In the first movie, Neo had to be convinced that the Matrix was a 'virtual reality' created by the machines. At first, he and the people around him were convinced that it was real. In our life, we each create our own 'Matrix' with what we believe. Our beliefs become our philosophy - we create a 'reality' based upon our religion, political party, our society. We accept these things, and try to convince others that our beliefs are real. Others try to convince us that their beliefs are real. The 'Matrix' is the sum total of our beliefs - our 'philosophy'. You can see this sometimes in the posts here, people have accepted a particular distro, and sometimes try to answer others questions by promoting that distro, regardless of whether it will supply the answer to their question(s), if people debate Microsoft and Linux, their 'Matrix' is what forms their comments, and so forth. Our 'Matrix' is not "all around us" (according to the movie) but inside of our minds, according to the beliefs that our teachers, family, society, politcal entities, churches, and so forth, have given us. 8)