Watch this version of Plato’s allegory in clay animation How does the visual representation give you a different perspective from reading the Allegory of the Cave?
Please respond to two of the questions. 1 of your choice and the last question on the list.
What does Plato’s allegory of the cave tell us about how we recognize things?
What does Plato’s cave tell us about what we see with our eyes?
What is truth according to Plato in this allegory?
Describe an experience you have had in which something that looked true turned out to be false or looked false turned out to be true.
How is it possible that people can believe in illusion and accept it as reality?
What sometimes happens to people when the illusion is shattered and reality is revealed?
If the liberated prisoner goes back to the cave and tries to explain to his former fellow prisoners, what kind of reaction
will he get? Why?
Describe other “caves” in modern life in which people might be “imprisoned” or feel “imprisoned”.
How is it possible that people can believe in illusion and accept it as reality?
People can believe an illusion and accept is as reality if it is all they have been exposed to. For example, to a blind person who has always been blind, not having the sense of sight is not bizarre to them. However people with sight could not imagine life without it. For the blind person, that is their reality. If you have been living in an illusion your entire life, that illusion is the only reality you would even know.
Describe other “caves” in modern life in which people might be “imprisoned” or feel “imprisoned”.
A “cave” in modern life is a person without one or more of their senses. Their reality is different than ours but not any less real than anyone else’s.
What does Plato’s cave tell us about what we see with our eyes?
It tells us that what we see with our own two eyes is just one version of “reality.” What we see as “reality” could be totally different than what another person sees as “reality,” but their “reality” could be absurd and out of the world to us, and vice versa. It also begs the questions: what is actually “real”? Is the definition of “real” arbitrary and actually depend on the person? If so, “real” actually is NOT “real.”
Describe other “caves” in modern life in which people might be “imprisoned” or feel “imprisoned”.
One modern “cave” is this time with electronics. Millenials and Gen Z don’t know reality without smartphones or Google. Other, older generations, however, remember a time when there were no electronics, and little minds were not captured and corrupted with the talons of screens. Some older generations may feel like the younger generations are “imprisoned” in this time of electronics and screens.
It’s completely possible for people to believe an illusion and accept it as reality if they are only capable of grasping the information in front of them. A cave in modern life in which people feel imprisoned or feel as though they are imprisoned could be jail or something along the lines of house-arrest.
1 (going back and telling fellow prisoners question). If the liberated prisoner were to go back into the cave to relay with new perception of the outside world his his former inmates, they would probably not be able to perceive the idea of a new reality different from their own. They will in turn, denote the liberated prisoner as crazy and reject the idea of anew reality because they’ve never seen it.
2. The “cave” of our planet might make people feel imprisoned. As big as our world is, the idea of there being vast emptiness in space might make people feel imprisoned on our own planet.
My Thoughts on the Questions Posed
( How is it possible that people can believe in illusion and accept it as reality? )
People create a world view that they believe to be internally consistent. They use their senses to gather data about the world to help construct their view and therefore, without external influence or new evidence there is nothing to suggest another truth. This person may develop their own frameworks such as religion or science or moral codes within this world. In some sense their reality is just as real as the one in which puppets are casting shadows for neither can be fully understood within itself and both require observation from world beyond their own to give internal logic to their own basic truths. Yet to teach these truths would be like teaching a person who has been blind for their entire life to see. In science, they could understand basic truths of the physical world but do not have the capacity to see it as a theoretical physicist does, and thus must be taught to understand our fundamental laws. However here again can be seen the simple fact that neither reality is the true reality, as to exist either with or without sight, within or outside of the cave, requires new basic truths to be accepted about the reality which you enter which can’t be assumed true without accepting your world as being the most enlightened”.
( If the liberated prisoner goes back to the cave and tries to explain to his former fellow prisoners, what kind of reaction
will he get? Why? )
I believe that Plato believes that the prisoners will not understand his ideas when he returns to the cave. His description of the outside world will be met with disbelief and possibly disdain as he is being herretical and discounting the shadows which are their entire reality. This is seen in that, presuming this to be an allegory for ignorance in the world, a man must actively turn the prisoners about and make them see the fire, before taking them on their difficult journey to enlightenment. I however disagree with this notion. It denies the ability of people to question their own reality, to lead themselves out of the cave. I don’t expect the prisoners all to understand these new ideas nor for them all to listen, however with enough prisoners I can see one person differing enough from the others to attempt the best they can to image this new reality presuming that they have any ability to ever understand it at all.
Additional Question
( Describe other “caves” in modern life in which people might be “imprisoned” or feel “imprisoned”. )
We all have our caves, belief systems constructed by us and those around us, and our worlds of sun, places where another belief system is imposed within which ours exists. In religion and science I see this since as my understanding of the world leads me to think them generally incompatible I believe one to be a cave and the other a world of sun. However I can apply this title to neither as though I believe in the methods of scientific discovery over those that come through religious enlightenment, I cannot disprove any religion. Therefore as both religion and science considerer themselves all encompassing world views I can not prove that either is the cave within the other’s world. Therefore a person is both imprisoned within and free from the caves of religion and science and exists within the daylight given by the other.
The cave tells us that we recognize only the things in our lives that we know are ‘real’. Since the world we live in right now is the only one we know, it is our life and our reality.
There was once an episode of Family Guy in which stewie send peter, Brian, quagmire, and Joe into a simulation to see if peter and Brian are truly friends. We are immersed in this alternate reality in the simulation throughout most of the episode until the end when it is revealed that it was all a simulation.
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Watching the video made me feel bad for the prisoners. It was more depressing watching the video then just reading the paper.
Maybe another “cave” would be if you were stuck on a level in a video game doing the same one over and over again. Then you get to the next level and you see something completely new.
What does Plato’s cave tell us about what we see with our eyes?
Plato’s allegory of the cave tells us the heavy truth that everything we “know” is only percepted by our senses, mostly our eyes. The shadows in the cave represent all that we know, think and see in the world. Plato presents the idea that there is more than what we see, and that we are so reliant on our eyes that we cannot know it.
Describe other “caves” in modern life in which people might be “imprisoned” or feel “imprisoned”.
The ancient allegory emphasizes the fact that the people who escape the cave cannot reach people who are still imprisoned. They just appear as a shadow, like the rest of the world. A similar concept can be seen in people who are suffering with mental health problems. They are so deep in their cave that any attempts to bring them out are meaningless, much like the shapeless shadows that the prisoners see in Plato’s cave.
What does Plato’s cave tell us about what we see with our eyes?
It tells us that what we see and what we consider reality could be a completely different world to other people. It makes me wonder that if I’m seeing is actually “real”. What if there is a slight chance that this world that we perceive as reality that we interact with on a daily basis is not what it actually seems.
If the liberated prisoner goes back to the cave and tries to explain to his former fellow prisoners, what kind of reaction
will he get? Why?
The liberated prisoner will receive looks of bewilderment and there would be a dispute of reality. He will get that reaction because they have known that reality for so long that they can not come to terms with the fact that what they experience is fake. The other prisoners will not believe that liberated prisoner until they are turned around to see what the liberated prisoner saw.
Describe other “caves” in modern life in which people might be “imprisoned” or feel “imprisoned”.
Caves in modern life people may be “imprisoned” or feel “imprisoned” by is society. Modern individuals may try their best to be acceptable under society standards leading them to an “imprisoned” persona that is not truly them in reality.
What does Plato’s allegory of the cave tell us about how we recognize things?
I think that the cave is really interesting when I think of it alongside so many things that humans have believed for so long. It really puts into perspective just how un-open minded (for lack of a better term) the human race really is. It’s because we are all so used to accepting one thing as a known fact for so long that when it turns out it’s false we can’t believe it. We don’t like being wrong because we perceive it as a sign of weakness or vulnerability, that’s why when some people in the cave speak of the outside world, everyone immediately ridicules them because they don’t want to be wrong.
Last question:
Other caves
This actually makes me think of the movie bolt. (bear with me) because this dog, has spent his whole life thinking that his owner is always in danger and he has to save her, when in reality, he stars on a tv show where that is the plot. But to get the raw emotion from the dog, they have purposely kept him in the dark and not let him see the outside world. I know it’s a silly comparison, but it’s put in really simple terms: the show is the dog’s whole life and he knows nothing else.
Another example of a cave in real life is of a girl who was told that she was sick her whole life although she was fine. This girl had been kept in the dark about how she was actually fine, all because her mother wanted to be able to have things be easier if she had a disabled daughter. This girl had been told lies for so long, that when she found out the truth, she almost didn’t believe it.
I think the Bolt comparison is a good one. It’s kind of a Truman Show (a super movie) for kids.
1) I believe the reason why people believe in illusion and accept it as reality is because they do not know any better. Why should they trust a stranger or one person over what they see with their own eyes, what they know to be true, what they have learned?
2) Another cave would be if you were trapped in a place where you couldn’t be yourself. You could tell people the truth as much as you want, but nobody would even believe you. The people who don’t believe you or you can’t tell are the also ones trapped in the cave in this situation because they don’t understand who you really are. Maybe you cannot leave the cave because it’s a community like family or school, or maybe for other reasons.
Describe other “caves” in modern life in which people might be “imprisoned” or feel “imprisoned”.
A cave in modern life in which people might be imprisoned is school. People can get so focused on school they just get kinda sucked it into. You just get so focused on grades you just block everything around you.
What does Plato’s cave tell us about what we see with our eyes?
Plato cave tells us we think and imagine more than what Is in front of our eyes
If the liberated prisoner goes back to the cave and tries to explain to his former fellow prisoners, what kind of reaction
will he get? Why?
The people will think the prisoner is crazy, and they will think that they are lying because all they have known their whole life is that cave. So for someone to say that there is more than the cave would be unfathomable for the cave people.
Describe other “caves” in modern life in which people might be “imprisoned” or feel “imprisoned”.
Someone might feel imprisoned if they are doing something that the have never done before and can’t get the hang of it. say for instance it is someones first time learning another language and they can’t seem to learn it they might feel imprisoned.