Living in a world of ignorant bliss sounds easier, yet the sacrifice of not knowing the truth is too high in my opinion. That is why I would choose to deal with the harshness of reality. Living. in reality, can be beautiful as well as bitter, but living in the unknowning is something I would not be okay with. “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” This was said by an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. In the Matrix we encounter two characters, Neo who wants to discover the truth about The Matrix and Cypher, who betrays his friend so he can forget the truth and go back to living in ignorance. In life we sometimes receive get the choice to either go out and and discover more about the world or be oblivious to what's out …show more content…
So how can I be so sure of that when I have never in fact touched or seen him. How do I know if he is real or not real? I use faith and reason and let my religion guide me. I am certain there is a God because this is what I choose to believe and follow. Although this is my perception of the world, others will not agree with me by a reason of having differentofbecause they have different beliefs and that’s perfectly acceptable okay. In Plato's, The Allegory of the Cave, I believe he is trying to say that we will never attain knowledge if we rely on our sense or perception alone, he implies we are blind mentally. He teaches us that we are ignorant to the fact of what is right in front of us, the prisoners for their whole life believed that the shadows were indeed real life and had no idea of what was true. “Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.” This quote is said by William Shakespeare. It tells us that the more knowledge we have the better we are off in
Let me briefly explain a simplified plot of The Matrix. The story centers around a computer-generated world that has been created to hide the truth from humans. In this world people are kept in slavery without their knowledge. This world is designed to simulate the peak of human civilization which had been destroyed by nuclear war. The majority of the world's population is oblivious to the fact that their world is digital rather than real, and they continue living out their daily lives without questioning their reality. The main character, Neo, is a matrix-bound human who knows that something is not right with the world he lives in, and is eager to learn the truth. He is offered the truth from a character named Morpheus, who proclaims that Neo is “the One” (chosen one) who will eventually destroy the Matrix, thereby setting the humans “free.” For this to happen, Neo must first overcome the Sentient Program agents who can jump into anyone's digital body. They are the Gate Keepers and hold the keys to The Matrix.
Socrates once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” He questioned the very nature of why things were the way they were, while never settling for simple, mundane answers. Socrates would rather die searching for the truth than live accepting what he considered a blatant lie. I like to think of myself the same way. I too would rather examine the wonders of life rather than accept what I am just told. The truth is some can’t handle the truth. I on the other hand welcome it with earnest anticipation and fervent enthusiasm.
In Plato’s allegory of the cave, the prisoners are fearful of the unknown and the risks which they have to take to become free. The prisoners dare not to go to the surface in fear of losing their eyesight. Prisoners were so scared that they would murder to stay in the cave. However for the ones which take the risk, they could be lucky and reach their full potential or know of it in which they return to the cave slightly blinded from the bright light. Knowing something does not always advantage the character, but it could disadvantage them as well.
In Sophocles’ play, Oedipus, the King, there are various instances where Oedipus tries to escape his destiny—enlightenment—only to discover the truth that he cannot. Similarly, in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” the prisoner travails to understand and adjust to his newly visited environment. In both works, the men first had to realize their ignorance before they could begin to acquire knowledge and true understanding of the complexities of the human condition. Specifically, in Oedipus, the King, it was Oedipus’ illusion of himself as a man unequaled in leadership whereas in “Allegory of the Cave” it was the prisoner’s initial refutations of enlightenment being shown him until he realizes its intellectual, spiritual, and social significance.
The allegory of the cave is one of Plato’s many theories, probably one of his most known theories as well. This theory is based on the human perception. Plato would say that the knowledge gained through the senses is no more than your opinion but in order to have actual knowledge you have to obtain it through philosophical reasoning. In his theory, he separates people who think that their sensory knowledge it the truth and people who really see the truth.
Whether it’s in the news, TV shows, or movies, it’s happening all the time. It also happens in our everyday personal lives. We get caught in a routine and keeping doing it and it bothers us if that routine is broken or that someone tells us that we should stop doing that daily routine. Plato wants us to look beyond the cave to see what is around us and what is real, not the fake reality that the world sometimes projects. Like Cooper in Interstellar, he stepped outside the “cave” to find a hope for humanity, and at the same time found the tesseract, or the outside of the “cave” again, and found the knowledge he needed to help his daughter figure out the gravity equation and save humanity from dying out. Plato wants us to spread the knowledge of what’s really out there, rather than be prisoners
Have you ever had a dream that you thought was so real? Well, what if you never woke up? How would you determine the difference between the real world and the dream world (Matrix,1999)? Some people in this world live their lives knowing that something is wrong. They can feel it in everything they do. They can feel it when they stare out a window or go to work or even when they pay their taxes (Matrix,1999). This feeling which these individuals are experiencing comes from the matrix.
In The Republic, Plato presents the relationship of the Divided Line and the Allegory of the Cave in connection to his epistemology and metaphysics. Throughout the Republic he discusses his beliefs on many topics using examples that express his ideas more thoroughly. He is able to convey very complex beliefs through his examples of the Divided Line and Allegory of the Cave. Plato’s epistemology depicts his idea of the Divided Line which is a hierarchy where we discover how one obtains knowledge and the Allegory of the Cave relates to Plato’s metaphysics by representing how one is ignorant/blinded at the lowest level but as they move up in the Divided Line, they are able to reach enlightenment through the knowledge of the truth.
The Allegory of the Cave is Plato's explanation of the education of the soul toward enlightenment. He sees it as what happens when someone is educated to the level of philosopher. He contends that they must "go back into the cave" or return to the everyday world of politics, greed and power struggles. The Allegory also attacks people who rely upon or are slaves to their senses. The chains that bind the prisoners are the senses. The fun of the allegory is to try to put all the details of the cave into your interpretation. In other words, what are the models the guards carry? the fire? the struggle out of the cave? the sunlight? the shadows on the cave wall? Socrates, in Book VII of The Republic, just after the allegory told us that the cave was our world and the fire was our sun. He said the path of the prisoner was our soul's ascent to knowledge or enlightenment. He equated our world of sight with the intellect's world of opinion. Both were at the bottom of the ladder of knowledge. Our world of sight allows us to "see" things that are not real, such as parallel lines and perfect circles. He calls this higher understanding the world "abstract Reality" or the Intelligeble world. He equates this abstract reality with the knowledge that comes from reasoning and finally understanding. On the physical side, our world of sight, the stages of growth are first recognition of images (the shadows on the cave wall) then the recognition of objects (the models the guards carry) To understand abstract reality requires the understanding of mathematics and finally the forms or the Ideals of all things (the world outside the cave). But our understanding of the physical world is mirrored in our minds by our ways of thinking. First comes imagination (Socrates thought little of creativity), then our unfounded but real beliefs. Opinion gives way to knowledge through reasoning (learned though mathematics). Finally, the realization of the forms is mirrored by the level of Understanding in the Ways of Thinking. The key to the struggle for knowledge is the reasoning skills acquired through mathematics as they are applied to understanding ourselves. The shadows on the cave wall change continually and are of little worth, but the reality out side the cave never changes and that makes it important.
The basic premise of Plato's allegory of the cave is to depict the nature of the human being, where true reality is hidden, false images and information are perceived as reality. In the allegory Plato tells a story about a man put on a Gnostics path. Prisoners seating in a cave with their legs and necks chained down since childhood, in such way that they cannot move or see each other, only look into the shadows on the wall in front of them; not realizing they have three-dimensional bodies. These images are of men and animals, carried by an unseen men on the background. Now imagine one of the prisoners is liberated into the light, the Gnostic path will become painful and difficult, but slowly his eyes will begin to accommodate what he sees and his fundamentalist view about the world will begin to change; he sees everything through an anarchic thinking and reasons. When he returns into the cave, his fellow prisoners will not recognize him or understand anything he says because he has develop a new senses and capability of perception. This is the representation of the human nature, we live in a cave with false perception of reality that we've been told since childhood, but we must realize that these present perception are incomplete.
...onclusion, the considerations of knowledge and reality are ones that philosophers will continue to contemplate throughout the centuries. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is a wonderful attempt at trying to ascertain the answers to these inquiries with its revealing comparisons that contrast the darkness of ignorance and the light of the sun to knowledge to demonstrate an individual’s journey up and out of the cave to the immaterial world of heaven and a state of true enlightenment. The allegory also illustrates Plato’s ideal of dualism by liberating knowledge from any dependency on anything material or physical. This excursion into Plato’s teachings illuminated the “Allegory of the Cave” in detail, and affirmed the question that dualism does, undeniably, exist and that Plato is correct in his ideal that reality does, without a doubt, go beyond the material world.
The basic premise of Plato’s allegory of the cave is to depict the nature of the human being, where true reality is hidden, false images and information are perceive as reality. In the allegory Plato tells a story of a man who is put on a Gnostics path. Prisoners seating in a cave with their legs and necks chained down since childhood. They are chained in such a way that they cannot move or see each other, only look into the shadows on the wall in front of them; not realizing they have three dimensional bodies. These images are of men and animals, carried by an unseen men on the background. Now imagine one of the prisoners is liberated into the light, the Gnostic path will become painful and difficult, but slowly his eyes will begin to accommodate what he sees and his fundamentalist view about the world will begin to change; soon he sees everything through anarchic thinking and reasons. When he return into the cave, his fellow prisoners don’t recognize him or understand anything he said. He has developed a new senses and capability of perception. This is the representation of the condition of the human nature, we live in a cave with false perception of reality that we’ve been told since childhood, these includes bias belief; but we must realize these present perception are incomplete.
People in everyday life are trapped by their incomplete and flawed understanding of reality. They are able to free themselves from that, but many prefer to remain in the dark.
Wendell Berry a prolific American author once said, “The trouble…is that we are terrifyingly ignorant. The most learned of us are ignorant…the acquisition of knowledge always involves the revelation of ignorance – almost is the revelation of ignorance. Our knowledge of the world instructs us first of all that the world is greater than our knowledge of it ”. (Meadows and Wright, 2008)
At some points of our lives, we as common humans being start to think and analysis certain question about