Warp wrote:
>   Just because we can't imagine humans as sources of power now doesn't mean
> that it wouldn't at least he *plausible* that maybe hundreds of years from
> now machines invent a way to actually get enormous amounts of energy from
> humans through a process we can't even imagine right now (exactly in the
> same way as 200 years ago people couldn't even imagine the process by which
> sand could be used to perform billions of calculations per second).

Hmmm. There's nothing particularly unique about humans. What about 
monkeys? What about bags of protein and water attached to chemical 
drips? What's the difference? And Morpheus says at one point how much 
*heat* energy a human body generates (in a practically obsolete unit). 
Your logic is stretched almost to breaking point by its generosity!

>   Far-fetched? Maybe. Plausible? Yes.

As far fetched -> infinity, plausibility -> 0.

>   Well, their brain was directly connected to the Matrix after all.
> It's plausible that the wrong feedback could kill the person connected
> to it.
Yah. Weak point, I admit. I was criticizing the coughing up blood etc 
more than the actual death.

>   As for the restricted entry points, they were, after all, hacking
> themselves into the system in a way that they avoided detection. In other
> words, they had to find security holes and backdoors.

Yup, fair enough.

>   Different physics in play. It's plausible that an awakened firing a
> gun can't control the bullet, which is 100% simulated by the Matrix,
> and thus agents have full data about it. However, if they punch with
> their fist, they can tamper with the physics routines of the Matrix and
> the agents have hard time following. IOW, they can't predict where the
> fist is going to be in the next 0.1 seconds while they can predict the
> bullet because they have the full physics data related to it at their
> disposal.

But how much faster can an Agent think compared to a human? If it's 
dodging the bullets, then it's not bound by the local physics because 
those physics will prohibit the sort of speed necessary to react and 
move (think whiplash, muscle damage). If it starts to move as the human 
pulls the trigger (in the same way, in theory, humans can also dodge 
bullets) then it has plenty of time to react to the human's slow 
movements. In that case, it has oodles of time to leisurely lean out of 
the way of a plodding fist. It doesn't need to know the physics of the 
flying fist, it can just amble out of the way, fine-tuning its movements 
as it goes.

Um, I've thought about this a bit too much, haven't I? :-)

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