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Comparing Plato's Allegory And The Cave

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Comparing Plato's Allegory And The Cave
Do we as humans live the life that we want to, or are our lives controlled by computers? This Philosophical question is brought up in the Matrix. Neo, one of the main characters in the movie is chosen to see if he wants to believe what reality really is, or if he wants to go back into the “Cave”.
In the story, “The Allegory and the Cave” by Plato, they hold four prisoners in a dark cave with a fire going behind them. They see shadows from the people walking outside, but they don’t know what they are. One prisoner is freed and sees real light,also known as a sign of life or freedom, but it hurts his eyes. He goes back into the cave and tells the rest of the group what he sees but they refuse to believe him because they don’t know what light …show more content…
On the subject of light, Plato wants the prisoners to know what it is. The prisoner that got freed started to walk towards light also known as the truth but it hurt his eyes because he's use to the dark cave with only being able to see shadows. He went back down to tell the others what he seen but they don’t know what the truth is, to them the truth is where they are because they haven’t seen anything else. Similarly, in the Matrix, the same thing happened with Neo. He tried to fight Morpheus and do the thing he did but he couldn’t because he didn’t believe in himself because he hasn’t seen the truth and when he see’s what the truth is and believes in himself he will be able to do what Morpheus does. Particularly because he hasn’t been in “reality” long enough. On the same token, the two texts are similar because both Neo and the Prisoner think they’ve seen what reality is but they have just got started. Neo learns along the way that he has to be better and believe in himself if he wants to make in the real life, there is no going back after you dedicate yourself to real life. Whereas the prisoner went back and he looked at the cave differently because he got to see a little piece of the outside
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