Friday, March 12, 2010

reflecting on the matrix

Having seen The Matrix multiple times before, I never really looked too much into the ideas that stood behind much of what the movie is trying to convey. One of my favorite ideas that is used by the movie that is tied to an ancient is the idea of flux as it is said by Heraclitus. The matrix itself is constantly being changed and moved by the underlying code of numbers that keeps the matrix running and never consisting of the same thing but always appearing constant. I always liked the idea that the matrix was made as just numbers that were behind the images that we perceive and that it represents reality, which is where Pythagoras is found in the movie's philosophy. The idea that this futuristic reality is filled with ancient philosophies gets back at part of what we are studying these ancients for and why people should study them, that even in the future the world may be made up of the same thing that people have thought for centuries.

2 comments:

  1. Michael,

    I like the fact that you are seeing the relevance of the ancients' thought for the world today. One question about your post. Heraclitus and Parmenides are most often taken to be polar opposites (at least on Roochnik's interpretation, as well as many others'). So, does the Matrix embody the radical flux of Heraclitus, or the constancy and unity of being attributed to Parmenides? How do you see both at the same time in the Matrix?

    Thanks for the post!

    ReplyDelete
  2. interesting observation of the movie.Like this post.

    ReplyDelete