Truman Blog

Throughout the film, there are shameless advertisements and product placements presented as part of Truman’s life. Is it moral to use Truman’s life as a means to monetary gain?

I would say yes that it is completely immoral you use Truman's life as a way gain something. Truman was completely oblivious to his "controlled life", he had no idea of what was happening to him, and through out his life they shamelessly advertised every type of merchandise they could. They used a man's complete ignorance to further help themselves. There is absolutely no morality to taking advantage of (in a way blind mans) Truman's "life" for monetary gain.

During an interview, Christof states the following: "I have given Truman the chance to lead a normal life. The world, the place you live in, is the sick place. Seahaven is the way the world should be." Is Christof correct? What, if any, would be the benefits of living in Seahaven as opposed to the real world?

Christof is wrong, but I understand what he means. He tried to give Truman the "perfect life", a life that will never ever change, a life in which he will never be in danger, a life that will never do him wrong, a life that could offer him everything he can possibly ask for. That sounds great compared to the "real world", where everything is unpredictable, dangerous, hard, scary. If someone were to offer me that I would take Christof's life. But the thing with Truman was that he was never told or asked, he exploited Truman since he was born, without giving Truman the opportunity to choose for himself. Taking away a persons freewill is never alright, it is the one thing as humans we have guaranteed. The only things that are promised in life is disappointment, death and freewill. Truman could of learned a lot outside of Seahaven, rather than in, like disappointment. The world wouldn't be a cast anymore, he would get his way at the end, he would have to deal with being just a regular joe. That in itself is a lesson learned.

Consider yourself in Truman’s position. If presented with the choice to remain in Seahaven, a place where you have been promised that “you have nothing to fear”, or to enter into another world that you know little or nothing about, which would you choose?

If I were offered to stay or to leave, I would leave. I would be tempted to stay in a world where I have nothing to fear, but then that would get boring. Part of living life is living in fear. Fear of losing your job, feat of failing a essay, fear of getting killed there are many things to be afraid of. But if I were to live in a world where I didn't have to fear anymore, I'd frankly be bored out of my mind. I'd want to know what was in that other world, what's different in that world? I would want to experience that other world just out of plain curiosity.

Blog 4

Gracia and Sanford use the terms "source and ontilogical status" to distinguish between the real world and the unreal world of the Matrix. I've read thier essay over and over again to try and get an understanding of it. Little by little I began to realize what it is they were trying to explain, or express. They mention the "source" is a way to tell the difference between real thing or unreal one's. They claim that we know the source for the things in the real world, like machines and electrical signals are produced by humans and artificailyl intelligent machines. They say that the Matrix is not the cause for all the real things in the real world, although they don't know where the machines come from, or humans are reproduced they know that the Matrix has nothing to do with that. But unlike the real world they do not the source of the World of the Matrix, it was created by the machines. They claim that we can tell the difference between due to their different causes; one was created by the artificial machines, the other is the result of being freed from the machines. Although not mentioned in the first movie, in later one's you find out the source is the mainframe of the Matrix explained on http://matrix.wikia.com/wiki/The_Source. This now gives the unreal world a source, giving it a better cause for it's existence.

Thier second argument is the ontological status of the worlds, they way things exist. A way to determine ontological status is dependence, they say that the real world does not depend on something else for its existence. Becuase the unreal world depends on everything in the real world to extist, they say the unreal world of the Matrix has a weaker ontologcal status. The Matrix only stays running so long as there are machines still running the programs. Then they say in order for the freed prisoners to realize what was the difference between the worlds was the need of a teacher. If Neo never talked to Morpheuos he would have never known the difference.

I think the source means where and why anything is there, the real world was there because the prisoners were freed from the Matrix which is everything we know. While we didn't know why the Matrix is there, only that the machines created it. And ontological status means their dependence on something. The real world depended on nothing, while the Matrix depended on the Machines and humans prisoners.