Atomists and the Matrix

Empedocles states that all things are a combination of the four elements, earth, fire, air, and water. The four elements move through the forces of Love and Strife. Love brings them together and Strife pulls them apart. The elements do not change, but the portions of them in the things in the world changes through the constant struggle of Love and Strife. This struggle between Love and Strife plays out in the Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions. The fact this is the sixth time that the Matrix has been reloaded. The One sacrifices itself for the sake of humanity, but in doing so allows the machines to destroy Zion. The One then is dispersed and chooses 23 individuals who start the process over again. Love causes the five prior Ones to choose to save humanity, even it sacrifices some. Strife is the war. The machines want this cycle to continue over and over until they figure out the solution to the anomaly that causes the One in the first place. This is a seemingly endless struggle, and is balanced in the way it plays out. The Oracle throws the sixth version out of balance, by adding Love into the Strife of the cycle of war. But a much more focused Love, between Neo and Trinity. Neo loves her more than humanity, and that causes him to choose differently. Throwing off the balance that Strife of the cycle of the war and destruction, and then reloaded that the machines have come to expect. So ultimately the Matrix Trilogy is about the struggle of Love and Strife, or Love against the background of the Strife of endless war. Neo is Love and Smith is the ultimate Strife. And balancing and unbalancing of those forces is what the purpose of the Architect and the Oracle do as well.

Anaxagoras says that there is no coming to be or passing away because all things are a mixture of ingredients. These ingredients are always there and always in motion. It is this motion that mixes together to make something and the same motion dissipates the mixture so it can mix in another way. All things are just the temporary mixes of those ingredients. Also all things are in all other things, except nous or mind. Inside the Matrix all people and programs are connected and can be accessed by the mind. Smith is able to take over everything inside the Matrix because of this similarity and it is the extreme example that everything is everything. The mind is that which is outside of this process and constant motion. It allows the free humans to jack into the Matrix and interact with the programing. The program is always changing, adjusting, tweeking the program. It is in constant motion. It will also disperse old programs or those that have no purpose. It will then remix them into another program. The program of the Matrix is a great example of the ideas of Anaxagoras.

Democritus states that being and becoming are the result of the arrangement and rearrangement of atoms. The atoms are in motion and that motion causes them to come together and break apart. He says that like atoms attract other like atoms, and that the various arrangements are the result of a necessity on the one hand and chance on the other. The atoms that humans receive are what causes the senses and the basis of knowledge. The Matrix is all about the passiveness of the senses and knowledge. They are just received by the mind or brain and that is what makes it real.