My wife is out of town. She knows what that means. It means precisely the same thing that it has meant for the last nine years. It means that I will watch The Matrix.

I am currently halfway through my eighth consecutive year of grad school studies in philosophy, theology, and epistemology, currently in a doctoral program at Harvard. I can honestly say that each and every time that I’ve seen The Matrix (too many times to count), I have understood it in a new and exciting way. Its profundity is beyond (ϋπερ) what I previously imagined. Bear in mind that I spend my days reading Śankara, Plato, Derrida, et. al, and I published a book of my research on Heidegger and Aurobindo. So for me to say that The Matrix is every bit as profound as those guys will, I hope, come across as more than a ploy to get eyeballs, site hits, and comments.

What has changed from viewing to viewing? In short: I have. For this latest viewing, I had the benefit of having studied some theology of the body, having observed two transsexual friends go through many changes, learning that the Wachowski brothers (writers, directors, and producers of the Matrix Trilogy) are now Wachowski “siblings,” and having learned more than a little bit about Nicholas of Cusa, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and various other epistemological/linguistic philosophers.

Where to begin? Were I to write at length about the movie, I think I would require 200-300 pages (maybe I’ll do that one day). Instead, though, since this forum is entitled “State of Formation,” I think I’ll just trace a few of my viewings and my formations in-between that have affected my exegesis of the film.

The first time I watched it, I was a youth director in Manhattan and my kids showed it to me. I was bothered by the violence, but the Christian and Christological imagery were hard to miss – Trinity and Neo (an anagram for One), the Nebuchadnezzar, Neo’s death and resurrection and his subsequent saving of the world, etc. Then I studied Plato’s Republic and the allegory of the cave and the film had quite a deeper meaning. Then I read Heidegger’s Being and Time and learned a little bit about Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation, which actually appears in the film. Then I learned about Wittgenstein’s language games, and the construction of knowledge. The film, again, impressed me with its (newfound) depth. There is, of course, philosopher Cornell West, who actually performs in two of the three films in the Trilogy. And then I read Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and my appreciation of the Merovingian in the Matrix trilogy actually declined – then I realized that Dan Brown is an idiot, and The Matrix regained favor in my eyes. More recently, I read Derrida’s Foi et Savoir and Kant’s trilogy: Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, and Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, realized that “Tank” (a character in the films) is “Kant” backwards, and that the entire film (at least the first one) is a work of Derridean/Platonic deconstruction (read Parmenides) in line with Kantian epistemological notions of the construction of knowledge.

Tonight, though, I watched the film again. This time, as I mentioned, with new information about Lana (formerly Larry) Wachowski, new understandings of theologies of the body, and having recently read Nicholas of Cusa’s De docta ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) and De coniecturis (On Conjectures), which explore rather radical notions of epistemology, theology of materiality, and the construction of knowledge – all of which are (shockingly) in-line with the film.

Were I to elaborate, it would far exceed the attention span of even the most attentive blog-readers (myself included!). Instead, I wish to promote a dialogue… Have you seen The Matrix and do you have any thoughts on it? (I haven’t even mentioned Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and I especially welcome insights there!) Are there other movies that have stimulated you or that, perhaps, could be a personal diary of your own history of formation? Do you think I am nuts and am doing what academics tend to do – read far more into things that are actually there? (and does it matter, if I am?) Can pop media serve as a forum for philosophical reflection, or are movies just something to watch while eating popcorn? What do movies have to do with our states of formation?