Plato's Cave Allegory

Here is a comment on someone's blog which I think some people might find interesting. The comment was posted on "Trey's" blog. Trey is the lead guitarist for my favorite band, Morbid Angel. The references below refer to lyrics of their songs.

When Steve sung about "chains" in Chambers of Dis, I, God of Our Own Divinity, I initially interpreted "chains" as meaning what Plato did in his cave allegory. Chains that bind / blind one from knowing / seeing truth.

A quote I read somewhere:
"None are more hopelessley enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."

This quote inspired me to write here about the possibility that the first free individual who broke the rusty chains in the depths of The Cave actually is still seeing shadows. What if everyone bound to that rock is actually wearing a VR helmet and body suit and has been for their whole existence? The chains really didn't break and the first free person was duped into thinking they were free in order to satisfy his insatiable curiosity to explore the true nature of reality; this was done so that the chains would never break as one who thinks they are free stops pulling against the chains.

It's what I thought was going to happen in The Matrix: Reloaded to explain why Neo could have control over the Sentinels: they were all still in The Matrix! Alas, Neo was granted magical powers instead rather than reveal what I believe to be true:
There is an infinite nest of Matricies / Caves all embedded within one another; escape from The Cave and you're still stuck on planet Earth would be the allegorical way to state that. Leave planet Earth and you're still stuck in our universe. Enter hyperspace but you're still stuck in dimension 5. Free of dimension 5, you're still stuck in dimension 6. And so on... One can be awakened but still stuck on day one of their Awakening. Call it what you will but there seems to be a force that keeps binding one to this contrived reality, "trapped in others' spells," as it says in Chambers of Dis.

Then again, "freedom and prisons are in the mind," and there is no limit to how far the mind can expand or contract. No limit to how free or how imprisoned. As Einstein said once, "imagination is more important than knowledge."

Question: am I half awake or am I half asleep? lol

I didn't understand any of that but I have to say that living in The Matrix is better then living in the real world.

In the Matrix you can experience all the things you can outsie of it, like love, joy, happines, etc.

Who cares if your a battery for a machine? Whats the difference between living in the real world and a false world if you can do the same things in both?

All that changes is the environment.

Now if breaking free from a false world made things better, like for example the false world disabled your free will or something then theirs a reason.

I mean what did neo actually accomplish in the matrix?

A boring old philosophical question that hundreds of thinkers throughout the centuries have tried to answer
-Exactly how subjective or objective is reality?
-What is reality?
-Do we inhabbit of universe of mere "forms"?
-Can we trust our "lying senses"?

Begh. Everyone from Socrates to Descart has tried, there's really no point.

Accept the fact that you cannot come to any true knowledge of this or any other philosophical matter without falling prey to subjective particularities and the evils of relativism. Its all pointless.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO POSTMODERNITY NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

How would you know?



-are we a brain in a vat?

There is a point to saying there is no point?
Yes, let's go to a forum on the mysteries of mind and make a point of it to say there is no point to thinking about the mysteries of mind!

I could never understand why the Machines did not just go into space to gather the precious sunlight that they so require for conversion into energy that would sustain their bodies. With their superb technology and inorganic forms, surely it would be no difficult feat to just fly above the dense purple clouds of smog and establish space stations around the planet.

You are half asleep and rambling nonense. No offense.

It could have bin possible that the machines didn't know about space or the sun. There could be aliens somewhere wondering why we didn't make space ships and travel to the oil planet of Zetar6.

Machines can only do what their programmed to do ad their intelligence has perimeters to what it can do...of course you can say the same for humans. I mean we don't even use solar power.

Oh really? Were the humanoid robots of the Second Renaissance War programmed to build Zero-One? Who taught them how to do that? The earlier machines could only construct specific types of structure, and not a whole city unless they co-operated together, but then how do you explain how the early robots created a whole new breed of machines, the Sentinels, the Drillers, and the Spider-Harvesters? Did anyone program them to do that? Or did they design the new machines themselves? Or, how then, did the new breed of machines know about harvesting the electro-kinetic energy of the human body? This shows that the machines learn through trial and error, and they HAVE active computer minds that not only follow a particular set of algorithms and codes, but are actually able to imagine and be creative.

None taken.

You can program a computer to act on its own. The computers in the Matrix are more high tech then ours but our computers do many things on their own. For example by programming an anti virus blocker your computer can automatically destroy virus's on its own.

They do follow a set algorithm and code...which was put their by the humans. The machines only created what they needed for survivable. They made the sentinels because they needed them.

The humans may have programmed the machines to be able to defend themselves, just like computers do today...but they took it a step further, maybe because of lack of peremiters that humans put in.

I'm not a computer geek and I haven't watched the matrix in awhile...and this is off topic

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh BabelPlatz you have such a pessimistic and insipid view of the world we live in. Socrates I believe experienced true enlightenment at one stage at least. Descartes was an intelligent fool who thought that the mind and physical world were two separate things with no connection. Science has thrown that one down the rejected theory hole and flushed it!! Quantum physics has shown that the the mind and body/physical world are two interconnected interwoven apsects of the universe, some quantum physicists like the mystics of old have gone as far to say that mind is matter and matter is mind and that the distinction between the two is pure illusion.
Now as for the orignial question of breaking out of the matrix or maya or world(s) of vibration, many scientific/spiritual pioneers have achieved it and some have even left written records of their experiences or others wrote down what they preached/taught. Such people as Jesus, Paul the apostle, Ramana Maharshi, Muhammed, Buddha, RamaKrishna, Skankara, Lao tzu etc the list goes on and on.

Read this:

The Atman(our soul,infinite consciousness, Tao, God, true reality)is that by which the universe is pervaded, but which nothing pervades;which causes all things to shine, but which all things cannot make to shine...

The nature of the one Reality must be known by one's own clear spiritual perception; it cannot be known through a pandit(learned man). Similarly the form of the moon can only be known through one's own eyes. How can it be known through others?

Who but the Atmanis capable of removing the bonds of ignorance, passion and self interested action?...

Liberation cannot be achieved except by the perception of the identity of the individual spirit with the universal Spirit. It can be achieved neither by Yoga(physical training), nor by Sankhya(speculative philosophy), nor by the practice of religious ceremonies, nor by mere learning....

Disease is not cured by pronouncing the name of the medicine, but by taking the medicine. Deliverance is not achieved by repeating the word "brahman(God)," but by directly experiencing Brahman....

The Atman is the witness of the individual mind and its operations. It is Absolute knowledge....

The wise man is one who understands that the essence of Brahman and of Atman is Pure Consciousness, and who realizes their absolute identity. The identity of Brahman and Atman is affirmed hundreds of sacred texts....

Caste, creed, family and lineage do not exist in Brahman. Brahman has neither name nor form, transcends merit and demerit, is beyond time, space and the objects of sense-experience. Such is Brahman, and "Thou art That." Meditate upon this truth within your consciousness.

Supreme, beyond the power of speech to express, Brahman may yet be apprehended by the eye of pure illumination. Pure, absolute and eternal Reality--such is Brahman, and "thou art That." Meditate upon this truth within your consciousness...

The truth of Brahman may be understood intellectually. But(even in those who so understand) the desire for personal separateness is deep-rooted and powerful, for it exists from beginingless time. It creates the notion, "I am the actor, I am he who experiences." This Notion is the cause of Bondage to conditional existence, birth and death. It can be removed only by the earnest effort to live constantly in union with Brahman. By the sages, the eradication of this notion and craving for personal separateness is called Liberation.

It is ignorance(im ignorant ) that causes us to identify ourselves with the body, ego, the senses, or anything that is not the Atman. He is a wise man who overcomes this ignorance by devotion to the Atman...(notice this can hold with "Dont believe in religion believe in yourself" Atman being within)

When a man follows the way of the world, or the way of the flesh, or the way of tradition(i.e. when he believes in religious rites and the letter of scriptures, as though they were intrinsically sacred), knowledge of Reality cannot arise in him.

The wise say that this threefold way is like an iron chain, binding the feet of him who aspires to escape from the prison-house(the matrix??)of this world. He who frees himself from the chain achieves Deliverance.
-----Shankara

And since science cannot prove that consciousness/awareness is a product of biology, I believe this piece of writing by Shankara has much validity. We do live in a matrix and the only way to escape it is by detaching/severing ourselves from thought, desire and the "I" consciousness(the ego). Then we will see that the matrix isn;t something separate from true reality but a phenomena of it, by it and in it.


Peace out

Some grammar errors sorry hence the edit

Well said, BNW...

More like epistemological solipsism. Which is about 2400 years old now.