Includes bibliographical references (pages197-205) and index.
Contents:
Acknowledgments; Contents; 1: Introduction; 1 What This Book Is and Isn't; 2 What Matrix Philosophy Is and Isn't: A First Descent Down the Rabbit Hole; 3 Teaser Trailer: A Thematic Guide; Note; 2: Are You Living in a Computer Simulation? (The Level of Cognitive Science: Level 0); 1 Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?; 2 Excursus: On Art and Anarchy; Notes; 3: Are You a Brain-In-a-Vat? (Level of Logic: Level 1); 1 Brains-In-a-Vat; 2 Excursus: On Understanding Meaning; 3 Diagnosing Putnam; 4 Interlude: The Quick and Dirty Argument (Transition to Level 2); Notes 4: Introduction to the Parafinite (Level of the Parafinite: Level 2)1 Wittgenstein versus Turing; 2 Excursus: A Poetic Analog; 3 Matrix Mathematics; Notes; 5: An Introduction to Paraphysics (Level of Paraphysics: Level 3); 1 Two Mythologies; 2 The History of Bracketing, from Paraphysics via Husserl's Phenomenological Bracketing and Kant's B-Preface to Descartes's Meditations; Notes; 6: An Introduction to Philosophical Praxis (Level of Philosophical Praxis: Level 4); 1 We Interrupt Our Program to Bring You This Special Report; 2 Action!; 3 A Novel Philosophy of the Act; Notes 7: An Introduction to Philosophia Perennis (Level of Work on Myth and Philosophy: Level 5)1 Saving Zion: The Waking Dream of Life; 2 The Matrix Is Work on Myth and Philosophy; Notes; From the Director's Cut (Level of Transit: Level 1.5); L̈owenheim-Skolem; Putnam's "Models and Reality": A Preliminary Presentation; Countable versus Uncountable Infinity; The Skolem Paradox; Skolem Paradox versus Skolem "Antinomy"; The Status of the Notion of "Collection"; Solving the Skolem (Near) Antinomy; Transition: From Putnam to Yessenin-Volpin; Specifying the Observational Base Yessenin-Volpin and the L-S Theorem: The Work of David IslesLosing One's Soul in the Land of Exponentials; Into the Labyrinth: Analyzing the Proof of Arithmetic Totality (Caution: Minotaur Within); L̈owenheim-Skolem, Finally, Again: Liberation Mathematics; Notes; Bibliography; Index
Summary:
This book charts the shape of future philosophical investigation by posing the question: "What is the Matrix?" Guided by the example of the Matrix film trilogy, the author examines issues ranging from simulation, proof and action to value, culture and mythology, offering a progressively deeper diagnosis of modern philosophical conditions. In contrast to the contemporary focus upon cognitive science and a commitment to the distinction between appearance and reality, this book helps readers to explore the argument that such abstractions are inevitably displaced by a more concrete distinction between dreaming and waking, with the Matrix as the real and only world we inhabit. Researchers and scholars will find this work an engaging and enlightening examination of reality, via the medium of popular culture and film.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.