Explain Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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.

That is what a smartphone represents to us.” This example shows us how smartphones are so important in our lives. They are intertwined in everything that we do to make our lives easier. Also, another immensely effective example is when he said “Some of the students were asked to place their phones in front of them on their desks; others were told to stow their phones in their pockets or handbags; still others were required to leave their phones in a different room.” This is an example of how well kids take tests when smartphones are involved or not involved. They did this to see if it would affect their concentration with the text if their phones were in the desk in their bag or not even in the room at all. A third example is then he says “...insight sheds light on society’s current gullibility crisis, in which people are all too quick to credit lies and half-truths spread through social media. If your phone has sapped your powers of discernment, you’ll believe anything it tells you.” This example shows how much the inventors of these smart devices and social media know that they are having a negative effect on us but do nothing about it. They know that they are taking out ability to tell what is true and what is true and what

In the ‘The Allegory of the Cave’, Plato uses a philosophical situation to help us as the reader to examine our perception of life by what is around us. Plato uses such an abstract situation to show that we can mistake the information that we gain due to our position in a situation for truth.

Today, smartphones are everywhere. Just about everybody uses them from the time they get up, to the time they go to bed. With this personal tool, a lot of people have seen positive effects from using the device. However, some believe that people are going to far with a smartphone and that now it’s becoming more than a personal companion. This is what Nicholas Carr believes in “How Smartphones Hijack Our Minds.” In the essay Carr argues that smartphones are having a negative effect on people’s minds. He strengthens his argument by use of fact, word choice, and emotional appeal.

Imagery used by Plato as part of his writing style of allegory examines the shadows of the cave as ideas offered at surface level. Plato is showing people are there to believe what is given to them because they do not know anything else to be true. The shadows are explained, as “truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images” (Plato 450). Shadows are a brilliant use of imagery because they resemble something dark, indescribable, and hard to recognize. This helps support Plato’s argument because the truth can only be seen at the basic level without any complex details; it is just known to be true. His philosophy is that people can only see beyond the surface if they have to capability to do so and believe, what others think is crazy.

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.

Once the prisoner climbs out of the cave and is fully immersed in the sun's rays, Socrates continues to explain the prisoner's bewilderment, fear, and blindness to the objects he was now being told were real. The natural reaction of the prisoner would be to recognize shadows and reflections. After his eyes adjust to the sunlight, he begins to see items and people in their own existence, outside of the cave. When the prisoner looks up to the sky and looks into the Sun, and recognizes it as the cause of all that is around him—he has perceived the "Form of the Good!" This point in the passage marks the climax, as the prisoner, who not long ago was blind to the "Form of the Good" (as well as the basic Forms in general), now is aware of reality and truth. When this has occurred, the ultimate stage of thought has been achieved, and that is

Plato’s logical strategy in the allegory of the cave is of deductive reasoning. Plato uses a cave containing people bound by chains which constrict their neck and legs in such a way that they are unable to turn around and there is a fire roaring behind them casting shadows on the wall. Since the prisoners cannot turn their heads to see what is casting the shadow the only thing they can perceive are the shadows and the sounds that seem to becoming from them. This is what Plato argues in the allegory of the cave “To them, I said, the truth would literally be nothing but the shadows of the images.”(The Allegory of the Cave Plato). Since these prisoners know nothing outside of the cave they are ignorant of the “light” and are content on

Back then, children had toys and playgrounds to keep them entertained; these days, most children have an electronic device in their hands, such as an iPad, that keeps them amused. Rather than depend on their own imagination to come up with ways to amuse themselves, they are looking at a screen and poking at it, which takes away their imagination, something that is important to have as a kid. This dependency continues on as we become teenagers and adults, shown through examples in “No Need to Call”. Audrey, a 16-year-old from Roosevelt High School, pretty much lives on her cell phone; she is constantly taking pictures to post on Facebook so that other people can see the version of herself that she wants them to see. She goes as far as to say that if Facebook were deleted, she would be deleted too, which seems a bit too much (Turkle 380). No one should feel like their Facebook, phones or computers are their whole life and that they would not be able to live without them for even one day. This is when we should realize and know that we are way too dependent on those technologies, and that this dependency is not a good thing if we are too absorbed in

However after awhile their eyes adjust and are able to see not only the shadows, but reflections and eventually people themselves, as Plato wrote “when he remembered his old habitation and the wisdom of the den and his fellow prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?” (Plato 870). After being outside for awhile they are eventually thrown back into the blinding darkness of the cave.

People who become too accustomed to lives based around technology will no longer interact in the real world. Today people rely on technology for many things such as communication, entertainment, transportation, e.t.c. For example, in Ray Bradbury’s work “The Pedestrian”, the world has diminished into lives lived sitting in front of TV screens. He writes, “The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multi-colored lights touching their faces, but never really touching them”, (Bradbury, 60). In this example Bradbury describes the life of people watching television all day and seeing the sights on-screen, but not being inspired or enlightened to go outside to experience it. Most people prefer to stay

One of Plato’s more famous writings, The Allegory of the Cave, Plato outlines the story of a man who breaks free of his constraints and comes to learn of new ideas and levels of thought that exist outside of the human level of thinking. However, after having learned so many new concepts, he returns to his fellow beings and attempts to reveal his findings but is rejected and threatened with death. This dialogue is an apparent reference to his teacher’s theories in philosophy and his ultimate demise for his beliefs but is also a relation to the theory of the Divided Line. This essay will analyze major points in The Allegory of the Cave and see how it relates to the Theory of the Divided Line. Also, this

An article for the Baltimore Sun by Rachel Marsden explains how modern technology propagates isolation and begins a vicious cycle. The article presents the scenario of a “guy who doesn't go out much, spends hour upon hour carefully crafting an image on Facebook or Twitter, gauging his success, popularity and self-worth on the number of "likes" from people with whom he has never had a real conversation.” The man lives vicariously through modern technology that prevents him from experiencing the world around him and the people that inhabit it, a technology that was only invented recently. In this scenario, now that the man has created this bubble for himself the rational solution to solving dissatisfaction with this lifestyle is to seek answers in modern technology, in the process further embedding self in said lifestyle and isolating himself even more from human connection. The poem demonstrates a different service of modern technology that has similar isolating results. That service being the ability to quickly possess most any good without having to interact with others much or at all. These byproducts of modern technology are all too apparent in American society today and have a demoralizing affect on the

Everywhere one may go, people will be looking down on their phones, laptops, tablets, and other devices. The fact that people can not go one day without technology is a scary concept to comprehend. Jane E. Brody shows the dangers of our excessive reliance of technology in the essay, “Hooked on Our Smartphones.” This short yet knowledgeable essay gives specific insight into people in societies obsession. Brody fears that our heavy reliance on the technology will limit people's abilities to think on their own. She states that people who are obsessed with their phones become, “disconnected from what really matters, from what makes us feel nourished and grounded as human beings” (Brody). The heavy reliance does not allow one to live a “normal” life. Without people being able to know how to think individually and hold a conversation makes it a worry whether or not people will be able to live on in the future. A recent college study named “The World Unplugged Project” challenged college students all around the world to go technology free for twenty four hours. According to the “The World Unplugged Project,” “a clear majority of students in the 10 countries studied experience distress when they tried to go without their devices for 24 hours.” This experiment is very important because it shows how dependent the future generation of society is on technology. All these examples of our heavy reliance in technology closely relates to Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451. All throughout the novel the heavy reliance in their society is seen. For example, citizens of the dystopian society wear devices called “seashells” in their ears all day long. This small device blasts government propaganda and news. This seashell can closely be related to radio streaming apps seen in our society today. As time progresses it seems that our dependency on technology as a society is getting greater and

The natural world has so much more to offer than the virtual world. It's impossible to experience the beauty or satisfaction of climbing to the top of a mountain from our couches. To explain in “The Duck Hunters” David Armand says Lonnie, “has never been duck hunting before, has not even seen a duck in real life.” It is baffling that a twelve year old has never seen a duck in real life. That may seem insignificant to some, but if he has not seen something as common as a duck then what else has he not seen or done? Nature has eluded him. Lonnie does not know what he is missing. As Armand is a Louisiana native, his life was nature-filled. The character, Lonnie, was said to have never held a shotgun, either. What Armand was using in his writing was showing the readers just how nature can either influence one’s life or not influence. Still yet, Casey, the character in “Can the Selfie Generation …”, has somewhat the same condition. He relies so much on his phone that when the service drops he reacts negatively. Forced to go without service pushed Casey into being a millennial who now had to see nature or endure nature. His experience did resolve into a positive time allowing nature to influence him. If we all would turn off our phones and endure nature, we would taste a bit of nature we would have