Philosophical Pharma

Rational-relativism-irony-postmodern-plato-descartes-pills-reification-descartes-plato

The above is a layout of the flow of thought in this discussion. It was initiated by a recent discussion that asked is "taking the blue pill rational?". My response was that rationality is relativistic and not absolute, but based on the heritage of the Matrix it is not rational because it does not conform to the rational system of Platonism and Cartesianism that the content of the film is based.

I used the aphorism "when in Rome do as the Romans do" that is in conventional understanding is a statement of relativism, but it is possesses an opposing dual nature in that it argues for normativity which is against the flexibility of a relativistic mode of thinking. Looking for contradictions in what are expected to be rational arguments, or rational systems and using those as arguments against them is in the spirit of Socratic-Platonic tradition. The fundamental irony based on the fact that people lack pure objectivity and are essentially in a indirect real simulation where what they think is true may be actually be even completely opposite of what is true is at least one of the premise that socratic irony is based on.

Postmodernism also has a conception of irony that in postmodern film goes against the grain of the prevailing culture of media. As such the film is supposedly deeply philosophical for a pop culture film, but how ironic it actually is depends on the user's knowledge of the content. The difference between Plato and Descartes is that Plato has an ironic message about undermining the pretense of rationality that is illusory, and Descartes ambitiously revolutionizes this detachment by presenting a philosophy by starting a tradition that attempts to transcend irony by creating a rationality that is resistant to it.

Both of these traditions encourage a person to try and escape their illusions but the method is different. In the Matrix, Neo is presented with pills, which are symbolic of taking thought and action against illusions as a way to fight against an oppressive order. The closest thing to a pill in the world is a drug that changes one's perceptions, or the simulation one has of the world. In the Cartesian line of historical progress, the antipsychotic is a reification of his philosophy, as a method for freeing yourself of illusions. That there is an irony between the effect of the pill on the body and the mind does not contradict because the divided study of these separately was part of the historical development of the pill that reifies scientific skepticism as a material object that removes illusions.

The film on the other hand is a Platonic reification of a kind of reality like a deluded mind, that presents an ironic theme for escaping such a simulation. In the presence of both these reifications a person is left to wonder how rationalities can be reified in other ways, and that the metaphysical symbolism of these reifications is productive of rational worldviews.