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Comparisons of allegory of the cave and the matrix
Comparisons of allegory of the cave and the matrix
The matrix vs the cave allegory
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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. The Matrix and “The Allegory of the Cave share a lot of different aspects based on their chracters. First they share the need of knowledge of the truth. In The Matrix, Neo, described by SparkNotes.com’s “The Matrix Trilogy” as being the protagonist that is there to lead Morpheus and his followers who has to gain his responsibility and abilities while leading his crew. Neo is needed to be responsible, and powerful in order to lead everyone to the truth. He gains repsonbility and carries his crew on to violent fights for resolution. On the other hand, the freed prisoner in “The Allegory of the Cave” has to find his knowledge on his own without a crew. He is set free to explore the outside world by himself. He becomes aware of the knowledge in the outside world and brings the information back to his fellow prisoners. Both Neo and the freed prisoner have to face the fact of learning the truth of the unknown. Second, they both share a role where there is …show more content…
First is the idea that in The Matrix Neo has help from Morpheus in order to get free and find his truth. According to Sonia Barrett’s “Names-Matrix Character” Morpheus’ name in Greek means the God of dreams. This helps to connect why Morpheus of all the crews man was so strongly protective over Neo. He could tell that Neo was the one and protected him against everything. Unlike Neo, the freed prisoner in “The Allegory of the Cave” was set free alone to find the reality of the world. He was the only one of the prisoner who got to see the sun, the moon, trees and everything outside of the cave they were locked up in. Unlike Neo, when he tried to tell the others about the reality they did not believe
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.
In the Allegory of the cave, Plato stated "what he had seen before was a cheat and an illusion, but that now, being near to reality and turned toward more real things, he saw more truley." It appeals to me because he's basically inferring what if what we are seeing or what we believe are just our figments of our imagination. A lie that we dwell on, because we are blinded from the truth. Plato statement is something we can all relate. For instance children from our younger years our parents disguise parts of reality to prevent them to live a life of fear. Fear of evil and fear from being hurt. But we as grow older we learn, that there is hate and evil in the world. We learn that not every corner has a rainbow glistening in the sky. And for that
The Matrix is considered by many people to be a cyberpunk triumph. Declan McCullagh from wired.com writes: "When Neo/Reeves wakes up from his VR slumber and unplugs from The Matrix, he joins a ragtag band of rebels led by the charismatic Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne). Their plan: To overthrow the artificial intelligences that have robbed humanity of reality" (McCullagh). Entertainment weekly also sees The Matrix as a movie about rebellion against oppression: "Neo is, of course, The One, the prophesied leader of the oppressed who will lead the people of Zion (an underground city populated by the last free humans) from bondage--but only if he can believe in himself and trust in the power of love" (Bernadin).
What is truly real, and what is not? This question is one which has been pondered deeply throughout human history, and it seemingly has no definitive answer. To understand what is truly a part of reality, and what isn’t, may be an impossible feat. However, two famous works created by humans from two distant time periods attempt to dissect and analyze this philosophical question. The first, The Allegory of the Cave, was written by the great Greek philosopher, Plato, who was born in 428 B.C. in Athens, Greece. The Allegory of the Cave is a piece of a larger work of Plato’s, The Republic, which is a collection of works concerning political philosophy. The Republic is his most famous work and what he is best known for in today’s world. The second
The Matrix modernizes the originality of the Allegory of the cave and adds a more feelings towards the question of reality and how others interperts it. The film and the Allegory have many similarities and differnces but they revolve around the same metaphysical question. Even thought they have many similarities and differnces but the important ones for me are: the film and the allegory's view on reality to others, Neo and the freed man are controlled and the final, the difference between Neo and the freed man are the experince of life.
In this allegory, the depictions of humans as they are chained, their only knowledge of the world is what is seen inside the cave. Plato considers what would happen to people should they embrace the concepts of philosophy, become enlightened by it, and see things as they truly are. As we have mentioned in class, Plato’s theory did not only present itself in his allegory, but also in the Wachowski brothers’ hit film, The Matrix. In the film, the protagonist, Neo, suffers from a similar difficulty of adapting to reality, or the truth, which we will see later on. In order to understand Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, one must consider how Plato’s use of symbols to explain what true knowledge (or enlightenment) really is along with the comparisons to the Wachowski brothers’ film, The Matrix.
In the two Sci-Fi stories; we see choice as the call to adventure. In “The Matrix” we witness ‘Neo’ where he receives a message to ‘follow the white rabbit’ on his computer and meets trinity in a nightclub and tells him she knows the answer to the question “What is the matrix”. It was ‘Neo’ who made the decision to ‘follow the white rabbit’. On
In “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato describes the cave as very dark with chained people inside and a wall where they can only see shadow illusions, which they believe is reality. Outside the cave, there is “light” and “truth.” One chained person is released into the “light,” which is uncomfortable at first, because of how bright the “light” or “truth” is however, once he adjusts, he realizes the outer world is the “truth” or reality and the cave is a shadow of reality. He pities the ones in the cave, still lost in the darkness yet, when he tries to make them see reality, their ignorance overpowers them and they kill the enlightened one out of fear and confusion. This is the kind of society, full of puppet-handlers, the narrator Sylvia in “The Lesson” dwells in and the author, Toni Cade Bambara, depicts Sylvia as being freed from the chains of ignorant society. Bambara’s released prisoner, Miss Moore, is the one to free Sylvia and the other chained prisoners and exposes them to the “light,” which is the unequal distribution of wealth and the “truth,” which is educating youth on economic inequality so the freed prisoners can learn to change their society’s shadow of reality.
These men, known as agents, hold Neo down and insert a metal like device into his stomach. He soon awakes at his house and is told by Morpheus that he is “the one.” When he meets with Trinity and Morpheus, Trinity removes the metal device from his stomach which shocks him because he didn’t believe that to be real. Morpheus soon offers to reveal the Matrix to Neo. He is given the option of a red pill or blue pill; the blue in which he will go home and remember nothing, red in which will allow him to see the truth.
Deep within the cave the prisoners are chained by their necks and have a limited view of reality. Around them, by the distant light of the fire, they only see shadows and outlines of people or objects. From their conclusions of what they may think is real, are false. “The Matrix” parallels Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” in a number of ways. Similar to the prisoners of the cave the humans trapped in the modern day puppet-handlers (the machines) want them to see. In the movie, Neo is a computer hacker, and on day he suddenly realizes that his world is fake, by finding out the truth after he was released from the pod. Neo discovers that what he has been presented with his entire life is only reflections or merely shadows of the truth. The theme is recognized throughout the movie as we see many objects, as well as Neo, reflected in other objects. The puppet-handlers (the machines) represent what Plato calls the influential and powerful members of society. The objects making the shadows in “The Allegory of the Cave” are also creating a false conclusion for the prisoners. In “The Matrix” the puppet-handle...
My understanding of the cave allegory is someone who has lived his life in confinement; the only life he has ever known. Isolated from the outside world, everything that he experiences is a false reality. He sees things projected on the wall and he thinks they are real, when in fact, they are illusions. Once he is torn away from his environment, he is frightened of what he is now experiencing. As his senses awaken, he begins to see and experience the beauty all around him. He now realizes that this is how life is truly meant to live and he must go back and share his discovery with the others. However, they are not eager to leave their familiar surroundings. Upon returning to the cave, he has a hard time adjusting to his previous environment, He now knows all that he previously thought was
Morpheus says “What is real? How do you define real? Are you talking about what you can fell, what you can smell, what you can taste, and see then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain?” Descartes has very similar ideas about doubting one’s senses, saying that for him to doubt the sense he would have to be insane or asleep. When Neo is first put into the system it all felt real to him as if nothing had changed, so there is nothing that exists to tell us the same thing isn’t happening to us while we are awake or asleep. When Morpheus was first showing Neo around I’m sure solipsism went through most of the viewers minds, making them question their own sense and wondering if anything is real outside of their own minds. Morpheus also talks about enabling the ability to free the mind you must not have any fear, doubt, or disbelieve. Whether anyone believes we live in our own Matrix or not, we will not be able to prove it because no one person on this earth does not have one doubt in their life, so according to Descartes first rule of accept nothing as true unless plainly know then no one has the power to live in a perfect
In "The Allegory of the Cave," prisoners in a cave are forced to watch shadows as people behind them are forced to accept these shadows as reality -- "To them... the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images. One prisoner, however, is released, and stumbles into the real world, containing more depth and complexity than they had ever known. At first, the prisoner will be pained at the bright, piercing light, but will eventually recover. According to Plato, the freed prisoner is then obligated to return to the shadows of the cave, to inform the shackled prisoners left behind of the real world. The prisoners, however, will not believe the freed prisoner, and may even go as afra s to kill him for such "lies" contrary to their "reality." The pursuit of the truth is, therefor, a painstaking but rewarding process. According to Plato, the physical world is a world of sight, one that lacks meaning if left alone. Only those who manage to break into the sunlight from the cave will ascend to the intellectual world. The prisoners in the shadows only know of the dull physical world, while those who ascend into the sunlight learn of the spiritual world, and are exposed to the first hints of truth. The soul ascends upward into the realm of goodness and of the truth, where "... souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell.." The pursuit of goodness and of the truth, then, improves the soul, as the soul desires to be elevated to a higher state of knowledge and morality. Caring for the self and the soul involves freeing the shackles of the physical world and ascending to the "... world of knowledge... the universal author of all things beautiful and right... and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual..." The soul yearns to dwell in a world of morality and knowledge, and only the pursuit of
Neo is the main character of ‘’The Matrix” and is captive in a false reality created by the Matrix a computer program, which has taken over the world. In Plato’s Allegory, the prisoner understands reality experienced in the cave and the real reality outside of the cave. Another similarity that “The Matrix” and the Allegory have is the acceptance of the truth of what Neo and the prisoner must go through when that happens they will acquire a deeper knowledge. In order to obtain such knowledge, both the prisoner and Neo need to experience that their senses have deceived them. Another similarity shared is that both characters stories are controlled by a higher power. One example is that Neo lives in a world controlled by the Matrix and Plato's prisoner is in a cave controlled by their captors. Both prisoner
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 ...