The Second Matrix
The Second Matrix
In the previous post in this series, I compared reality to a matrix.
I would advise you to read this last post before continuing, if you haven’t already. You can read it here.
Idol Creation
Before we discuss the Second Matrix, we need to look at idols. This is a slight detour, but there is a point.
In Genesis 2, we see God create Adam. He forms him out of the earth and breathes into his nostrils to bring him alive.
A similar method was used by the ancient pagans when it came to the production of an idol. They would mould or carve the idol out of clay or wood. Then make nostril holes or a mouth and through this, the god entered the idol. The idol would then become a place the god (or demon) would inhabit.
[note: I am not saying God made us into His idols. He has made us to share in His Creation and bear His image in the Earth. Idolatry is a perversion of Genesis 2.]
The Second Matrix
In the production of idols, we can see how humanity desires to imitate God.
Just as God creates reality or the Matrix, humans have created the Internet, an online reality. We have created a matrix within the Matrix.
A shared communal lattice almost entirely divorced from authentic reality. Everything we experience on there is virtual, a virtual reality.
Virtual Unreality
‘Virtual Reality’ has come to mean, its like it is almost real. But, in fact, the phrase is an oxymoron. It’s a paradox which is being used as a rhetorical tool to persuade people to believe virtual reality is just as authentic as objective reality.
Sadly, we get more fascinated by seeing the reflection of the world around us on a screen, than reality itself.
Just as a reflection in a mirror is not real, this simulated reality is equally fake.
A World of Temptation
It’s tempting to live in this inauthentic online space. Because we can be anything. We are not limited by the usual earthly restrictions.
We can leave behind the need to address our unsatisfying everyday lives. We can trick ourselves into thinking we are something we are not, or can never be.
In there, we can be the opposite sex, any skin colour we choose, we can even be a mythical beast. We can pretend to be a hero, a villain or even a trickster.
We can form avatars at will, like God creating Adam. Though what He did was real. What we do online is unreal, and barely connected to reality.
The temptation is to reject reality, and buy into the online world, fooling ourselves in the process. Thinking the ‘pretending and playing’ or even the ‘Internet outage’ online is more real than reality itself.
In the film, The Matrix, we see Cypher betray the Morpheus and choose to return to the online world. In a following scene, he eats a huge piece of steak saying, ‘I know this steak isn’t real, but it tastes amazing’.
The temptation to live online is significant. We can get a dopamine hit without having to do the real hard work. Though, ultimately, by succumbing to this temptation, we begin to lose our grasp on what is real and what it means to be human.
Layers Upon Layers
Today, the Internet is pervasive. We can’t even interact with the Government without the Internet acting as a go-between.
It builds in layers of impersonal contact, which multiplies loneliness, freely allows anti-social behaviour and produces confused and ungrounded identities.
Living with the Internet
We have a generation who have always lived alongside this Second Matrix. Some have even moved themselves online as modern life is too difficult or too painful to inhabit. Consequently, their online behaviour spills into their real world relationships.
The moral framework or the logos of the Internet is absent, or at least dubious and fluid. This means the kind of behaviour which is acceptable online, can be destructive or even illegal offline.
As with any technology, it is neither good nor bad. But if used outside of God’s moral framework, it can spiral out of control.
Just ask Cain and his descendants. It all ended in a Flood.
The next post in this series will look at the theological failure of transhumanism.
Great article as always. About the lacking Logos of the Internet I am not so sure. Shouldnt there be some kind of symbolic structure? If we take Dante into consideration even Hell itself is - while certainly upside down - intellegibly structured. There has to be the possibility to ‚harrow‘ the Internet by carrying the light of Logos into It’s womb.
At least that is what we have to hope for because I don‘t think this ‚second‘ (i would argue its the 3rd or even 4th - depending on your method of counting) reality will disappear anytime soon.
Ignorance is bliss [eats virtual steak]... Loving this series.