True Reality In Plato's Allegory And 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,

The similarities between The Cave and The Matrix are too uncanny. The description of the cave above, which is discussed in the first paragraph of Plato’s seventh book, can be portrayed similarly in

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?

Neuromancer came up with a novel approach towards science fiction, and was instrumental in spawning multiple movies of similar genre. One of such movie is “The Matrix”. The reason I chose this movie for the review is the very concept of stimulated reality in this movie being quite analogous to the one slowly budding towards the end in the Neuromancer.

This first paragraph that begins the story is perfect in showing The Matrix ideas. Humans live in pods in large fields were they are grown. So like in the story they are prisoners even as children and they are plugged into the matrix or "chained so they cannot move." The fire behind the prisoners is like the matrix program it self, it's there to make illusions and make the prisoners think what they see is "real." Lastly there are the puppeteers who make shadows using the fire and create illusions. The puppeteers can easily be linked to the machines that hold the humans as prisoners and make what happens in the matrix happen. Such as the puppeteers make shadows in the fire to trick the humans, the machines do the same thing in The Matrix, it's just in a more advanced and complicated way. The machines create

The whole point of the allegory is to represent to journey to enlightenment. The prisoners represent either the unenlightened that have not had enough experience to gain great wisdom or the uneducated that have not learned enough to gain great intelligence. And being thrown out of the cave into the outside world represents the process of becoming enlightened. Once enlightened they would of course not want to leave and to make them go back into the Cave would be cruel, as is noted by Glaucon. But as is explained they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labors and honors, whether they are worth having or not” (873). Plato claims that these enlightened have a moral responsibility to bring their wisdom to the common people in order to help them learn more so everyone can benefit from the knowledge of an individual. This is certainly an agreeable prospect and one that is not seen enough in the real world. Once

In the excerpt from Plato, the prisoner’s legs and necks were restrained “so that they remain in the same spot, able to look forward only” (Plato). The prisoners are only able to see the shadows that were casted onto the walls in front of them, and hear the voices of the puppeteers from behind by using the light from the fire. Shadows and voices is all the prisoners knew and understand; this is reality to them, this is their world because this is all they have ever known. The Matrix is

The most prevalent issue in the Matrix, Plato and Descartes is Deception. Philosophers have tussled with the issue of realizing and knowing what is real and also how humans will react to the truth, when they learn it. The Matrix, Plato and Descartes have similar point of view. Both stories describe unconscious humans lying in a huge machine keeping them alive and at the same time another computer feeding them with some sort of dream or illusion. In addition, they were being deluded with their virtual lives, which means “They experience being born, growing up, and getting jobs, growing old, and dying through their virtual lives in a computer simulation called "the Matrix."(Synopsis: The Matrix). In contrast, The Matrix and Plato's The Allegory of the cave show they had valid explanations or prove to ratify their beliefs.

Inside the cave the prisoners are forced to look at the wall of shadows, which really means that they are forced to stare at their false reality. This is because they had “their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move”(par 1). The chains represent what in life is holding people back from seeing the truth. There are people supplying this false reality through ”objects which are being carried” (par 3) behind the prisoners, which casts their shadows on the wall. These objects represent the reality that they know. Behind this reality are the people supplying the prisoners with the lies. The shadow casters sit behind the wall “like the screen which marionette players have in front of them”(par 1). The shadow casters force people to see the reality that they are projecting. They believe that those objects on the wall is everything that there is to the world.

Not being aware of the outside world the humans that are trapped within the Matrix only know what the machine tell them. According to the Buddhist the biggest problem that humanity face is not being able to not see through the illusion. Not knowing that they are looking at the shadows reflection of the object many fail to see through the illusion. “Humans are trapped in a cycle of illusion, and their ignorance of this cycle keeps them locked in it.” (Cline 1)

In all three, though, knowledge of reality, of what’s true, is sought. It is shown, in all three, that not all desire such and even less achieve it. In both The Matrix and The Cave Analogy, children are mentioned as the starting point of knowing what’s real or true. One of the major differences noticed in the three is the way in which the search for truth is both carried out and ends. . Neo finally accepts the reality he is shown.

How do we know what is real? This is a question asked by everyone at some point during his or her life. Humanity’s ability to discern reality from fantasy is something we take for granted and sometimes we fail to question. These theories were discussed by great philosophers like Plato and Descartes and were more recently brought mainstream by the hit film The Matrix. While The Matrix brings up similar questions as these philosophers, there are also a few different ideas the movie would like the viewer to consider and draw their own thoughts from.

The year was 1999 when a single cinematic picture shook the world of philosophy; this films name was The Matrix. This science-fiction film follows a computer hacker named Thomas “Neo” Anderson on his journey out of an artificial reality called the matrix. In the film, humans were held unconscious and against their will in vats hooked up to machines giving the machines infinite energy (“The Matrix”). While the humans were alive in an artificial reality, having no clue what is really happening to them. Philosophers everywhere struggled to find an accurate answer on how to debunk the one very popular question that arose from The Matrix, which is could humans be living in an artificial reality without knowing? But, philosophers began to notice

Socrates describes people in a cave since birth, bound so they can only see what is in front of them. There are shadows and sounds that can be observed but the source is unknown. Socrates says in 515c, “…such men would hold that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of artificial things.” Their reality is limited by their experience. Then a prisoner is freed from the bonds and is forced to look at the fire and the statues that were used to cast the shadows on the walls. He is overwhelmed by the revelations and learns that the shadows were not the reality.

The man observes everything through an unconventional way of thinking and reason. When he returns back into the cave, the others do not recognize him nor accept anything he says to have witnessed outside those walls. This is because he is the only one to develop a new sense of perception and understanding of which the other prisoners are incapable of comprehending.