reality. Therefore, Locke would seem to reject the notion that a person would need an external element, such as the spinning top in Inception, to distinguish dreams from reality. Hume looked at vivacity as an independent variable that could impact "thoughts" and how they interacted with reality, so that a sufficiently vivacious thought could become reality for the individual, without ceasing to be a thought. The clearest example for Hume would have been a person experiencing a mental illness. Therefore, Hume would have found having an element, like the spinning top, to remind one when something is a dream or reality as a helpful element.
9. It appears that we are supposed to believe that Neo-has learned to ignore his education prior to leaving the Matrix and recognize that those things he has learned to be realities, such as the laws of physics, simply do not apply to him when he is in the matrix, though they are applicable when he is not in the matrix. What he has learned is to be mindful of the fact that he is in a dream at the time that he is dreaming. This is something that Locke, Hume, and Descartes all discuss in varying degrees, the ability of the dreamer to recognize a dream while it is occurring. However, while the philosophers discuss that phenomenon,...
Some of the reason for error, therefore, is not related to indifference or for not having enough time to fully consider some matter. Some of it is due to man's propensity to flaw, and to his limited ability (which is related to his limited mental and physical power). In addition to misinterpreting the nature of the relationship between intellect and free will, Descartes has incorrectly interpreted some of the most
5. Kant's "Copernican Revolution" in philosophy is in his genius use of the positive aspects of Rationalism (Descartes and so on) and Empiricism (Locke, Berkeley and Hume). How can you argue this out with the help of the "Critique of Pure Reason"? The human experience of negotiating the universe as it seems to be presented to us is one governed by a great many assumptions. Our education of this process, and
Epistemological Belief in the External World Can We Know the External World Through Our Limited Sensory Perceptions? (1) Our senses are limited. (2) We can only perceive the world through our senses. (3) Therefore, our understanding of the external world is limited and not sufficiently justified in assuming that it is absolute in its existence. "What will then be true? Perhaps just the single fact that nothing is certain," so were the words of one
This object, though, sets in human consciousness in many divergent ways -- perception, memory, retention, etc. Depending on the manner in which the idea is intentional, the object may be identical but interpreted different and thus a divergent sense of reality for individuals. Opposite of Descartes and Kant, there is no one finite way of describing this object and it is entirely dependent upon the method of reduction and
Two belief systems, then -- true believe, and justified true belief (Hauser, 1992). Humans, however, according to Pierce, turn justified true beliefs into true beliefs by converting them into axioms. Once we have proven something there is no need to prove it again, and we use the part that was proven before to further extend our study and the inquisition of knowledge. And so it becomes necessary to accept things
Thus, the analytic approach offers the best method of approaching philosophical questions, because it understands and explicates the problems and limitations of human consciousness immediately by intentionally discussing language itself, because no philosophical work can ever escape the linguistic and therefore philosophical limitations placed upon human thought by the borders of language. The answer to the question "who am I" is revealed to be the "I" itself, made into a
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