At the beginning of the allegory, the “theory of forms” is also introduced. This theory states that the “existence of a level of reality inhabited by ideal “forms of all things and concepts”(Plato pg1) indicating that there is a form to any object, Adding as well that all forms will be eternal and unchanging but they tend to inhabit changeable matter in the temporal world. Plato considers the realm of forms to be always eternal and unchanging however; the world we inhabit is a constantly changing, and thus not real because nothing last forever.
Similar to the allegory, our perception of this world could also be like the shadows projected by the fire, although they are constantly changing, they all come from a particular object. Therefore, true knowledge can only come from an “ideal form”, but its projections are being reflected to this world. A good way to showcase the cave allegory is throughout the movie “The matrix”. In this movie, we are introduced to a world in which machines had imprisoned man into a virtual world called “the matrix”.
There the main protagonist “Neo” founds himself living in this world in questioning whether is real or not, and manages to scape with the help of a group of survivors from the real world. Yet the real world was not what he expected, earth was devastated by a long war between man and machines, and what is left of humanity lives in an underground city were the sewers of the old world use to be. We can consider the Matrix to be the cave, and the shadows projected by the fire, it also presents two possible outcomes from finding true knowledge.
In the allegory, Plato believes that if an individual manages to escape from the cave it could end up in two ways. The first way indicates that if a man manages to escape the cave, he would be overwhelmed by the light, and the actual shapes of the shadows he saw, “Don’t you think he would be puzzled, and believe what he saw before was truer than what was shown to him? “(Plato pg2) indicating that the individual who got out would have trouble believing the things from outside the cave would be real.
In the movie Neo faces the same problem when he is liberated from the matrix believing that the real world was actually a dream. The second way this could end up is if the individual finds himself to overwhelm by the real world to the point that he will wish to go back to the cave. In that case “suppose he were compelled to look towards the real light, it would hurt his eyes, and he would escape by turning them away to the things which he was able to look at,”(Plato pg 2) the last phrase implies that the individual would rather be in a place he is familiar with instead of experiencing new things.
Same in the movie, the character “Cypher” grows tired of living in the real world, and wishes nothing but to go back in the matrix and forget everything he experienced. Rene Descartes in the other hand introduces us to the “1st meditation called “what can be called into doubt”. This meditation makes emphasis in analyzing the things that someone can really call knowledge and that if there is even a slight reason to question whether you are right or not you should then dump everything you deed based from those principles, and be left with only the foundations of the principle.
Scientific knowledge is a good example for this meditation because according to Descartes: “Physics, astronomy, medicine, and other disciplines which depend on the study of composite things are doubtful”; while subjects like arithmetic “deal only with the most simple and general things contain something certain and indubitable” (Descartes pg 167).
Science relies in facts, but most of these facts can be prove wrong for example: A theory is a widely and likeable explanation to an event, yet it only has the word “possible” because an event or discovery may happen, and could really question the reliability of the theory and if wrong, then scientist will have to start from zero again in order to solve the problem. Although this may sound unlikely to happen today, there had been theories such as the “flat/centric earth” that people believed to be true some hundreds of years ago, but were proven wrong by scientist later on.
The second meditation is mostly focused in questioning one’s existence. Descartes mostly focuses in the reasons of how we can prove that we exist. Along this meditation he states that even that if he convinces himself that this world, and everything else does not exist, “Does it not follow, that I too do not exist? No: if | convinced myself of something, then I certainly existed” (Descartes pg 169) meaning that as long as you are aware, or convinced of something, you certainly exist .
Adding to the second meditation, Descartes also added the possibility of being deceived by a supreme entity, then how do we now that we exist? Descartes explains that “I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me, and let him deceive me, he will never bring it about being nothing so long as I think that im something” meaning that if we are controlled, then there must be someone who is controlling us, and that someone requires us to do his will, and thus recognizing that we exist. The two examples from above are both an example of the “Cogito”, a philosophical principle that acknowledges ones existence by simply thinking.
Both philosophers present excellent evidence towards the question of true knowledge. I personally believe that Plato’s the of forms, and Descartes first meditation to be true. What characterizes our species is our level of knowledge and understanding, But as I said before, I do not consider that we can have full knowledge in a subject. Same as Descartes, I too consider that even in some of the best discoveries and, breakthroughs of science, if there is a reason to doubt such knowledge, then we should star from zero.
The reason of why|| contemplate this is because I do not consider knowledge to be a limited thing, and to have only one right answer to a question, and we seek to improve our understanding by adding more and more information. 200 years few people knew anything of the origins of life on earth besides the version from the bible, but Charles Darwin came and revolutionized the way people saw life on earth back in the day, and ever since new scientist keep adding and adding more information, changing the way we used to see Darwin’s theory of evolution.
I also consider that a great part of our knowledge may not be real, but a projection of the original idea just like in Plato’s theory of forms. An example from the last statement could be the big bang theory, so far no one has really managed to know how when did the universe begin, all we can do is analyze what surround us, and estimate the age of the universe. Also Science can only explain physical events, and anything that seems to be supernatural tends to go beyond the boundaries of science, but what if “supernatural” is just a term to describe what we haven’t discovered yet.
People may argue there are quite lots of things that can be consider to be always true and indeed they are. We all live and die, and perhaps death is the only thing that we can all be sure that is going to happen to us at some point. Others may argue that some scientific discoveries haven’t change long since they were discovered, for example Darwin’s theory of evolution is the most widely accepted and has barely been challenge by another theory,. A great number of individuals may say that