• From: istanbul
  • Registered: 2004-05-13

Topic: eXistenZ

Ok, I know that this movie by Cronenberg has mentioned in the forum before. But this will be a summary for me, so I'd like to have your insights & thoughts on the following:

I've watched Existenz back in 99 when it first come out. A fine film about virtual reality, I thought. And it left no big mark on me. What an ignorance!

After the film is mentioned here in NR on a thread recently, I thought to watch the film again. Guess what happened? While I was thinking this, an ad of a leading Turkish newspaper began on TV; they were giving eXistenZ DVD for only 4 TL (3$)". Wow!! Message taken. This is the "right time" to watch it..

... which I did yesterday. And I left fascinated in front of the screen.

OK, that was only epilogue part! Now let's begin (includes major spoilers for the ones who want to watch the film) :



The movie is a symbol for situation of 3D life for me. I mean as 3D beings we are just in the same situation with the film characters in the beginning - where as a viewer we think this is the reality of the movie.

Only at the end of the movie we understand that all of the characters are in fact characters of a virtual game. They are just sitting in a church and have their roles.

OK, lets put this on a metaphor - but on which scale? I have following points in my mind:

We have 3D humanity in one side; let's say we are Jude Law's & J.J.Leigh's characters in the beginning of the movie. We THINK we don't know what's going on around us. Piece by piece we have to gather some clues. We meet with some other players - like William DeFoe's Gus character. He seems like a ally first, then enemy trying to kill J.J.Leigh - and then at the end of the film we understand he plays a role he's given before & people thank him for playing his part so succesfull etc.

Hmmm, I'm beginning to get lost in my post and still could not touch to the vital points.
Let me cut that short; I see Jude Law/J.J.Leigh's latest characters in the movie (which are rebel realists killing the game designer at the end) as our Higher Selves. So that means any character that they may have inside the game is us - me, Montalk, Lyra, Wandering1, Morningsun, Pictus, Whywhywhy, Lipstick Mystic, Ayahuasca etc. etc. In fact this metaphor is really fine - because even these names are designed by us - because we also know Montalk as Tom, Ayahuasca as Andy etc.

Now, from Jude's or J.J.Leigh's (Higher Selves) point of view, all the characters inside the game (us) are disposible. We see that when J.J.Leigh kills Ian Holm's character. She says, "this is a game why should not I kill him?" Also there's another peak moment in the movie; where J.J.Leigh acts as a pure game character who waits exact appropriate answer from Jude Law and do not act on anything else. This also shows J.J.Leigh gave away the tiny freewill she has in the game. She's totally aligned with the game scenario. In fact some other characters that we see sitting in the church at the end of the movie do that too. They act as game characters with no soul/freewill. Is this an appropriate definition for OP? If some other game designer/HigherSelf may have the control of these characters, they can be used in the game against our characters.

(Uh, been lost some more deeper levels till here. This post is becoming a swamp for my mind smile )
Ok, the question is - where/who are we as base characters? If we are our Higher selves there's no dark side, no positive side, no war to win, no prison planet etc. at the "core reality". All of these things (that we often discuss in NR) are levels in a game which we have to gather clues). But the movie leaves us with an open final. Did Jude & Jennifer "really" kill the game designer? Is it again a new level of the game as the Chinese character said? Or is there some "realist - virtualist" war going on in there? Do we have polarised Higher selves? In which level does dark side/positive side polarity begin? Lots of sources say there's no polarity on 6D - but where is that in our eXistenZ metaphor? The church? The gathering in the church is some 6D Higherselves came together to organise a game? The characters DO have their own lives outside the church which we don't see in the movie. Is it beyond 6D? Or do we..


[Overload alert... The writer had overload and burnt some circuits. The post is cut in the middle here.. Any contribution is welcome..]

Change we must, to live again
- Jon Anderson
  • Risen
  • Risen
  • The Anti-Ism
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  • Registered: 2005-09-30

Re: eXistenZ

feritciva wrote:

(Uh, been lost some more deeper levels till here. This post is becoming a swamp for my mind smile )
Ok, the question is - where/who are we as base characters? If we are our Higher selves there's no dark side, no positive side, no war to win, no prison planet etc. at the "core reality". All of these things (that we often discuss in NR) are levels in a game which we have to gather clues). But the movie leaves us with an open final. Did Jude & Jennifer "really" kill the game designer? Is it again a new level of the game as the Chinese character said? Or is there some "realist - virtualist" war going on in there? Do we have polarised Higher selves? In which level does dark side/positive side polarity begin? Lots of sources say there's no polarity on 6D - but where is that in our eXistenZ metaphor? The church? The gathering in the church is some 6D Higherselves came together to organise a game? The characters DO have their own lives outside the church which we don't see in the movie. Is it beyond 6D? Or do we..

Ferit,

Thanks for posting this.  I loved the movie and mentioned it over in another thread recently.

I think the shortest, most complete answer to your question(s) is:   Hmm!

Ok, I know that isn't quite an answer, but as I mentioned in the other thread - that movie is a bit of a "russian doll" (doll within a doll  within a doll etc).  In short, there's a lot to play with in that little package!  You mentioned about our higher selves, no dark side, no war to win -- but remember, even when they came out of the game there was still a war.  Otherwise they wouldn't have killed the game-designer.  But what I'm saying here is even our higher selves are likely involved in some sort of struggle, or at least some mission if not a war.  Otherwise our HS would not need to intervene in our [present] lives very much.  But they do, eh?

You may be correct that they could still be in the game!  I thought this as well and there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer.  And indeed our higher selves might just be the "next level", not the finale.

I don't know much about 6D so I better stop there, at least for now.

This is no time for the righteous
Only the wicked survive
Bake up a batch of the Yellow Cake
Bake up a batch of the lies
- - - - -[ Yellow Cake - Ministry - Rio Grande Blood (2006)
  • czyx
  • czyx
  • Sparking the gap.
  • Offline
  • From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2004-09-11

Re: eXistenZ

feritciva wrote:

Or is there some "realist - virtualist" war going on in there?

My impression was that this was the case.

feritciva wrote:

Is it again a new level of the game as the Chinese character said?

It was this character's line that revealed eXistenZ as a true Cronenbergian horror movie! I took the point of the movie to be that the moment reality-faking technology is introduced, it will completely annihiliate the very concept of reality. Once that happens there is no way to know for certain if you are in a simulated world or not, and there is no way to get back to the "real" world because there is no way to know what is real anymore. Pure existential horror.

At the end of the movie it wasn't necessary to consider which level of reality was the real one, and where the "base characters" might be, because it would have been utterly impossible to tell. The struggle of the anti-virtualist terrorists was futile. The genie could never be put back in the bottle. You could have kept going "up" level by level forever, never knowing if you'd reached the original players in the original world or simply another simulation. This is the conundrum of the world in which we (you, me, Tom, Andy, Carissa,  Kathy, etc.) presently find ourselves, and this is why the "consensus reality" of the current social world is bullshit. It's a band-aid on existential horror.

It's very difficult and maybe impossible to find true reality by searching false reality for what is "more real". Your ladder to heaven may twist back on itself. This is why mysticism is so important. The mystic is at ease with the contradictions and paradoxes of reality, and is therefore able to accept and use them from a position of detachment. True reality is not logical. It can contradict itself. False reality is based on codes and languages. It strives not to contradict itself, in order to appear more substantial. Projecting an air of substance through apparent completeness and abundance is its way of emulating the perfect essence it can never have. Meister Eckhart said "God does not exist ... God is far greater ... God is beyond existence." and "All creatures are a pure nothing. I don’t say they are insignificant or a something: they are absolute nothing. Whatever hasn’t essence does not exist. No creature has essence, because the essence of all is in the presence of God." and "All creatures are words of God." It is better to knowingly abide in the essence of God, which is always right there, not up the ladder of reality/density levels or in the data swamp.

Anyway--take my words with a grain of salt. I'm trying to figure this out, too. smile

--Justin
  • From: Denver
  • Registered: 2005-08-02

Re: eXistenZ

Re-Member when YOU heard (or herd):

Welcome to Solipsist Ville.

Hope we enjoy YOUR stay.......

11   23   11
  • From: istanbul
  • Registered: 2004-05-13

Re: eXistenZ

I think you're very right on saying reality (both in the movie and here) is like Russian dolls. And it definitely contradicts itself. This is what amazes me nowadays. There are some sources/people that I see as very helpful once and see as a danger now.

Your post made great sense to me Czyx. "False reality strives not to contradict itself, in order to appear more substantial". Such a great definiton! This is what I take into account in my search now. And one really gets more & more disappointed/amazed/surprised to observe the emptiness of "consensus reality" of today's social world.


By the way that was cool Siri!  smile

Change we must, to live again
- Jon Anderson