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The Matrix: Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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What is the nature of reality? This has been the question on the minds of many philosophers and this mystery dates all the way back to the very first human being who studied the nature of one’s own existence. For centuries philosophers have offered their own theories about the nature of reality and died for their beliefs. The movie, The Matrix represents one of the most recent successful attempts by anyone to bring these philosophical questions to the public. The Matrix did a wonderful job of presenting a story that was both entertaining and also full of hidden allusions and secret messages. In the movie there were several scenes that made direct but subtle allusions to the claims and ideas of famous philosophers concerning the nature of reality and the human condition. One of these claims that is referenced is that of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave which is in one of his famous writings, The Republic. In the …show more content…

This is when he sees the real world for the first time and struggles to see because he has never used his eyes before. He learns that everything he thought was real inside the Matrix was really only an illusion created by the Artificial Intelligence. This is very similar to the shadows on the cave walls and the statues that made the shadows, creating copies of things in the real world. In the Allegory of the cave, Plato believed that those who could free themselves and come to identify reality had a duty to return and teach everyone else, and we see this in the Matrix as well. Tom Anderson becomes Neo and decides to save humanity from ignorance and any acceptance of the fake reality they live in. Neo 's eventual awakening is a symbol of the universal philosophic experience of questioning one 's beliefs about the world we live in, and the attempt to discover what exists behind our preconceived

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In the “Allegory of the Cave”, Plato breaks the story into four main scenes to demonstrate the path to enlightenment for the unenlightened reader. He uses a story of a man trapped in a cave,

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The allegory of the cave contains a very poignant message about learning and new experiences but it’s not real. It’s written as Socrates telling a story in order to illustrate his point. The first man is forcibly removed from the cave and shown the light, creating a painful experience. Douglass’ story is autobiographical and it shows a true need for knowledge in order to be free from the bondage of slavery.

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Plato tells us that the prisoners are confused on their emergence from the cave and that the prisoners’ will be blinded once they had been freed from the cave. After a period of time they will adjust their eyesight and begin to understand the true reality that the world poses. The stubbornness to develop a different perspective is seen in much of today’s society. The allegory of the cave is an understanding of what the true world is and how many people never see it because of their views of the society they are raised in.

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Plato’s Allegory of the cave represents life/death/rebirth. Life/death/rebirth is a popular archetype that most authors use in fictional books. Plato’s Allegory of the cave begins with people that are locked in chains inside of a cave. The people inside the cave see shadows on the wall of animals and creatures that they think represents their life. This cave is an illusion of life that the people are experiencing.

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In ‘The Matrix’ and Plato’s allegory of the cave the protagonists are exposed to a new reality that entails an unknown environment that seems to be unrealistic and impossible. In order to understand what they are seeing they have to accept that the new reality is more feasible than the one they previously lived in. ‘The Matrix’ portrays the protagonist, Neo, as a man who is a prisoner to a computer program without realizing there is another reality other than the one he is trapped in. When he is exposed to the truth and is forced out of his comfortable ignorance into a seemingly impossible reality it requires a tremendous effort to accept it.

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Kristen Jakupak Epistemology Philosophy Paper October 5, 2015 Within Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, and Descartes Meditation I, there are multiple similarities and differences in them. Reality is questionable within both of these stories. There is skepticism in them on whether they are truly living, and if it is real, or if it is controlled by something else entirely. In both stories, they also wanted to leave what they understood to be reality, to find what they thought and sensed to be the true reality.

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Socrates’s allegory of the cave in Plato’s Republic Book VII is an accurate depiction of how people can be blinded by what they are only allowed to see. The allegory does have relevance to our modern world. In fact, all of us as a species are still in the “cave” no matter how intelligent or enlightened we think we have become. In Plato’s Republic Book VII, Socrates depicts the scenario in a cave where there are prisoners who are fixed only being able to look at the shadows on the wall which are projections of things passing between them and the light source.

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“Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exist in the soul already;” (Plato). Spoken by Socrates in reference to the philosophy of life, this quote depicts the meaning of broadening our horizons in order to gain knowledge and escape the shackles that confine us in the form of deceit. This quote is portrayed in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” as the prisoners detained in the cave are deluded by their perception of reality, and the prisoner that escapes loses that distorted world and becomes enlightened. The cave is a representation of the hidden lies in which the prisoners are provided as the premises of their knowledge and are restrained from the truth to remain ignorant. Ultimately, one of the prisoners discovers that the world in actuality is

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An individual’s life journey is linked to the process of enlightenment, which can be achieved when one realizes the world they have been dwelling in is an illusion and is not under their own control. The science-fiction movie The Matrix, Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, and Golden-Globe award winning film The Truman Show all have the same underlying theme of escaping an artificial reality. “The Allegory of the Cave” is a dialogue that criticizes human perception. In the dialogue, prisoners draw a parallel between the dwellers in the cave who believe the shadows on the walls are real to humans who believe in perceptions based on empirical knowledge.

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The film takes place in the late 90’s where Neo, the protagonist is a computer programmer that works for one of the top companies in the world. However throughout his life, he has always believed that the world he lived in wasn’t quite right. He eventually meets the Rebels, who confirm that nothing is what it seems. The film than unfolds a truth that the people (within the film) are meant to believe that they are living in a calm, beautiful utopia, a paradise where everyone is going about their daily lives. Nonetheless, in reality their lives are nothing but an illusion: a stimulated reality created by machines in order to use humans an energy source.

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In Plato’s allegory of the cave, it also suggests an alternate world, a world that isn’t recognizably like, in " Allegory of the Cave “and in "The Machine Stops" they both throughout the story

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First off, one rhetoric that " The Allegory of the Cave" has is a metaphor. A metaphor is comparing two unlike things. The focal thought is, a few detainees were bolted into a give in and the couldn't escape. It speaks to that how much freedom is worth. In the event that you never had an opportunity to see the outside world, you just can envision what it resembles.

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A good work of literature can influence an author’s thinking and artistic choices in his/her writing. Every text in intimately interconnected to another previous work, one work of literature that seems timeless and universally used today is Williams Shakespeare’s. Shakespeare’s plays continue in modern culture, due to its general themes like love, tragedy, lust, violence and hate. His work has set up a standard on creating driven plots and plots with a twist. Warm Bodies directed by Jonathan Levine is one of those works that has taken parts from the original adaption of Romeo and Juliet, and created its own verse of forbidden love between two people.

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The state of most human beings is depicted in this myth of the cave and the tale of a thrilling exit from the cave is the source of true understanding. Plato has portrayed the concept of reality and illusion through the allegory of the cave. One of Socrates' and also of Plato's, chief ideas was that of forms, which explains that the world is made up of reflections of more perfect and ideal forms. In the Cave

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In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave the people think that their entire reality is the shadows that they see on the walls of the cave. Plato explores the truth and criticizes that humanity does not question what is real. Plato explores that the human understanding and accepting of what is real is difficult and

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