In one of Plato’s works called The Allegory of the Cave he goes over what it means to get higher knowledge and the path you have to take to get to this higher knowledge. Plato also goes over how this higher knowledge or enlightenment will affect people and how they act. He ties this all together through what he calls the cave. Plato tells Glaucon a sort of story about how the cave works and what the people within the cave have to do to get to the enlightenment. A while down the road the Wachowski siblings with the help of Warner Brothers Studios made a movie titled The Matrix. This movie follows the came concept that Plato does in the cave. With saying that the world that Neo (the main character) was living in was in fact not real but a made …show more content…
Firstly Neo got shown the enlightenment with his free will while the people in the cave got dragged out of the cave and forced to see the enlightenment if they wanted to or not. Also with The Cave Plato was the first to found out about this enlightenment while Morphis got shown it by a different guy. And Neo and the prisoners come from different backgrounds, Neo comes from a normal life (according to him) while the prisoners have to just sit there shackled and stare at a wall with shadows dancing across them. Furthermore within the matrix the agents are trying to stop people from getting enlightened while the people who drag out the prisoners from the cave want the prisoners to get enlightened. To summarize the characters in The Matrix and The Cave are close to being the same but not fully there are a few differences between the …show more content…
The Cave setting is more of a peaceful time back in Greece when not much fighting is going on besides within themselves sometimes. While in The Matrix it takes place after almost all of humanity gets wiped out by roberts. And also to add to this The Matrix is set in a world where you can do anything once you gain ¨enlightenment¨ while in the The Cave setting you only gain knowledge from getting enlightenment and you don’t get any ¨super powers¨. Also within the The Cave there isn’t anyone trying to stop you from getting this higher knowledge while in The Matrix there are these people called agents who are trying to stop anyone from leaving the matrix and learning what is truly out there. Another difference in these two settings would be the amount of technology that they are able to use. On the one hand The Matrix has a lot of different technology at the fingertips of the people who are living in it and out of it. While with The Cave they haven't gotten any technology yet due to the time period they are from. In conclusion The Cave and The Matrix both have different settings from one and
The movie, "The Matrix," parallels Platos's Allegory Of The Cave in a number of ways. Similar to the prisoners of the cave, the humans trapped in the matrix (the cave) only see what the machines (the modern day puppet-handlers) want them to see. They are tricked into believing that what they hear in the cave and see before them is the true reality that exists. Furthermore, they accept what their senses are telling them and they believe that what they are experiencing is all that really exists--nothing more.
This student of Philosophy now sees the movie The Matrix in a whole new way after gaining an understanding of some of the underlying philosophical concepts that the writers of the movie used to develop an intriguing and well thought out plot. Some of the philosophical concepts were clear, while others were only hinted at and most likely overlooked by those unfamiliar with those concepts, as was this student when the movie first came out in theaters all those many years ago. In this part of the essay we will take a look at the obvious and not so obvious concepts of: what exactly is the Matrix and how does it related to both Descartes and Plato, can we trust our own senses once we understand what the Matrix is, and how Neo taking the Red Pill is symbolic of the beginning of the journey out of Pl...
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 use the human body as a source of energy. In the movie, Neo, finds and alternate reality and he has to go on a journey to discover himself and what is around him. Much like “The Allegory of the Cave” the prisoners in a dark underground cave, who are chained to the wall, have a view of reality solely based upon this limited view of the cave which is but a poor copy of the real world. Both the prisoners of the cave, and Neo from the Matrix, have to transcend on the path of ‘enlightenment’ to know the truth of their own worlds.
Neo’s closing comments at the end of the movie are the conversation with the source. He said, “I know you are out there. I can feel you now…… I 'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls and borders and boundaries. A world where anything is possible.” He is implying human in the real world without the machine can do things without the limit of the Matrix, since they will not trap in the illusion anymore. This can be related to the Socratic quest for wisdom. Socrates believed that wisdom is no limits and boundaries; he did not think he is the wisest man because wisdom has no ends. Socrates was not afraid to change and would try to accept other ideas, that 's why he would keep questioning to discover truth, he was never satisfied with the answer, thus he can approach wisdom and the truth closer and closer, but there is never an end. Like the world without the Matrix, mankind would be set free from their body to their souls; the ability of mankind is also without limitation and boundaries as
The theme in The Matrix has a lot to do with futuristic ideas. Including the idea that everything around people is being generated by machines to trick their minds and make them think that the world they live in as they know it is stable and would never destruct. While The Matrix is futuristic, The Allegory of the Cave is very aged. You can tell this when they say “men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels” (Plato 284) implying that men themselves are carrying things themselves, not being drug along by animals of work like oxen or horses. While The Allegory of the Cave and The Matrix themes may be very similar in some parts, are not so similar in
Often times in works of literature and film, the story begins with a character not knowing the true nature of their situation, which is later on revealed to them. This occurs in Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, The Truman Show by Peter Weir, and the “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato. Although Oedipus, Truman and the Prisoners all began in a very similar situation in which they are being lied to and only seeing the shadows, the outcomes of their respective situations after being exposed to the truth and light are vastly different. Whether it be self harm, going back to try and convince others, or even just simply walking out, they all took a different approach to the situation.
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.
Enlightenment is the main theme and driving force throughout the stories of The Cave and The Matrix. One slight difference between these two stories, however, is the attitude they have towards enlightenment. In the first acts of The Matrix, the audience sees Neo distressed over his computer once it begins to type and converse with him, which would be unheard of for a computer to do at the time this film was made. It is revealed that in his day-to-day life, Neo is a computer programmer. To go along with this he has an advanced ability to hack into areas of his computer and has been doing so for quite some time with the goal of unlocking the answers to something. He does not know exactly what he is looking for, but he knows something in the world is amiss and he has been actively searching for answers to confirm his beliefs. Later on in the movie, Trinity, a character who has already achieved enlightenment, tells Neo “It’s the question that drives us…” (The Matrix). This statement rings especially true for Neo as it was the question and feeling of, “what is wrong in the world,” which drives Neo to seek out the truth. Neo’s path to enlightenment begins with his desire to seek out the truth and see the world for what it truly is. This point is proven further after Neo learns of the matrix and the false world he has been living in. At this point in the movie, Morpheus, another enlightened character, presents
The Matrix, directed by the Wachowski sisters, is a film that discusses free will, artificial intelligence and poses a question: ‘How do we know that our world is real?’ This question is covered in the philosophical branch of epistemology. Epistemology is a component of philosophy that is concerned with the theory of knowledge. The exploration of reality is referenced in the film when Neo discovers he has been living in an artificial world called ‘The Matrix’. He is shocked to learn that the world in which he grew up is a computer program that simulates reality. The questioning of knowledge and its irreversibility provoked by The Matrix invites the audience to wonder whether their own world is an imitation of true reality, thus making it a
“Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him”(Plato 285). In both “The Allegory of the Cave” and “The Matrix” they explore the same idea and question of what is “reality”? In the Cave prisoners are chained to walls and are not allowed to move or speak to one another only left with a shadow on the wall and their imaginations of what is reality. In Matrix we are shown a character by the name of Neo exploring the “real world” outside of the matrix. He must determine what is real and what is not through stages of enlightenment. Although both the movie and story are similar there are some differences. The comparisons and contrasts of the story and movie are seen through the point-of-view, the settings, and the themes.
Plato argues that our perception of the world is limited because of our senses. The sense that the “Simile of the Cave” by Plato introduced to the matrix is sight. Sight was both a new thing to both of the main characters. The use of sight limited there perception of the world, with the prisoners in the cave they were only allowed to see shadows and they didn’t know who was creating them. When one of the prisoners were let free he explored the outside world but his eyes hurt from the sun because he has never used them as much before. Neo in the matrix was using his eyes for the first time when he was reborn by machines and the life he lived before was all a lie. Even though in both cases their eyes havent been used, their perception was changed
People often accept what is presented to them as fact instead of meeting the information with skepticism. In “The Allegory of the Cave,” by Plato, and in The Matrix, by the Wachowski Brothers, both include public masses that are unaware of their blindness to the true reality of their worlds. Also, few people exist in both texts that have escaped the oppression of those who rule the masses, discovering legitimate reality for the first time in their lives. These people who have escaped are no longer slaves of the illusion of reality presented to them by their oppressors. Similar to those in “Allegory of the Cave,” Neo and other enlightened people in The Matrix escaped the brainwashing performed by their media or government. Neo and
The Allegory of the Cave and Oedipus the King are two very different stories. The Allegory of the Cave is about a single prisoner who is lead out of a cave he had been in since his childhood and sees the true light of day. Oedipus the King is about a man who wants to find the murderer in his city and all the secrets of his past come to light and lead to a tragic end. Hmm…maybe when you really think about it The Allegory of the Cave and Oedipus the King really are kind of similar. Along with comparisons, there are contrasts with these two stories. Both the philosopher and Oedipus didn’t realize they were in the darkness, but once they entered the true light of enlightenment, they became permanently blind. Although the philosopher is very reluctant
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 ...
People would walk behind the wall holding up objects and talking to make the prisoners think the shadows were talking giving the prisoners a false sense of reality. Socrates then talks about an escape prisoner who was forced to look behind the wall but struggle to believe what he was seeing and then turned back to what he knew and was familiar with, the talking shadows. Socrates states what would happen if someone was to drag that prisoner out of the cave and allow him to see the sun and everything around. The prisoner would be blinded by it and would take time to understand it but would come to terms with what he was seeing and be happier because of it. The prisoner would have seen the real world and a not one made up by someone. There are some similarities between “The Cave” and The Matrix. One similarity between the prisoner and Neo was the astonishment and uncertainty to find out the truth about the false reality and the true reality. The difference was that the prisoner reality was made of shadows and Neo’s reality was made up of a virtual super