The Matrix and Philosophy

The New York Times bestseller. Renowned thinkers discuss the ancient and modern concepts that inform The Matrix. Also available in paperback from Open Court, www.opencourtbooks.com.

The choice is yours, and you will have to live with the consequences for the rest of your life -- as you know it.

Will you take the blue pill -- pass on downloading this e-book -- and go on thinking of The Matrix as just a movie? Or will you take the red pill: download the New York Times-bestselling The Matrix and Philosophy, read it, and find out just how deep the rabbit-hole goes?

Is the world around us truly as it appears? Or are we maintained by an invisible force as inert bodies in tanks, our brains electronically stimulated to create the make-believe realm which is all we know? This most demanding of philosophical puzzles became cutting-edge cool with the release of the cult science fiction film The Matrix in 1999.

And the questions have become even more complex with the arrival in 2003 of The Matrix: Reloaded; The Matrix: Revolutions; and the associated short animated films collected as The Animatrix.

The Matrix is the most philosophical film ever made, its every frame built on a philosophical conundrum, among them:

• If the world as we know it is nothing more than our dream of it, does this make the dream real?
• If we had the choice to step out of our world into a more-real but less-pleasant one -- to take the red pill -- would it be a moral failure not to do so? Especially if doing so meant knew insight into the truth of our humanity (or its lack)?
• Do humans have an inherent value above that of "artificially" intelligent machines?
• Can the mind live without the body or the body without the mind?
• In the The Matrix and Philosophy, edited by William Irwin, renowned contemporary philosophers -- Michael Brannigan; Cynthia Freeland; Jorge J.E. Gracia; Slavoj Žižek, et al -- analyze The Matrix from many angles: metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic. They uncover hidden depths in this intricate work of art, and often reach disturbing conclusions.

Those who take the red pill never look at the real world the same way again.

So which will it be? The blue bill -- click elsewhere.

Or the red pill: Download The Matrix and Philosophy now.