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The Matrix And Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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From the ancient Greece to France, and finally to American and Hollywood, the question of perception and reality has been a perplexing problem for many philosophers. American philosopher Hilary Putnam generated a thought intriguing experiment on this question, and his experiment became a basis for the movie The Matrix. Basically, he proposed an idea about the situation where one’s sensory information can be deceptive. For example, every single part of human sensory system including the brain and nerve system is transferred to a vat to connect to the computer. If the sensory information is provided through the computer data, and if the data is directly transmitted to the brain, then the brain will not be able to distinguish the computer data …show more content…

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. The oppressor is the cave in Plato’s story, and the Matrix in the movie. The difference is the person in the cave is freed by someone else, but the characters in the movie are freed by themselves. Also, the cave people desire to stay in the cave because the outside world seemed too dangerous according to the person who explored the external world. After seeing the reality, however, the characters in the movie fight the Matrix, and refuse to go back to the cyber …show more content…

However, Cypher from The Matrix suggests that it is better to live in the artificial world then to know the gloomy yet real world. It is because the artificial world provided only the painted truth and blinded people with the comfort. Generations after the generations, humanity have been seeking the truth instead of the comfort. John Stuart Mill, one of the fine philosophers once said, “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question” (Mill). That means, even the reality is harsh and hard to accept, people desire to know the truth. In John 8:32, the Scripture says “then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (NIV). Therefore, knowing the harshness of the truth might sound scary at first, but it is better than to be fooled by the fake and manipulated

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Every individual spends their entire life trying to understand what reality is; however, because reality consist of two forms- perceived reality and actual reality, it is essential that you understand both in order to truly comprehend reality. Perceived reality is one’s perception of reality based on personal experiences and surroundings. Actual reality is actual and definite or the factual aspect of reality. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” Dick Gregory’s “Shame” and Frederick Douglass’ “Learning to Read and Write” illustrate examples of reality being composed of two different perceptions and how the ability to comprehend both is necessary in order to conceptualize

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Allegory of the Cave, a short story by renowned philosopher Plato, describes the life of prisoners chained inside of a cave where all the knowledge they receive is given by unknown strangers behind them. It continues to elaborate on their transition from a lackluster world where they were truly in the dark to one that completely surpasses all expectations. Likewise, Stranger Than Fiction, a movie written by Zach Helm, illustrates an IRS auditor, Harold Crick, that is shackled by his mundane lifestyle and also has an embodied voice that seems to be controlling his life. The movie goes on to describe his arduous journey toward finding the woman behind the voice, which ultimately gives him a new perspective on life. Zach Helm’s screenplay Stranger Than Fiction and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave both describe the experience of a person escaping limited perspective darkness and discovering a more complex world than they had previously thought existed.

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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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The first concept both share is the philosophy that humans accept the reality that is presented to them. In Plato’s allegory, three prisoners are chained and unable to see behind themselves. With a fire roaring in the cave, the prisoners see only the shadows of those passing by. The story then explains that if a prisoner were to escape, he would be unable to see because the sun would be too bright outside the cave.

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Plato’s and Peter Weir’s main concept is that people see reality as the visible world when reality is more than just the visible world. In both stories, they only knew what they were being tricked into believing. They would throw hardships at them whenever they were about to find out the truth. For Plato, education is a turning around of the soul (Plato, 248). As the master creator Chrystoff says, "We accept the reality of world with which we are presented" (Niccol 1998).

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This message entails people's outlook on reality and the perception that is presented to them. Overall I believe that Plato’s allegory has proved to exemplify a more effective transition from illusion to reality due to its relatability to Socrates message depicting human perception and

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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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In Plato’s allegory of the cave he enplanes the effect of society. In the allegory there are people chained in a cave. All they know are the shadows that they see. The shadows are being made by the shadow master who is in front of a fire. So if the shadow master shows them a shadow of a toy dragon then the people in the cave will believe that dragons are real because they saw the shadow.

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In life, the world one lives in is always assumed to be the reality, without anyone questioning its credibility. As Iris Murdoch once said, “[People] live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality. ”(Iris Murdoch Quotes). In The Allegory of the Cave by Plato, prisoners are trapped in a cave and chained so that they are to face a wall and only see the shadows of objects that pass behind them.

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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.

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In other words they only know about that false reality that they are living in and to them there is nothing else. Plato then goes on to describe of how those people are enlightened when one is taken out of the cave and brought into the outside world they are shown the real reality and “enlightened”. If one of the people is enlightened he or she will be motivated to help those in the cave

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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)”

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Taylor Chism Philosophy 101 Britni Weaver Final Essay The Reality of Ignorant Bliss As long as we are living and breathing, there will constantly be a search of tangible fulfillment. Daily triumphs, hardships, heartbreak, lifetime goals; a never ending plethora of synapses occurring in our brains. However, “The Matrix” challenges those ideas and questions whether or not these connections and goals are physical occurrences or simply our brains registering things our nerves are programmed to tell us.

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The “evolution of human-created technology” (2005, p. 7), according to Ray Kurzweil, will bring forth a posthuman society in which elaborate thinking machines will “enable our human-machine civilization to transcend the human brain’s limitations” (2005, p. 20). Indeed, many scholars agree that Galatea 2.2 highlights “fascinations and anxieties about the possibilities of computer technology to construct a human consciousness or mind” (Worthington, 2009, p. 111). While this may be the generic topic of Galatea 2.2, many scholars ignore not only the novel’s implicit emphasis on the disparity between artificial intelligence and human consciousness but also its underlying attention to the nature of (human) cognition. Especially, Katherine Hayles points out that Galatea 2.2 “hover[s] between two notational systems, referencing both the human and the posthuman” and suggests that “an unbridgeable gap separates the human woman from the posthuman computer” (1999, p. 263).

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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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