Neo is introduced to the "desert of the real." Morpheus says, "We marveled at our own magnificence and gave birth to AI." Scientism is the belief that we should apply the principles and methods of the physical sciences to all other areas of knowledge. This has evolved into a full denial of the reality of any subjective principles. A fundamental assumption of the Matrix architecture is that anything which cannot be objectified does not exist. Today's more optimistic branch of AI believes that a sufficiently powerful and complex machine can mimic anything we might consider human intelligence. This implies materialistic reductionism to an extreme, and also denies our spiritual essence and the existence of intuitive knowledge. Simply put, this means that since chemistry and biology are just complex arrangements of matter, then psychology, believed to be essentially electrochemical processes in the brain, should also be reducible to a material process. These material brain processes are fundamentally computations, and therefore we can build a computing machine at least as intelligent as a human. From this perspective, the brain, equivalent in its functioning to the mind, is nothing but a "computer made of meat." If we never develop the meaning and need for the right-brain, acausal, intuitive processing required to balance the objective and subjective hemispheres of our mind, today's society could suffer a similar fate to The Matrix.

Mopheus says, "Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control." It is clear that what the Matrix used to control the human mind are the old-paradigm values of fear and desire prevalent in 1999 American society. Our words and concepts in the form of fear-based values, like the Matrix programs, are simply man-made tools to program the mind. The danger in today's society is "becoming the program," content to live our personal dramas, with no purpose beyond the mere symbols of something much greater, without ever making a connection between how we live and the true purpose of life. In the Matrix, the map is the same as the territory, and in the real world of Zion the map is simply a means to choose the right path to something much greater. This was demonstrated in Neo's conversation with the Indian man, Roma Kandra, at the train station: "Love is just a word. What really matters is the connection the word implies."