Science and Science Fiction: Humans as Batteries in The Matrix

Not to mention, the level of technology displayed by the Matrix would probably allow them to grow selected biological organisms (ranging from normal cows to genetically designed shapeless blobs) who would generate as much energy, without all the inconvenients of having to keep their brain working in a virtual world, or dealing with rebellions.

Unfortunately you are putting way, wayyyyy too much thought into this when the Warschowkis obviously did not , the proof of the pudding is the two dire, dire sequels.
The batteries bunkum is not the only problem, why is the late twentieth century considered the pinacle of human civilization ? Especially the fact that Morpheus’s ship appears to wander the remains of a vast network of the ruined cities sewers.
I won’t even go into the whole scorched earth policy..or as Nomadz pointed out if you are going to breed Humans why not breed humans without higher brain functions , thus avoiding all those annoying rebels.the simple truth is that the Matrix is not that well written.

Perhaps humans are batteries in the sense that they provide mental energy for the machines. A creative spark the machine intelligences couldn’t otherwise generate on their own. This would fit into the idea that all a computer can do is what it’s told to do through its programming and explain why they need so many humans as a resource pool that doesn’t change.

You could almost say the machines need the Matrix more than the humans. Utopia didn’t work because it stifled creativity. The faults within the Matrix that allow people like Neo to develop and rebel/control the Matrix need to get put down because destroying the Matrix and freeing humanity would offers the possibility that the machines would lose the pool of originality they’re able to sample and mimic and call their own.

I know I’m reading too much into this, but that’s what intellectual exercises are for. They keep the muse happy and original. If I can make an argument that Agent Smith represents Lucifer, railing against the Heaven which the Matrix represents for the machines, I can make an argument for anything. The only thing up for grabs is whether it would take me the length of a short story or a novel to develop the idea. 😉

Now if only we could grow cows in vats, and somehow keep their minds occupied so they wouldn’t rebel…

Hmm … now that’s an interesting concept.

The Mootrix
The Mootrix Reloaded
and The Mootrix Revolutions

I know its not about the Matrix, but its on the subject of bad movie science…

has anyone noticed on the movie Watchmen the HUGE size of Phobos and Deimos on the martian sky? Its like if the director/art director/whatever researched and discovered Mars has two moons. And never gave care about how big and distant from Mars they were. He just included two big balls on the Martian sky… supposedly, about the size of our own moon…

Just remembered the other pointlessly useless aspect of the movie: the earth’s core has cooled, apparently, sometime in the next few centuries. Really? I mean, really? Gah. (storms off)

I took the “energy source” thing to be some sort of cheesy allegory about political power … at first. Later, I decided that it is just an off-the-cuff “I’m going to give you the dumbest imaginable answer so you’ll stop asking questions”. They can get away with that sort of thing because this is the video game generation, and it’s exactly analogous to the limitations on video game activities.

Since, as we find out later, nothing is real, and everything that happens is supposed to be some sort of computed simulation, no sort of scientific reasoning applies, or can apply. Shit happens in video games and you just watch it and see what you can make happen by pushing the buttons. In this case, nothing, ’cause it’s a movie and there are no buttons.

I have a good reason why the machines did this too the humans…pretty simple. There is no logical way to determine how an AI would act such as the one in “The Matrix”,considering the fact that it is make believe, and a real one that has taken over man does not exist as of yet. The machines did it because obviously they have some sort of superiority complex, and at this stage in their evolution they are not going for effiency at all. They are using us as batteries just because they can. They may have other power sources, those aren’t mentioned, but there is no reason to assume that they don’t exist. There, your movie makes sense again, all fixed.

I thought the real reason was pretty simple: the AI can kill A human–but it cannot kill humanity. In other words, it can kill to survive but the idea of genocide violates its fundamental programming. Humans simply must be preserved as a species.

Saying the AI ultimately has positive–if not good–intentions does not make a great battle slogan. Remember, this is information given to a newbie crew member. Morpheus is trying to persuade Neo and so he invents this nonsense about human batteries figuring Neo is a computer geek, not a science geek, and it will do for now. Neo has lots of other stuff to think about.

It’s the kind of argument that would win a no-prize in Marvel comics… It’s extremely easy to explain virtually anything logically in science fiction and fantasy. Which makes the human battery idea particularly repugnant since its just lazy thinking.

This has always stuck in my throat, because the Matrix tries very hard to appear serious, and this is just boneheaded disregard for science.
It’s not just another disposable action film.

Even if you had 100 billion humans in these cocons, they don’t produce much power, regardless of BTU’s over a lifetime. The base metabolism of a human produces 100 watts, so 100 billion will give 10 Terawatts, the output of human civilisation in 1982,, but some of that wattage goes into keeping the organs and circulatory system functioning, plus the muscles are atrophied, so output is even less. Then there are aforemntioned energy costs to reprocess the dead to nutrients. The type of fusion would’ve made any attempt to harness human body heat completely redundant, and if the machines can drill down to Zion they could use Geothermal energy.

I always thought the battery theory was more like Morpheus’ own wild guessing.

crrbrearley wrote:
“I thought the real reason was pretty simple: the AI can kill A human–but it cannot kill humanity. In other words, it can kill to survive but the idea of genocide violates its fundamental programming. Humans simply must be preserved as a species. ”

I agree. Maybe AI had made its decision based on the warmongering human nature. We couldn’t save ourselves so maybe AI can.

Actually there are quite a few plant like materials which grow in The complete absence of sunlight.

My rewrite

“…scorched the sky. At the time they were dependent on silicon technology and it was believed that they would be unable to survive a global electro magnetic pulse.”

“…fate it seems…”

“The human brain processes information at a rate of one exaflop and is capable of accessing over one hundred terra bytes of data. Combined with an advanced inter neural network the machines had found all the computational power they would ever need. There are fields…”

Hello Mike,
Your problem scene is one of the best scene. Many people have now woken up.
As Robert A. Monroe wrote, our emotional energies may support the cosmic food chain.
Check out this : http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/human-farm-human-energy-loosh/
Cheers