Truman Burbank, Neo Anderson, and Rene Descartes
"...one fact is constant; despite the deceit and false perception of reality of the central character, their individuality stood out. Stripped away of all the facts, their individuality still was intact. Truman still was Truman at the end. Neo (although he learned how to fly) was basically still Neo. Christof even mentions this in The Truman Show, "While the world he inhabits is in some respect, counterfeit. There is nothing fake about Truman himself..." One particular fact that kind of stood out to me in The Matrix is that even Neo does not even use his real name (Thomas Anderson) and prefers to live under one he has made himself (Neo). Despite this, he was still Thomas Anderson."
This was something I wrote ages ago before I learned about blogs. It ties up The Matrix, The Truman Show, and Rene Descartes. The idea came up during a conversation with Jessica and Cookie. Actually, the Descartes connection, I got that all from Cookie.
Also Prole corrected me about my understanding of Descartes:
"...but Descartes did not say anything about our idividuality or our concepts of ourselves at the level of his argument Jobert refers to. All Descartes claims to know is that he has a self, that there is some being in the universe whom he is. He knows this because he is thinking and perceiving, and to perceive himself thinking and perceiving, he must exist. "
