Question

What are your interpretations of "Allegory of the Cave"?

Background info (my perspective): Socrates went around to the elites in Greece, questioning their firm beliefs. He attracted a group of youth that follows him wherever he goes. The elites hated him. Socrates was put on trial for "corrupting the youth" and not believing in the greek gods, and questioned if he thinks he's the wisest person on earth. Socrates responded "I know that I don't know". On the day before Socrates was scheduled for execution, his followers offered to help him escape, but Socrates said if his death is the will of God, then he'll die, and he drank the bowl of poison and died.

The story "Allegory of the Cave" was written by Plato, one of Socrates' student, and it was like prisoners chained in a cave staring at a wall of shadows created by a fire, thinking that it's reality.

My own interpretation so far is that a philosopher must know himself well (Socrates said he knows that he don't know, meaning there are things he doesn't know, and when he asks other 'experts', he'd know that it isn't the ultimate truth). But the prisoners in chains didn't like that their beliefs were being challenged, and thus they couldn't see the full reality, while a philosopher transcended the bounds of society and could see a better reality, which is like coming out of the cave. (but still not the ultimate reality).

Answer 1

Applying this to our modern day world, there are social trends of every sort, laws set in math and science. Kid -> College -> Job -> Love + Money + Reputation -> Old Age -> Death

If we'd want to make a further breakthrough, I think we gotta break out of some confines set in our world.

Answer 2

Example 1: Gravity. Say, what if I didn't believe gravity existed, and that there was ultimately another reason for why objects fell to the ground. Although I don't know what it is, I remain skeptical that some other unseeable force is pulling (or pushing) us to earth.

Example 2: We love to mock flat-earthers for believing the earth is flat, because we "see" with our modern spaceships, we calculate with astronomy and geometry, but what if our eyes are giving us a false impression and the true space that exists gets bent or deformed into the shape that our pineal gland recognizes.

Answer 3

Example 3: In Buddhism, there's a saying of 'emptiness', and in Taoism there's saying of 'nothingness', and in some remote temples, monks sit in tranquility until their minds are unaware of anything (particularly zen). They have a saying that 'everything in this world is an illusion'. We see the table right in front of us, and we can feel it, so how is it an illusion? Yet now after many years of scientific development, we discovered that matter is made out of tiny atoms, which are orbited by electrons, and they are very tiny, far apart, as if it's a whole new universe or space. We can't see them with our eyes, and even if we find a smaller particle, there could always be an even smaller particle.

Answer 4

Example 4: If you've ever watch government events (like press conferences, congressional hearings, policy debates), everyone speaks in a very professional tone. Whoever speaks immaturely will lose their reputation/credibility. And then during the 2016 election we had a guy like Trump (you know how he acts lol). Barely anyone in my school thought he had a chance of winning, but he made it.

Answer 5

Example 5: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, they all quit college to work on their own products. While everyone else were pursuing their degrees to get a better paying job, these guys somehow became the most wealthy and powerful.

Answer 6

Example 6: Jesus was nailed to a cross by the Holy Roman Empire and his followers were also persecuted. Gandhi advocated peaceful resistance and was jailed. Martin Luther King had the same thing. But they all accomplished great legacies for generations to follow.

Answer 7

Example 7: Falun Dafa, a qigong exercise that was first taught in 1992 gained 70-100 million practitioners in China in 1999. I also started practicing this, and from my own understanding of the teachings, assimilating to Truthfulness Compassion and Forbearance (Zhen Shan Ren) goes hand-in-hand with the energy you develop, but you have to get rid of human selfishness (which is like transcending the boundaries of society). But from 1999 to present, a massive persecution was launched by then-chairman Jiang Zemin (who also issued the suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protestors), and practitioners are tortured or killed in labor camps, re-education camps, brainwashing centers or mental hospitals. Under this enormous pressure, whoever still dares to uphold these principles in that environment is truly able to break through society's boundaries, such as fear.

Answer 8

I agree. with all of your examples.

Answer 9

Society binds us in many ways. For example, mating in nature determined by physical traits, population, and many other factors, but for humans its a lot different. For example, in early Europe, fat and obese people were considered attractive and were like the muscular men of today. THis is because fat indicated they were fed well, and being fed well meant that you had power and wealth. No other species of animal do this.

Answer 10

I don't have any problems with your interpretation and it seems quite accurate.

Answer 11

I dunno yet, but I am studying them

Answer 12

I can give a fun reply to this in like 10min if you want to stick around @Gdeinward

Answer 13

sounds good

Answer 14

About two years ago I helped a college student with a paper on this. It was the first I was approached with the story, yet it fascinated me. Now retrospectively with the knowledge that I have now, I can tell why.

The Allegory of the Cave weaves a story all to true. Reality as we see it is sensory stimulus through the lens of our experiences, thus making them a perspective (subjective). This makes for everyone having a technically unique view of life, yet humans are social creatures. When species socialize, differences make for conflict, and thus the possibility for violence, leading to subsequent death. For survival we pass on our belief systems, as we ourselves believe them valuable to survive (after all, we received them). Additionally, we socialize purposefully with those who we do not share differences with. A lone wolf is manageable, a pack is a force to be reckoned with.

The effect that this biological urge to survive has leads us to a sociocultural effect, in which people conform to the strong and upstanding beliefs of those around them. They want to be 'in,' as to be 'out' has consequences. Due to the railroads for this urge being hardly conscious, it's an effect that people can only notice upon review of their actions and searching for the origin.

This leads us to the cave, where the prisoners who have been chained there from birth watch the shadows created by people walking past the fire behind them. This is equivalent to a populace being subjected to a particular set of beliefs. These shadows are manifested by people and animals, visual stimuli filtered into prisoners who soon find them to be all that they know, and will ever know? Since they are a group who have the same stimulus presented to them, and thus the same experiences, it creates for a reinforcement of those beliefs.

What would have happened if it was only one prisoner? Would he have been more likely to question the shadows on the wall?

When one of the prisoners is freed, all of the beautiful themes are revealed. He goes out of the cave, finds the light to be blinding. New stimulus, a genesis of experiences. He socializes with people who have had those stimulus and experiences, questions his former experiences, reevaluating his beliefs, and in effect, changing. When he goes back to the prisoners and they do not wish to believe him nor change, and resist violently, it puts the exclamation to Plato's point.

Here are the themes I find of interest:
1. Question everything. The Oracle of Delphi, a figure of importance in Greek culture noted that Socrates was the wisest man in the world, because he knew that he knew nothing. And you can only know that you know nothing, if you ask yourself if you know. This is equivalent to arraying your beliefs on a bookshelf and flipping through each one. Where did it come from? Do I truly believe it? Why?

2. People do not like change. It is difficult, and as I stated earlier, can have biological and sociocultural consequences. It's also something of a psychological infliction of pain to recognize that you may have affirmed a misaligned or faulty belief, for months, years, or decades. Because it means two consequential things: that you were wrong and therefore can be wrong about other things, and that you based countless actions off of that belief, and how many wrongs have been committed as a result? Ignorance is bliss, and thus the violent struggle to retain said ignorance.

3. I am unsure about this one, but it has to do with those who are free and how they became free. The prisoner is freed and his beliefs surrounding reality change as a result of being freed. Did he free himself of his own will? Or did someone else have to free him? You can see why I pose this question. How did the philosopher become the philosopher? Did he make himself one or did someone make him such? I think it is a combination of the two. Philosophers are made, and bring forth as you said, these unconventional beliefs and questions that can pose consequences, but what benefits can be reaped from perceiving reality as it actually is? What innovation could have been missed if we feared gravity, or atoms? What loss of experience and reality might we have? There are no spaceships without gravity.

4. This one is more of an amusing or perhaps dreadful one to point out, if it can even be said to be that in comparison to the others.

Reality can be faked. In the Allegory of the Cave, its merely animals and people passing by the cave entrance. An offshoot of reality. Misaligned yet not entirely incorrect. They have seen a dog, yet have a differing experience and perception of a dog. Yet @imqwerty 's posted image alludes to a far worse possibility. There is something worse than reality being people walking by and unknowingly creating a theater of false reality: a reality created by people knowingly. You can sink the teeth of that theme into a lot of things. The posted image refers to religion due to the robes and nature of the scepters. They are hidden and are clothed, therefore pointing to not only religion, but a hidden elite. You can even go a step further and delve into the thought of existing in a simulation...

I wish I could make it an even five, but that's all I have for now.

Answer 15

I know five isn't an even number, but you all know what I mean.

Answer 16

I never noticed those robed people actually. Their dark hidden faces make them look like negative beings.

Answer 17

They are centered in the image which leads me to believe the author intended for them to be the focus, and thus likely the point of creating the image in the first place. Of course there can be other themes, but I think we can agree that this central theme rings true. There is fake news - information (stimuli) dissipated with a saturation of perspective (a transition from objective to subjective) as to reinforce a particular belief or set of beliefs in a populace.

Answer 18

Wow

Answer 19

wow indeed.

Answer 20

so essentially we could be living in a matrix-like world. So the prisoners in the cave, if one were to escape and see reality for what it was, they still might not be seeing the true reality?

Answer 21

Indeed. If you want to hear more about simulations I recommend Elon Musk. He's an eccentric billionaire that seems to be paying that some heed, along with some other interesting topics like AI. In general it's a fascinating topic.

Answer 22

Well based on my limited knowledge of AI, it uses matricies a lot (so linear algebra is important). Essentially it uses math formulas to manipulate matricies into identifying patterns, or adjusting probabilities of nodes in a neural network.

As long as something can be represented as an array of numbers (images,sound,neural network), then inputting it into a machine-learning algorithm will give an output.

I'm not sure what this has to do with us living in a matrix.