The Matrix And Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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

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

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