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Perception And Reality In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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Perception and reality have a complex relationship. One’s perception is not necessarily ones reality. Roberto Bolaños once said, “People see what they want to see and what people want to see never has anything to do with the truth” (Bolaño). People see what they want to see, whether it is the reality or not. Perception determines one’s reality; paradoxically reality is not determined by perception. Reality is contingent upon truth and is obscured by one’s perception.

To find the truth, one must question the reality of perceptions and the surrounding world. After analyzing The Matrix, Plato’s the Republic (the Allegory of the Cave) and Descartes meditations one can notice multiple similarities as well as differences. The protagonists in all three stories question the reality in which they are living in, weather or not it is real. However, there were some differences between them. In the Matrix, for example, society is controlled by a computer system in which they believe everything they see and are not aware of the reality of the situation. In Descartes meditations, he is controlled by his perception of evil. He thinks about his thoughts and questions their reality. In Plato’s Allegory, the inhabitants of the cave perceive the shadows caste …show more content…

In the “Allegory of the cave”, for instance, the individual is set free and begins to see reality but the sight of the sun is a painful experience. The sun represents the truth, and adjusting to it is difficult. The characters in The Matrix are kept in a dreamlike world and have been bound this way since their infancy. Cypher mentioned, “Ignorance is bliss” and would rather live based off his perceptions than on the reality of the truth. Rene Descartes was not able to find reality because the senses could not be trusted and he was constantly questioning his own

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