Allegory of the Cave 6

Allegory of the Cave
The central characters in Plato’s Allegory of the cave basically indicate that there are two different forms of vision towards the things of this world. The first is the bodily eye which is a figure of speech for the senses. This sense is demonstrated while inside the cave and chained to it. The bodily eye represents ignorance on one’s part as depicted from his illustration (Plato, the allegory of the cave, from the Republic). The second is the mind’s eye which represents a high level of thinking and is activated when the prisoner chained in the cave is released into the outside world where knowledge becomes a reality instead of just an illusion of actual knowledge as illustrated when in the cave (Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, from the Republic).
I believe that life changes for the better in that it opens up the mind’s eye as soon as one crosses the threshold from ignorance to intelligence.
I remember in my life, for instance, in my teenage years I became fascinated with electronics and computers and how they function. I could tell you where all the buttons are and how to operate them all from operating a VCR to launching a program on a computer. According to my family and friends, I was the guru when it comes to electronics and computers. Everyone kept asking me for advice and how to resole everyday computer issues from e-mail to windows related dilemmas. I became over confident and felt that I knew everything there was to know about computers and electronics and that I was somewhat invincible in this area. I felt that I didn’t need to go to school and further my studies since I had what it takes to be a leader in society. This was a classical example of me looking at things from the bodily eye, where my perception of knowledge of computers and electronics was not what it seemed to be. I would look at college students who are studying computer science and constantly ask myself, “Why all that math and what does it have to do with... [continues]

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