The Illusion of Depth

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. William Shakespeare; As You Like It " When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside who had the ability to change whatever he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. " The Wachowski Siblings; The Matrix The Matrix may have been released 27 years ago, but it stands today as probably the most iconic "World-as-Simulation" narratives in popular culture. Its story - about a lowly computer hacker who comes to realise that his entire Reality is nothing but a vast computer simulation - has become a genre trope unto itself, begetting countless other films; television episodes and fringe conspiracy theories. The Matrix may not have invented the concept, but it doubtless introduced it into the general cultural vocabulary for the next two decades. The problem is that the plot of The Matrix really doesn'...