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Comparisons of allegory of the cave and the matrix
The matrix and platos cave allegory compare
Comparisons of allegory of the cave and the matrix
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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,
The most evident similarities between the motion picture The Matrix, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and Descartes’ Meditation is that these works question and inquires the truth of the World around us and raises doubt about the legitimacy of our feeling of recognition. In other words, all three pieces of work question what is real and what reality is. The Matrix is a film that goes up against the genuine and the part of a convoluted, fake digital reality. Before Mr. Anderson (Neo) revelation of the authenticity, Morpheus ask him, “Have you ever had a dream that you are so sure was real? What if you were able to wake up from that dream, how would you know the difference between that dream world and the real world?”
“An unexamined life is a life not worth living” - Socrates. Both ‘The Matrix’ and Plato’s allegory of ‘The Cave’ develops a question of reality and how the world is perceived. This can be closely connected to one of the great Greek philosopher’s sayings where an “unexamined life is a life not worth living”. Socrates states this due to the increasing number of citizens who lived their lives without questioning the world around them. ‘The Matrix’ and Plato’s allegory explore how when the world is properly examined the outcome is a new understanding and perception of life.
Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave and the Matrix have a lot of similarities. The Matrix is very similar to the allegory because both act as a prison of false reality. The prisoners in the allegory are people who have grown up in the cave and never seen anything other than their reality. In The Matrix, Neo and other humans are the prisoners of a computer simulation that resembles our society. Plato wanted to portray that reality isn’t always what it seems.
1) In the allegory of the cave, Plato’s main goal is to illustrate his view of knowledge. A group of prisoners have been chained in a cave their whole lives and all they have ever been exposed to were shadows on the wall and voices of people walking by. The prisoners in the cave represent humans who only pay attention to the physical aspects of the world (sight and sound). Once one of them escapes and sees the blinding light, all he wants is to retreat back to the cave and return to his prior way of living. This shows that Plato believes enlightenment and education are painful, but the pain is necessary for enlightenment and it is worth it.
We think that the things we see and otherwise perceive are real. However, we are incorrect because the things that we perceive are mere shadows. There are true forms of everything that we think we perceive, but we cannot see those forms. In the allegory of the cave, Plato is trying to make us understand that we see shadows and we think they are the real thing.
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.
I peer intently at the man seated in front of me, his face distorted by the fluorescent lights cast down from above. I let out a huff, is this really how I’m spending my Friday night? When I was called in for an emergency questioning, I was excited. But this fool isn’t worth my time. I know I’m younger than most detectives, but I still do deserve valid cases.
In Plato’s, The Republic, he states that true knowledge can only be attained through philosophical reasoning rather than sensory perceptions. He analogizes this through the Allegory of the
Plato tells of a group of prisoners held in a dark cave chained to the walls. These people have never stepped outside into the world and can only experience shadows that are displayed on the opposite side of the cave through the light outside of the cave. One of the slaves, now liberated steps outside of the cave and is able to experience reality, or what we can distinguish as objective truth. After returning to explain to the other what he has seen there seems to be quite a difference in opinions(Plato). In his article Plato’s Cave, T.F Morris attempts to dissect Plato’s allegory and explains his belief that “… the shadows on the wall of the cave correspond to what we call reality…(Morris 417)”
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
Plato’s theory, ‘The Allegory of the Cave’, aims to explain the nature of reality and human perception. With this theory of his, he aims to answer questions like ‘why are we here and what is reality?’ He explains this theory as a conversation between his mentor, Socrates and one of his students, Glaucon. Plato claimed that the knowledge gained through our senses is not real knowledge. In fact, real knowledge is the knowledge that is gained through deep philosophical reasoning.
In Plato’s theory the cave there are a row of people shackled with their backs against a wall, with only a wall right in front of them. Behind them was a the world they didn’t know and couldn’t see, all they saw were the shadows that were casted onto the wall in front of them. This relates to the matrix, all these people are living in what they think is real life but is really the matrix and they don’t know any better because they’ve never seen anything else other than the matrix. One of the people that were shackled to the wall escape and see what is really casting the shadows, they see what real life is. When Neo takes the red pill in the matrix and sees what life really is, other than the matrix he’s been stuck in his whole life.
The phrase “ignorance is bliss” has many different ways of being interpreted. The idea that what we do not know cannot hurt us, and that it is better to be in a situation whereby we are ignorant to the truth, rather than a situation where we know a hurtful truth, is one that can be debated at length. One of the best examples of the idea of “ignorance is bliss”, and the impact that the truth can have on people, is the Allegory of the Cave, a concept created by the Greek philosopher Plato in the fourth century BCE. The allegory shows how our perspective can change radically when given new information, and how that new information, when shared with others who are not aware of it, can give them a radically incorrect idea of the truth, when not taken in the proper context. Here, we will first explain the concept of this Allegory of the Cave, before interpreting its meaning and how it related to the greater ideals, values, and convictions that Plato and his philosophical works stood for during and after his lifetime.
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
