Our reading on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave asks us to imagine a reality that isn’t actually reality.
You may have heard the saying, “Ignorance is Bliss”. There was a very popular movie that came out when you were born called, The Matrix. In the Matrix, machines have taken over the earth. However, they have to keep humanity alive…. because the machines feed off of the electronic energy of the human brain. But to keep humanity docile, they have created an artificial reality for all of humanity. For people in the Matrix really are in pods such as this picture:
Here is a video of a character, Cypher, who betrays his fellow rebels trying to overthrow the Matrix, because he decides he’d rather live back in the Matrix.
What is Plato trying to tell us in the allegory?
What is like the cave in our world?
How are your ideas of reality shaped by other people? Are your understandings and beliefs a cave of sorts?
Deep question- how do we know things are true? What is true and how do you know it?
What is Plato trying to tell us in the allegory?
What is like the cave in our world?
How are your ideas of reality shaped by other people? Are your understandings and beliefs a cave of sorts?
Deep question- how do we know things are true? What is true and how do you know it?
What is Plato trying to tell us in the allegory? That you go through different phases in life and every time you have to learn new things and grow as a person.
What is like the cave in our world? I think a good analogy is when you move from middle school to high school. When you first go to high school it’s going to be confusing new people, new classrooms, but eventually you will be just as comfortable as you were in middle school.
How are your ideas of reality shaped by other people? Are your understandings and beliefs a cave of sorts? Almost everything we know is because someone told us. As you grow up your understandings and beliefs are like a cave, because you think you know everything then you grow up and learn more.
Deep question- how do we know things are true? What is true and how do you know it? We don’t really know that anything is true, we just hope it is.
How are your ideas of reality shaped by other people? Are your understandings and beliefs a cave of sorts?
Your ideas of reality are shaped by what other people tell you is true. If enough people tell you, they may convince you to believe it. My beliefs and understandings are not a cave of sorts they are more one sided and I’m not a very open person.
Deep question- how do we know things are true? What is true and how do you know it?
We know things are true because of the circumstances which surround it. For exp. Our current president is Barack Obama. I know this to be true because he won the majority of the American publics vote and was sworn in as president.
What is Plato trying to tell us in the allegory? He is telling us to live life without fear and that you have to experience things on your own to see everything from every perspective.
What is like the cave in our world? I see the cave as childhood to adulthood. When you’re a child, you are taught most things but you don’t get to explore everything. In adulthood, you look at things through all perspectives. This reminds me of when the prisoners thought that the shadow’s were real but then they found out the shadows were just made from the light they had just discovered.
How are my ideas of reality shaped by other people?
My ideas of reality are pretty much based from what other people tell me is true. A lot of times I’m told something and even if I think it is truthful I ask someone else if they also think it is true or real. My idea of reality is a little bit like a cave in the way that my idea of reality is a lot of what people tell me is true. There are so many other thoughts out there about what is actually true so it kind of makes my thoughts like a cave.
How do we know things are true?
We know things are 100% true when there is physical proof of it being true. However, a lot of what we believe to be true hasn’t actually been proved. We hear stories and think that they are true but how do we really know if they are true? An example of something that I know is true is that my name is Ben Kollender. I know this is true because it says it on my birth certificate which is physical proof of my name being Ben Kollender.
What is Plato trying to tell us in the allegory?
Plato is trying to tell us that we shouldn’t assume everything in reality is exactly the way it seems. We should be open minded about ideas that conflict with what we have been taught and believed for our entire lives.
How are your ideas of reality shaped by other people? Are your understandings and beliefs a cave of sorts?
People’s ideas of reality are almost entirely shaped by what your family, friends, and teachers tell you. If those ideas are false, then your beliefs are creating a cave that many people refuse to leave. When everybody believed that the world was the center of the solar, that was a sort of cave for them.
What is like the cave in our world? Social media is the cave in our world. Most of what we know comes from social media. Other things seem unreal.
How are your ideas of reality shaped by other people? Are your understandings and beliefs a cave of sorts? As with rumors, what you know about a situation is what you hear from peers. What you know is shaped by the people who tell you things. My understandings are a cave in some sorts. I do not fully understand what happens in Iraq or Syria because I live in Pennsylvania.
What is like the cave in our world?
I think the cave in our world is growing up. I think there are a lot of things we believe to be true while we are children that change as we grow. I think you learn a lot of things are different than your child self imagined.
How are your ideas of reality shaped by other people? Are your understandings and beliefs a cave of sorts?
I think your ideas of reality are shaped by other people because what other people say has a lot of effect on how you think. I also think that people can pull you out of your cave (your own ideas) and bring you to theirs. I do think understanding is a cave of sorts.
1.What is Plato trying to tell us in the allegory?
Plato is trying to convey that humans can easily be “prisoners” to their own mindset. If people are fixated on only one view point and are not even open to taking a look at other views, than they can easily be dictated and “imprisoned.”
2. What is like the cave in our world?
A stubborn mentality is like a cave in our world. The refusal of looking at the whole picture narrows the view of many people.
3. How are your ideas of reality shaped by other people? Are your understandings and beliefs a cave of sorts?
Society qualifies anything that can be seen or felt as real. However I also believe in the “unseen” as reality. Having faith in a Greater power helps to expand my view so that I am not in a cave.
4. Deep question- how do we know things are true? What is true and how do you know it?
Somethings we definitely know as true because of plain facts and personal experiences. For example I know that I wear glasses because I have a pair and I am wearing them at the moment. However for things that we can not simply prove that are true, we must have faith in.
I like your prisoners metaphor, Shelton. What are our shackles that keep us imprisoned. Well done.
I also find belief in a higher power helps me get out of my cave. Or at least help me realize that I am in one.
What is Plato trying to tell us in the allegory?
In Plato’s allegory, he’s implying that each time we adapt to something new, or learn something we have to adapt to it in order to grow.
Deep question- how do we know things are true? What is true and how do you know it?
Nobody really knows what is true or false. We go off our best knowledge to believe things or trust people that we can receive reliable information from. Any/everything we know could be a lie, but we accept that and base relationships off of trust.
In the story the cave Plato is trying to tell us that to change people’s ways of thinking we should not tell them what to do we must show them. You can’t make someone believe that the shadows are not true, you must make them believe by turning them towards the night
2. The cave in our world is similar to school and work. While I am in school adults tell me to enjoy myself and work hard because someday I’ll graduate and I’ll have to get a job and live in the real world. But for know I can’t imagine what their taking about because I have never experienced anything other than school. Just like the people looking at the shadows.
What is Plato trying to tell us in the allegory?
He is trying to tell us that when we grow we have to adapt/ get comftorable with it.
Deep question- how do we know things are true? What is true and how do you know it?
I dont think anybody knows what is real and what is not real. I think it also has to do with in what you believe in and what your opinion is.
In the story the cave Plato is trying to tell us that to change people’s ways of thinking we should not tell them what to do we must show them. You can’t make someone believe that the shadows are not true, you must show them by turning them around.
2. The cave in our world is similar to school and work. While I am in school adults tell me to enjoy myself and work hard because someday I’ll graduate and I’ll have to get a job and live in the real world. But for now I can’t imagine what their taking about because I have never experienced anything other than school. Just like the people looking at the shadows.
What is plato trying to tell us in the allegory?
What is like the cave in our world?
It is my belief that Plato is trying to tell us that we can see our own version of the truth for a very long time, and not realize what’s creating “the shadows” that we see. Similar to this in our lives is the deeper understanding of the world that we acheive as we grow older. For years we had been watching shadow puppet shows, only to be blinded by the sun when we finally see it. The quote “Ignorance is bliss” is also very appliciable to the concept of growing up, as many say that they wish they could go back to not knowing the awful truths about the world we live in.
What is like the cave in our world?
the cave is like ignorance. in the cave it was very black and white no colour(different ideas). the people in the cave have no clue what’s outside. and in this world, if the people you are around for example are homophobic you grow up that way too until you are exposed to it and then let’s say you decide that the lgbt community it’s a great thing, you go back and the people wouldn’t believe you. they would have to see for it themselves
How are your ideas of reality shaped by other people? Are your understandings and beliefs a cave of sorts?
I guess my understandings and beliefs are sort of like the cave. but my views of the world haven’t changed.
Deep question- how do we know things are true? What is true and how do you know it?
we know things are true by our senses. yes there are things that can alter our senses but for the most part we should trust them. and like I know it’s true that I’m required to go to school. but that’s only true because a group of people decided that. it’s true because we made it true
What is Plato trying to tell us in the allegory?
He is trying to tell Us that the things that we know and are important to Us are just the things others have taught us to think and believe.
What is like the cave in our world?
The media could be a cave. The media can be controlling and deceiving but for some reason everyone wants to believe what is said in the media even if it might now be true. The media also tells Us what’s “important”.
How are your ideas of reality shaped by other people? Are your understandings and beliefs a cave of sorts?
I would like to think that I form all my own thoughts but everyone around me has taught me something and made me believe something to be true so my understandings are a cave. Most everything I know other people have told me.
Deep question- how do we know things are true? What is true and how do you know it?
If everyone agrees on something to be “true ” and right then it is truE. Although some people believe things are true that others don’t. For instance the beleif in God might be true for one person but not another
What is like the cave in our world?
To me personally, the cave is the limitations and boundaries set by the people before me. The road hasn’t been paved so there isn’t a trail there, and it sets up this thinking that this is your reality, there is no farther then this when you’re only on the brink.
How are your ideas of reality shaped by other people? Are your understandings and beliefs a cave of sorts?
My race is a cave, and it’s shaped by my community and by the media in every negative way possible. Where I live the crime rate is greater than the percentage of people that graduate high school, and it makes us believe that you can’t get farther than the preset stereotypes and statistics.
Q- What is Plato trying to tell us in the allegory?
A- My interpretation of what Plato is telling us is that sometimes the only way to believe something is to experience it. I also think that he’s getting at the idea of how social dominance is relative to surroundings and knowledge. For example in the cave the people who could interpret the shadows were dominant, but they later found out that that was all fake and the previous power was meaningless.
Q- Deep question- how do we know things are true? What is true and how do you know it?
A- We can’t really know for certain the absolute truth. We believe some things are true because they are all we know and have no reason to question them. I could tell someone about my life and think everything I said was true, only to find out later that this was the matrix. That was a stretch, i don’t think I’m in the matrix but you get the point. Truth Is relative of current knowledge.