About Gnosticism and its connection to The Matrix.

When I saw the movie, I was quite clear that the movie was very much based on Indian philosophy of 'Advaita'. But this is quite subtle: the fact that machines have taken over mankind is not important at all. The key point is, all experiences are 'virtual' in nature, and only consciousness is witness to all. The ship in which the crew live (supposedly in 'real' world') is also as virtual as the world created by the machines. The key thing to note is the recursive aspect of the definition: We know there can be 'virtual' world in real world. And 'virtual world' in 'virtual world' (like dreaming within a dream). And this should lead you to conclude that there can't be 'real' world. There is nothing special about 'real' world - except probably that you don't have control over things happening to you. But in enlightenment, the nature of observation changes; you will go beyound observation, and understand what it means to be a witness - beyond time and space. That could be called as 'reality' - but again, the attributes of not being in space or time will make completely independent of usual definitions. It is literally like waking up from a sleep full of dream.

Coming back to more standard questions such as 'why do we require a telephone as a port of exit from virtual world? (and not a mobile, and not a entry)', I think they are more easy to understand. In essence, any unique ID, or a path (assuming some hierarchy) in a mesh of structured information. And a fixed telephone actually provides a path to connected information i.e. you can use an external probe to reach the right data structure (in memory).
(Another way to access information is by unique properties; but this assumes some sort of internal mapping already existent within the system.)

I will put my comments on other aspects later.

"The Matrix" and Science of Reality

This topic, Science of the Matrix from Slashdot today focusses on whether or not there is science behind plots of the movie. Unforuntately, I am reading for the first time that there is a book called "Taking The Red Pill: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in The Matrix" that I am hearing about for the first time. The author has put up a page explaining the science behind the movie here.