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Comparison between Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave" and The Matrix
Compare and contrast the allegory of the cave by plato and the matrix
Compare and contrast the allegory of the cave by plato and the matrix
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The matrix
“You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” What pill would you take? The film, The Matrix, mirrors Plato’s allegory. They revolve around the concept of imprisonment of the mind. In other words, a slave, when a person’s mind is taken from reality. To further my explanation, they are controlled to believe that they are free. Although, they are not free, because they are living a life that’s not real.
The Plato’s Cave allegory is about prisoners that are chained in a cave since birth, that believe life in one state of reality. This was forced upon them. They cannot turn to see anything behind them because their necks were chained. The only thing they can see is the wall in the cave. Behind them was a burning fire. In between the fire and the prisoners was a parapet. The puppeteers hold up objects that cause shadows on the only wall the prisoners can see. They believe the shadows are reality. They would talk about the shadows as if they were the real objects. A prisoner was taken from what he believes is his home, his chains, and dragged outside as he was kicking and screaming, and blinded by the sun’s
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The prisoners are blinded by what is reality and live a life not knowing what’s real or what’s false. In The Matrix, Neo and his team are literally strapped down in a machine in order to enter the program into the armature word. His mission is to save the real world and show them what’s real. In Plato’s allegory, the prisoners are chained in order to only see the shadows, and prisoners are taken to see the real world to teach the other prisoners what’s real. “Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood let alone believed by the masses, “Is a quote from
Does what one sees and hear in life really mean that it is true? Just because one sees a dinosaur in the shadow, does it mean it is real? In the Allegory of the Cave and “The Matrix” one may question what is real and what is fake.
“ Here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so they cannot move” ( Plato 1). The mind of the individual is being taught the wrong things and they will just sit there and accept the false information. Similarity, Neo is in the world that he has known for his whole life and a man named Morpheus will guide him out of the dark world that he has been use to to finally see the light of things. When Neo is given the decision to either stay in the illusion world or to find out what is actually real. Morpheus says, “ All I 'm offering is the truth” (Matrix). The truth is what Neo wants, he knew from a long time that there was a Matrix, however he didn 't fully understand it. The truth is power to those who obtain the knowledge. Morpheus offers Neo a blue pill which sends him back to the world of illusion and a red pill which will show him what the Matrix is. Neo accepts the red pill and there was a Alice and Wonderland reference that Morpheus says, “Down the rabbit hole.” However there is no going back up the rabbit hole it 's a reverse of the story. Aristotle says, “The roots of education are bitter,but the fruit are sweet.” Neo knew this new information he was about to get will be unpleasant and he still he took the pill, to not step back into the illusion world. He awoke wrapped in wires and plugs connected in him. He was surrounded by a field of
I: Compare and Contrast The Matrix with the Excerpts Plato and Descartes. What are some similarities and differences?
In Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave”, he tells a story about prisoners that were chained up in a cave. There were shadows constructed on the wall of the cave that played as the prisoner’s reality. One of the prisoners in the story ends up breaking free and begins to experience the real-world. Learning all that he had learned since the cave including the shadows was controlled by other people and a lie. When he went back to tell the others, the others were afraid of what he was saying and didn’t believe him. The question that is being asked for this essay is whether or not we think that “The Allegory of the Cave” is still relevant today. I think that “The Allegory of the Cave” is still relevant in our lives today.
An allegory is a kind of a story in which the things that are happening are compared to something else that is similar and unstated.”The Matrix”, dated back to 1999, is a film by the Wachowski brothers that adapts a number of new and olden philosophies about the truth behind reality. However the most important part to the framework of the movie is adapted from the Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. These two films tend to reveal the truth on the ongoing question about what reality is and the question whether we are living in the real world or an illusion of the world? In the Matrix, Neo, the main character is held in a false sense of reality created by machine software while in the Plato’s Allegory of the Cave; a slave is used as the main character and is presented as being able to comprehend the reality of the cave both inside and outside.
“The Allegory of the Cave” confronts a view of modern constraints from people’s everyday lives. Plato describes how all the prisoners are chained by the legs and head forced to stare at the cave wall where they watch casting shadows and hear noises in which they believe “the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images” (Plato p2). The shackles can portray limitations coming from today’s daily life. There are so many regulations and rules that we are given through the government that we really cannot control our own lives. The majority of the human race seems to believe that the government always makes the best decisions for the country. Other limitations from the shackles include money troubles, sicknesses, and the lack of food for the family. Another quality exposed is the sunlight representing the truth. As a prisoner “turns his neck around and walks and looks towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the gla...
1. Although the Matrix was shown in theatres in 1999 and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave was put together before the common era, there are a few striking parallels to reality and life. In the Matrix, Neo has the question that needs to be answered from the beginning of the film: What is real? Neo was living in a false world, but was not sure of that. Morpheus suggested the same idea (What is real?) when giving Neo a red or blue pill; the red pill gave Neo the way out of the Matrix. In Plato’s Allegory, the cave is used as what our senses tell us what is real or not. The way out from the cave was to climb out and reach the surface of the earth. Humans only see what perceived to be real through the shadows on the wall or the Matrix. These might be the strongest parallel between two completely different worlds and times.
Plato believed in the power of forms more so over the objects we see every day. This belief is made evident in his allegory of “The Cave” in Plato’s “Republic”. Plato weaves a tale between his mentor Socrates and a theoretical student Glaucon. In it, Socrates describes a cave where several men have been chained and restricted to only a certain point of view since childhood. They are made to face a dimly lit cave wall and can only see shadows of forms cast upon the wall behind them from a bonfire from which, forms come and go via a pathway from the outside world into the cave that sits in front of the bonfire. These men take great pride in recounting details of the shadows displayed before them, even so far as to create a hierarchy among the prisoners of who possessed the most knowledge of the shadowy illusions. Socrates then shakes things
Plato's Allegory of the Cave is meant to represent knowledge we wish to seek. In order to obtain true knowledge we first need to escape what we think we already know, sense experience. The Cave represents society, the true reality in which we dwell on. The Sunlight when the prisoner is being released represents truth and new knowledge that is being aquired. It helped him see the world clearly for what it really is, instead of being in the darkness of the cave seeing the shadows casted by the fire behind him. The prisoners in the Cave represent common humans in society, who are ignorant and only have knowledge in what they want to know and nothing beyond that. The shadows represent what we perceive. We accept appearance for reality. For example
In Plato’s Cave Allegory, a group of “prisoners” have been chained in a cave facing a blank stonewall since birth. They know
Trinity tells Neo, “The Matrix can not tell you who you are”. Neo is brave enough to walk away and take the red pill, just like the freed prisoner, Neo , and human kind itself, are making the first step towards personal independence.
In Plato’s story “Allegory Of the Cave” there are a group of prisoners that have been chained in a dark cave their whole life not being able to turn back at all. The only contact they have with the outside world is seeing the shadows of the things that pass behind them. Then one prisoner becomes free and is able to explore the outside world. When the freed prisoner steps outside for the first time in his life the beaming sun blinds him but then gets used to the sun and is amazed by everything not being just a shadow. The freed prisoner tried to go back with the other prisoners and elaborate the outside world but was not used to the dark and had a hard time explaining to him. The other prisoners thought
Within the dream world of the movie,”‘The Matrix”, only Neo (symbolic of the term ‘neophyte) is able to awaken and to see that it is not the reality; nor, does the machine run and operated world created by it actually allow for real human existence. Awakening from the Matrix; Neo seeks a new way for himself. First, he meets, Morpheus, a character named after the Greek God of Dreams, who comes to Neo and gives him a choice between the world of the Matrix or reality (the red pill vs the blue pill); Neo accepts reality and emulating Plato’s man in the cave, he is able to see the light. Once Neo discovers that he, and all of humanity is trapped within the Matrix, he tries to bring ‘the light’ and to show other people the way…He tries to come
In the movie The Matrix we find a character by the name of Neo and his struggle adapting to the truth...to reality. This story is closely similar to an ancient Greek text written by Plato called "The Allegory of the Cave." Now both stories are different but the ideas are basically the same. Both Stories have key points that can be analyzed and related to one another almost exactly. There is no doubt that The Matrix was based off Greek philosophy. The idea of freeing your mind or soul as even stated in "The Allegory of the Cave" is a well known idea connecting to Greek philosophy. The Matrix is more futuristic and scientific than "The Cave" but it's the same Idea. Neo is trapped in a false reality created by a computer program that was created by machines that took over the planet. Now the story of course has many themes such as Man vs. Machine, Good vs. Evil, and our favorite Reality vs. Illusion. Neo is unplugged from the matrix and learns the truth and becomes "the one" who is to save the humans from their machine oppressors. "The Cave" is similar in that it has humans trapped in a cave and chained up to only face one direction. The "puppeteers" then make shadows against the wall the humans face using the fire from the outside as a light source. One big difference is that "The Cave" is about two philosophers conversing about the cave as one explains what needs to happen and that the prisoners must free their souls to find truth. The Matrix is the actions of what the philosopher describes actually happening. The comparing of the two stories will show how things said in "The Cave" are the same as in The Matrix, of course with the exception that one is futuristic ...
In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” we can find a dark den with prisoners inside, which are held down by shackles and with a fire behind them, restricting them from moving and look behind them. Also the fire behind acts as a source of projection for the objects shown to them via shadows. One day one prisoner breaks free and escapes from the den and sees “reality”, but momentarily he gets temporarily blinded by the cause of that he wasn't adapted to light, all he saw in his entire life were shadows and darkness. After a while, he explores and sees the sun, which made him admire the beauty of the outside world.