A Comparison of The Matrix and Plato's The Allegory of the Cave

Descartes wonders what else that he can know by using this same logic, but first must establish the idea of God and that God is not deceiving him. He reasons that God exists because he as a mortal could not create the idea of such a powerful being, and only a being as powerful as God could have caused an idea of a God that is perfect. Descartes goes on to reason that because God is perfect, then God would not deceive him about anything. It’s not that Descartes is being deceived, but rather his lack of knowledge or understanding about the matters at hand is causing the problem he is facing.

In Plato's Cave, the prisoners are tied down with chains, hand, and foot under bondage. In fact they have been there since their childhood, which much like matrix people are seen as in reality being bound within a pad whereby they are feed images/illusions which keep them in a dreamlike state and they have been in this bondage by virtue of the virtual reality pads in the fields since their youth and like the allegory of the Cave they are completely unaware of such a predicament since in regards to the Cave they have become conditioned to the shadows that dance upon the wall and do not see the true forms of which the shadow is a mere non-substantial pattern of. In the Matrix, within the person of the virtual world, it is a non-substantial pattern of the world, it is reflective of the real world, it is a shadow in its form and nature being a simulation of the world at a particular point in history. Like the prisoners in the cave, those who are prisoners in the system of a matrix are held in their calm state by reason of the illusion that stimulates them and tricks them into remaining asleep or rather into being ignorant of the fact that they are prisoners in pads so the machines can feed on their bio-energy. The shadows on the wall which are reflective is to keep the prisoners on the Cave unaware of the fact that they are prisoners, that they are under bondage and have never truly seen life outside of the Cave. The shadows on the walls are by puppets, perchance puppeteers. They could be seen as the agents, whom within the Matrix being programs are to maintain that the humans asleep in the matrix remain in their comatose state, they are to support the illusion, by keeping man actively ignorant of what is truly happening, so they never wake up. The puppeteers of the puppets which are seen on the wall to keep the mind of the prisoners stimulated so they never realize that they are chained, and only have a vision that is straightforward, which is basically saying their minds are only subjected to a single perspective and they are blind to the degree of seeing within other perspectives, broader perspectives and this in and of itself is a limitation.

The Matrix and the Allegory of the Cave focus on one central idea: What is real?. They engage the audience in a fictional world where people live in false realities without knowing it. They make us question our own knowledge. Their storylines connect in that the protagonist discovers that everything he knows is a big lie and now he must discover the truth. The protagonist is thrown all of the sudden into the real world and then, he continues to seek the absolute truth. Neo and the prisoner inquire whether knowing the truth is a blessing or a curse.

What if one were living through life completely bound and facing a reality that doesn't even exist? The prisoners in Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" are blind from true reality as well as the people in the movie The Matrix. They are given false images and they accept what their senses are telling them. They believe what they are experiencing is not all that really exists. Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher wrote "The Allegory of the Cave," to explain the process of enlightenment and what true reality may be. In the movie The Matrix, Neo (the main character) was born into a world of illusions called the Matrix.

After the early 21st century, humans built these machines, which are now held in a nuclear-winter-like setting. Being deprived of sunlight as an energy source, they have enslaved the human race and are farming people as a source of bioelectrical energy. The humans are kept in an unconscious state in podlike containers in a vast holding field, plugged in to a central computer. In the scenario of The Matrix, everything in the world; cars, buildings, cities, and countries are part of a complex computer-generated virtual reality, which within the humans interact. Everything they see, smell and hear is part of this virtual construct and does not really exist. A computer merely stimulates their brains and deceives them into believing that they are all living normal 20th-century lives, eating sleeping, working and interacting together. They are all blinded to the truth about how and why they exist. After a handful of people have escaped from the nightmarish world of the Matrix, they find out the truth and reach out to those still consumed with the falsities of this world. One of these, a man named Morpheus, hacks into the Matrix and contacts Neo, telling him,

“And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened... human beings living in an underground den...their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them...you will see...a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets” (Plato 567).

As people face trials and struggles they evolve, either for better or worse. A hero develops positively and, although they make mistakes, tries to better the self whenever possible. The Matrix and the Epic of Gilgamesh both have protagonists that evolve their heroic qualities. The Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem and the oldest written literature discovered to this date, tells the story of two unlikely friends. Gilgamesh, the protagonist, demonstrates tyrannical policies over the city Uruk. The gods created Enkidu to put Gilgamesh in his place. In The Matrix, artificial intelligence started a war against humanity, which they won. After this battle, machines use humans for energy by inserting them into a virtual reality known as The Matrix. Most humans do not know of their existence in this false world. However, a select few people, who acknowledge that The Matrix does not encompass reality, can the bend the rules of The Matrix and, with the right equipment, move between the real dystopian world and The Matrix. Neo, known as “The Chosen One,” can do this and does his best to save his friends, no matter the cost. A hero puts others before themselves, has a strong sense of right and wrong, and does not back down in the face of danger. While both Neo and Enkidu show courage, the ability to put others above themselves, and a fervent moral compass at the beginning of their story arcs; as they both develop, Neo improves these qualities while Enkidu regresses the characteristics as

The prisoners have been in these conditions since their earliest stages of life. The cave, the wall, and the chains are all the prisoners have ever known. Behind the prisoners, there was a raised path. Above the walkway was a platform, where there was a fire burning, and in front of the fire, was a parapet, which as Plato described it , was like that of the screens Puppeteers use to hide themselves and have the puppets be visible . Each and every day, the prisoners see nothing, but the shadows of the objects and people passing between them and the fire. For their entire lives, the prisoners are exposed to nothing but those images and the sounds made by those walking around. These shadows are all they have ever known, in essence; these shadows are their only “reality”. As time passed, the prisoners would grow accustomed to these sights, later on the prisoners would match the objects with names and the familiar sounds to the images of the shadows (514; Appendix A). In discussing the allegory with Glaucon, Socrates toys around the concept of what could happen to a prisoner should they be released after having lived their lives in the cave, with the only knowledge the possess of the world, are the images and sounds by the wall.

Having read the synopsis from The Matrix, the excerpt from Plato, The Republic, Book VII, 514A1-518D8 “The Allegory Of The Cave”, and the excerpt from Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, 1641 “Meditation I Of The Things Of Which We May Doubt”, I am able to conclude that there are similarities as well as differences among these readings. Each question the state of reality in which we live. Is our reality a true state of reality or is it a state of mind we have allowed ourselves to exist in?

Deception is the foundational issue prevalent in The Matrix, Plato’s allegory of the cave, and Rene Descartes meditations. In each of these excerpts the goal of answering the question of what is real and how to uncover the truth is essential. Another question that arises throughout all three excerpts is whether or not the individuals will be able to handle the truth when it is finally learnt. In The Matrix Morpheus reveals to Neo that the life he had previously accepted as an absolute reality is really a virtual reality that is manipulated by a computer which is essentially controlling the mind of every individual as they lie unconscious connected to this

Imagine living through life completely bound and facing a reality that doesn’t even exist. The prisoners in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” are blind from true reality as well as the people in the movie “The Matrix” written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. They are given false images and they accept what their senses are telling them, and they believe what they are experiencing is all that really exists. Plato the ancient Greek philosopher wrote “The Allegory of the Cave”, to explain the process of enlightenment and what true reality may be. In the movie “The Matrix”, Neo (the main character) was born into a world of illusions called the matrix. His true reality is being controlled by the puppet- handlers called the machines who

Do you take the red pill or the blue pill? Is ignorance bliss or is the truth worth knowing? These are questions which revolves around the battle of accepting or rejecting the illusions that constructs all of life. The Matrix and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave both contemplate the question of what is real? According to Plato, knowledge gained through our senses is no more than an opinion, and to obtain true knowledge we must gain by philosophical reasoning. In the Matrix written and directed by the Wachowski sisters (then the Wachowski brothers), had its own complex version of a false reality formed by our perception of life as the actual one surrounds it. To many The Matrix is no more than an interpretation of Plato’s

As Socrates is describing the cave and the situation, he stresses the point that the prisoners are completely oblivious as to what is reality as they would know nothing but the shadows casted by items held by the puppeteers, and believe this to be their own reality. This is important to the story as it shows that what we believe is real from the moment we are born is completely wrong based on our own flawed interpretations of reality. The point so far is that it is not what we can see but what we can’t see is what grasps our minds and Plato describes this thinking as “imagination.”

Plato once said that, “Ignorance [is] the root and stem of all evil”. Ignorance is the cause of everything that is wrong and bad in the world since people are unable to see the truth. If people start breaking free from ignorance, mankind will become happier and more transparent. In the short story, “Allegory of The Cave” by Plato and The Matrix by the Wachowskis, they portray the idea that in order to gain enlightenment, one must break free from ignorance; which opens himself to knowledge; this new truth must then be shared with others for the good of mankind.

Plato's main goal in the Allegory of the Cave is to communicate the relevance and importance of the concept of intellectual perspective. His real agenda is to illustrate that most people are likely perceiving the world around them in a much more limited manner than they realize and that most of us are, to some degree, living our lives in the same circumstances as the prisoners he