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Comparing Plato's Cave And The Movie

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The Matrix- Plato’s Cave What are the restrictions and boundaries of our own actions and thoughts? One could say that the world we live in today is a prison for our minds. This prison mediates our senses, and blocks us from divine truth and knowledge. For one thing is true, knowledge is power and power is freedom. Plato’s allegory of the cave paints us a picture of this prison. I will be discussing the similarities between Plato’s cave and The Matrix, the movie. Although we may feel content with our lives and feel a sense of completion, seeing the world as it truly is by breaking from this prison brings us to a whole new level of plenitude. Plato describes the cave as a dark cavern that houses prisoners. These prisoners are chained in such a way that they can only see what is in front of them. Being able to move or look around is not an option. Behind them …show more content…

For example, Plato’s cave describes the prisoners as being blinded from reality. Much like these prisoners, Neo was also blinded from the real world. The matrix controlled him and kept him in his comfort zone. The matrix was the chains binding Neo to the only home and social environment he knew. Another element that is common to both Plato’s cave and The Matrix is the liberator. The liberator in Plato’s cave already knows the truth and is on a mission. He must effectively remove a prisoner from his comfort zone and expose him to reality. Once the prisoner is aware of the truth and accepts the truth, the liberator repeats his mission or the freed slave becomes the new liberator. The Matrix also has a liberator, Morpheus. Morpheus is sent into the matrix to save Neo. Many other elements like the struggle of the prisoners before they see the truth and the rescuer being a hero are shared between The Matrix and the allegory. The Matrix does an excellent job in painting us the elements of the allegory and helps us understand Plato’s theory of

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The movie The Matrix has many similar themes and differences to “The Allegory of the Cave”. The Matrix is about a man named Neo, he believes that he’s a normal man with a normal life but then he is contacted by a man named Morpheus. Morpheus exposes Neo to the truth that his world, where he is just regular Tom Anderson is made up. The Matrix , was created by sentient machines that subdue the human population, while their bodies ' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. Neo is reluctant to accept this truth that his old world, the matrix it is called, does not really exist.

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However, as the story progresses, Montag begins to question the validity of these norms and embarks on a journey of enlightenment, defying his society's expectations. Similarly, in Plato's Allegory of the Cave, the prisoners are trapped in a state of ignorance, knowing only the shadows cast on the cave walls. For another example, “He will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive someone saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion” (Plato 1). It is only when one prisoner breaks free and ventures outside the cave that he discovers the true nature of reality, symbolizing the pursuit of knowledge and

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773 Words | 4 Pages

The person who releases the prisoners has been enlightened from the bonds of a false reality. The prisoners become completely free when they are realesed from their chains, and accept what things truly are, rather than what they had perceived them to be. The journey out of the cave represents a prisoners’ unwilllingness to change and a resistance to accept new truths. The prisoners have to force themselves out of the cave into this reality.

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But, when adjusted to the sun, the prisoner can see the world as it truly is, not just as the shadows in the cave. Plato begins to explain that if the prisoner returned to the cave to explain what he saw to the other prisoners, they would simply not believe him. Truman, lives in

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The people who are chained up get set free by the keeper, who is a symbol of the sun, or the “Rooster” who wakes people up from their illusions. The people are blinded by the sun and they want to go back to their illusion of life. This is when the people are in the Belly of the Whale or when they are symbolically dead. Once the people realize there is no way of going back to the way it was, they are “reborn” from their illusions and live their lives to the fullest and not take for granted what they have. Plato’s Allegory of the cave is

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“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.

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207 Words | 1 Pages

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.

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According to Plato’s analogy, some prisoners were kept in a dark cave with their neck and legs chained to the wall. They remain chained for a long time, and all they can see was shadows of objects. The shadow was made possible because of the fire behind the prisoners and the people who held the objects while hiding behind a walkway. The shadow on the wall was the only reality for the prisoners, but when one freed prisoner finally got to see the ‘real’ reality. Both of the stories have a person who sees this ‘genuine’ reality.

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Cesar Gutierrez Mr. Kohler Philosophy October 24th, 2017 Plato’s Cave The Matrix and Plato’s Cave share many similarities in their stories. The similarity that stands out the most is the concept of accepting the truth. This can be seen through some of the main characters in each story like Neo and the freed prisoner. Neo is stuck in a fake world run by a computer program called The Matrix.

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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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During the 16th century in Europe, The Protestant Reformation caused people to almost completely reject the previous traditions of Catholic art. They even occasionally destroyed what they could reach of it. A new artistic tradition came along. This moved away significantly from the Southern European tradition (as well as the humanist art during the High Renaissance). But, the Catholic Counter Reformation reacted poorly to Protestant criticism of the art in Roman Catholicism to produce a style of Catholic art.

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485 Words | 2 Pages

Thousands of years ago Greek philosopher Plato wrote the “Allegory of the Cave”, a story that reflected his time and relayed a message and lesson about human perception. Plato’s analysis showed how our perceptions are controlled by our biases and results in us not willing to accept truth. The story carries an everlasting message about society, the acceptance of truth, and the journey there. The film The Matrix relays Plato’s message in a more modern futuristic point of view, while still relating to present day society and providing another medium of analyzing the difference between reality and illusion. Society has dramatically changed over the past two thousand years, but Plato’s message still relates today.

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The matrix is a computer simulated dream world the aliens have put the humans in to keep them under control in order to change a human into a battery. All of the humans in this computer generated dream world have no idea that they are actually in the Matrix except the people that have been released from the dream world. The life of Neo and Trinity inside the Matrix is different from the lives of the other people living inside because they are aware of the real world and just how bad things are outside of the Matrix. All of the other people in the Matrix are unaware of the fact they are in a computer simulated dream world, and they are living a normal life just like us. This is comparable to Plato’s Cave because the people in the cave are made to believe

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728 Words | 3 Pages

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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1159 Words | 5 Pages

Plato says the prisoners that are chained up could not fathom the new truths; they are

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