The Matrix: "Simulacra and Simulation"
In the beginning of the first "Matrix" film, Neo conceals important computer files within a hollowed-out copy of the real life book titled "Simulacra and Simulation", a novel by Jean Baudrillard in 1981.
"Simulacra and Simulation" is a philosophical text exploring the idea of a simulated reality, essentially mirroring the Matrix itself where the characters live in a computer-generated world. Our reality mirroring the "reality" or program of the Matrix.
The book explains the metaphysical (and mystical) relationships between reality, society and the Hypereal, the inability to distinguish between reality and its simulation, particularly in technologically advanced societies.
In the film, the chapter Neo hid them in is titled "On Nihilism", which is the rejection of believing in anything, including a meaning to life. Baudrillard writes in the chapter "On Nilihism!", "The Simulacra has become REALITY.
This EASTER EGG is the KEY to the entire series.
Baudrillard actually uses the word “MATRIX” AND coined the phrase “the desert of the real,” which is how Morpheus describes the “real” world. "The Desert of the Real" is that which had gone beyond the real, supplanting or erasing it.
Funny enough, Neo works at Metacortex.
Meta means "Beyond' in Greek.
Cortex is the outer layer or 'Bark' (Greek) of the brain.
Therefore, Metacortex means BEYOND the Boundaries of the Brain!
Of course, Neo (RENEWAL) is prophsized to complete the "Prophecy of the ONE"!
The HYPERREAL precedes the "REAL" like the Matrix preceding the real for Neo, who INITIALLY has never seen anything but the Matrix. Baudrillard believes that social media and the NET hasn't resulted in a global village but a complete inability to see reality as shown in the FILM.
In Simulacra and Simulation, Baudrillard explains that in FOUR (simple) stages the SIMPLICITY of the Source's intended Reality turns into what can only be called Chaos, a false reality so unrelateable to the actual truth of "reality".
The First Stage is the part where we believe that we are correct, for example a sign is a reflection of profound reality, good appearance called, "The Sacramental Order". It appears to the eye as "REAL".
The Second Stage focuses of the prevention of reality, believing that the "sign" is a unfaithful copy that covers reatity and changes it into having and EVIL appearance. The Third Stage covers the absence of realty, the sign intimidates a faithful copy but in fact isn't.
The idea of the Third Stage claims to represent something real but it isn't really therem The Fourth and Final part, focuses on PURE SIMULATION. The simulacrum has no relationship with reality, it simply reflects other signs.
To put it as simply as possible, in stage ONE, Initially, the sign (image or representation, in this case NUMBERS) is a reflection of basic reality In stage TWO, the sign masks a basic reality. The image becomes a distortion of reality.
At the end of the first film, the repurcussions of Cipher’s Faustian Bargain with Agent Smith have settled, Cipher valient and stubborn til the end, says, “I love my daughter so much. I find her to be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But where we as re from, that is not enough.”
Cipher finishes, "Every program that is created must have a purpose; if it does not, it is deleted."
As Baudrillard said on the chapter "On Nilihism", "The simulacrum now hides, not the truth, but the fact that there is none."
Control-ALT DELETE.