As usual, the answer will depend on your ethical theory. For instance, some forms of utilitarianism might require that you go into the Matrix if doing so would maximize happiness (e.g., because you'd be much happier, outweighing any unhappiness you might cause to people in the 'real world' by being hooked up to the machine). Indeed, Robert Nozick used his Experience Machine thought experiment (a prequel to The Matrix) to argue that there must be something wrong with utilitarianism precisely because he thought we would not (and should not) hook up to the machine, in which our happiness would not be based on real actions and accomplishments. (There's some interesting experimental work on whether and why people say they would or would not be hooked up.) For various reasons (not just utilitarian), I think everything depends on what you would be leaving behind and what you would be doing in the Matrix. I'm not sure what you meant when you wrote that we should "assume there is a moral disparity between...

Very good question. Most people just assume that Matrix worlds aren't real. But that assumption derives in part from our perspective--we take our world to be real and, relative to our world, the Matrix world is a replica created by computers in our world. But what reason do we have to believe our world is not a creation of intelligences (e.g., gods) in another world? And would our world be an illusion if that were the case? The creators of The Matrix blew a chance to make the sequels more philosophical (and less goofy) by raising the question of whether the "real" world Neo enters might be another Matrix. Of course, that possibility should seem even more likely to someone like Neo who has discovered that the world they thought was real was not, though he never seems to ask that question. But now I'm talking as if matrix worlds are not real, and I'm not convinced that's the way to talk. What does "hand" refer to in the matrix? One plausible answer is that "hand" refers to the ...