What are the rules of the Matrix?

[Chun-tzu]

Neo can fly at Mach speeds. He flew 500 miles from the mountain to the city, in roughly 14 minutes (assuming the whole chase scene was in real time).

In the Animatrix, we find out that it is possible for humans to escape the Matrix without a red pill or any external help. This is how "the Kid" (who always seems to know when Neo arrives in Zion) escaped, in Kid's Story, as well as another character in World Record.

If i'm in the matrix and I KNOW its a computer simulation, nothing can hurt me? So why does Trinity and others allow stuff to hurt them when they are in? The movies loose all credibilty when all the action/ fights can't threaten you.

Think of Neo as a Jedi Knight. In theory, the Force is limitless, and can be used to accomplish almost anything. "Size matters not." But Luke and Yoda still have limits. Same goes for Neo, Morpheus and the others.

But it's firmly established that being hurt in the Matrix has a physical effect, in the real world. Mind and body cannot be separated, not even by downloading yourself into the Matrix. If your mind is killed, your body dies as well.

 

[Welverin]

When jacked into the Matrix communication with an operator is achieved vie nifty cell phones but exiting is only possible at certain points represented by old fashioned telephones.

It?s not the old fashioned bit that?s important, it?s that they?re hardlines. So it ?s a bandwith issue, cell phones don?t have the bandwith to transfer the amount of data needed for transferring a person in and out of the matrix (the bros mentioned it in some interview or another).

Knowledge can be transferred to provide skills as needed. There seem to be vast libraries of "downloads" such as piloting a Helicopter and doing Kung Fu. Presumably this knowledge exists only in the Matrix and is absent once you leave. Is it necessary to redownload a skill on subsequent visits to the Matrix if you've already done it?

I suspect that they still know everything outside, but there is a difference between knowing how to do something and being able to do it. You could watch football all your life and even have someone tell you how to throw a football, but unless you actually go out and practice it you won?t be any good. And despite all the practice they get inside the matrix I suspect the characters have little to no real world experience with a lot of things they know (like the martial arts they know, firing a gun).

Cursing in French is like wiping your ass with silk. (Anyone wanna translate what he said?)

Sorry I can't, but the friend I saw with, who didn't actually translate for me, said it was basically every French swear word chained together. So say every swear word you know and pretend it was French and you get the idea. Oh and he was one of two people in the theater laughing at that bit.

 

[krunchyfrogg]

... nor does blood come out of the agent who fell prey to "dodge this,"

Watch it again. There's a red cloud of blood as the agent is falling.

 

[Maniac]

Welverin
I suspect that they still know everything outside, but there is a difference between knowing how to do something and being able to do it. You could watch football all your life and even have someone tell you how to throw a football, but unless you actually go out and practice it you won?t be any good. And despite all the practice they get inside the matrix I suspect the characters have little to no real world experience with a lot of things they know (like the martial arts they know, firing a gun).

I rewatched the beginning of the Matrix and it looks like the knowlege exists outside of the Matrix as well as in. Neo goes for 11 hours getting downloads. When Morpheus comes in Neo says "I know Kung Fu". I would guess that you have the knowledge once it is downloaded.

I agree that it is necessary to practice. It seems some people are still better than others despite the knowledge download. (Morpheus is respected as being a great fighter).

Chun-tzu
Think of Neo as a Jedi Knight. In theory, the Force is limitless, and can be used to accomplish almost anything. "Size matters not." But Luke and Yoda still have limits. Same goes for Neo, Morpheus and the others.

This seems to be a good analogy. Morpeus says to Neo when training in "the Construct" that some rules can be bent and some can be broken. Maybe if you break too many rules the whole system would crash. Or maybe there are simply limits to what the system can do.


Some other things:

Agents can directly affect unfreed humans without simply taking over the body. They made Neo's mouth shut while interrogating him before his realease.

It seems that there often must be some kind of representation to perform something in the Matrix. Only neo has any kind of ability beyond the simple bending of gravity. Everyone else - agents included- use tools (or their representation) to do stuff. Pills, worm like bugs, guns, cars etc.

M.

 

[KenM]

I'm sorry but if i know something is not real and can't hurt me, then it won't. Its black and white. So they should not get hurt while they are in the matrix, its that simple.

 

[Henry]

I'm sorry but if i know something is not real and can't hurt me, then it won't. Its black and white. So they should not get hurt while they are in the matrix, its that simple.

...Except for the problem of feedback. We know that in real life psychosomatic triggers can cause responses to imaginary stimuli (for example, after one bad experience with spiders, say, just seeing one can make your skin crawl, or people associating a certain color or item to a painful experience can cause phantom pains).

(This may fall into the T.M.I. Department, but I have a similar problem with gnats - one time, years ago, a gnat flew into one of my nasal cavities, and thought my head was going to come off from the intensity of the situation. Now, any time I am near gnats, my nose starts itching like a four-alarm fire.)

Now, taking this to an expanded level, if your brain is getting stimuli that you've been shot, or that you have been stabbed, it is conceivable that your central nervous system may send signals that mimic that activity to your body. Ergo, being jacked in directly to your CNS and receiving raw stimuli could plausibly kill you if the Matrix "told your body" that you were dead. It's not important that it's POSSIBLE, just that it's plausible.

After all, one of the "throwaway lines" in the First Movie was that the Matrix tried to create an Idealized Paradise for humans originally, but humans started dying rapidly when they realized there was no pain or unhappiness. So, the Matrix must naturally tap into the pain and pleasure centers and the autonomic centers of the brain in order to give the responses it needs to to make you think you are really living there.

 

[Michael Tree]

I'm sorry but if i know something is not real and can't hurt me, then it won't. Its black and white. So they should not get hurt while they are in the matrix, its that simple.

I'm glad to hear that you have so much experience having your brain directly linked up to a perfect virtual reality simulation that you can tell us that the movie did it wrong.

 

[Corinth]

Morpheus cuts an Agent with a katana in Reloaded, and the Agent bleeds. Said Agent actually gets mad over this wounding.

 

[JoeGKushner]

That Keanu can't act in The Matrix or any layer of reality.

Ah, a true hater who took it upon himself to interject a statement that really has nothing to do with the thread. Good work, you must be proud.

Now as to the truth of that statement... well, that's another topic in and of itself.

 

[Gargoyle]

One rule I just thought about:

- You do not need an operator to enter and exit the Matrix. Cipher didn't seem to need one when he was plotting with Smith, but it is possible that he did have one and somehow prevented the operator from seeing him sitting across the table from an Agent while on a mission. But I doubt it. I'm guessing he plugged himself in, and he had to get to a hardline by a certain time before being auto-unplugged.