Plato Vs Descartes Research Paper

Throughout history there has been an abundance of ancient philosophers, including Plato, who explored metaphysics and its relationship to the real world before Descartes’ began questioning the idea. Nevertheless, his views on dualism are very different from Plato’s. As we know, Plato thinks and feels as if the body is just a vessel for the soul, but Descarte on the other hand strongly believes and shows proof that both your soul and body are connected and intertwining. Stating one is not superior to the other, both work hand and hand, affecting each other.As we can see by Descartes dualism beliefs that even though our bodies and minds are completely separate they need each other.

Another significant difference between Plato and Descartes is

In his acid test, as a way of further breaking down his beliefs, Descartes theorizes that a "malicious deceiver" could be controlling his mind and making him believe that he is awake when he is actually dreaming (384-8). He asserts that "there are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep" (384). This theory is reflected in The Matrix in the rebel leader, Morpheus, who "has the name of the Roman god of dreams and sleep" and refers to leaving the matrix as 'awakening' (Philosophy Goes to the Movies 31). The parallel between Descartes's theory and the character Morpheus is best established when Morpheus asks Neo, "Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?" This mirrors Descartes's dream theory perfectly. Here, Morpheus convinces Neo to question the very foundations of what he believes to be real because of the possibility that he could be dreaming. The dream-world theory is also brought up in the literal form of The Matrix. "A second strategy the filmmakers use is to bring the Cartesian thought experiment literally into being within the film. Thus the dream scenario becomes the computer-generated illusion of the Matrix"

Neo’s overall journey after taking the red pill up to the point of his realization of the full spectrum of his abilities mirrors Descartes’s search for proof that he is real. When Neo awakens out of the Matrix, he learns that the Matrix consist of a virtual reality in which he and everyone on earth has been living since birth. This new cognizance parallels the moment when Descartes realizes he has lived with beliefs that he assumed were true his entire life, but that had never been tested. After his awakening, Neo moves on to start the training necessary for becoming The One, a prophesied savior who will help to free the enslaved human race. Neo’s training with the crew members of the Nebuchadnezzar, the rebels’ ship, is like Descartes’s actual process of doubting his existence. Though Descartes’s reasoning is relatively short in writing, The Matrix expounds on this reasoning for most of the movie. Neo spends his time in training trying to master the matrix; as Morpheus tells him, “what you must learn is that these rules are no different that the rules of a computer system. Some of them can be bent, others can be broken” (The Matrix). Just as Descartes searches for something that cannot be doubted, Neo searches for the limits of The