Plato\'s Allegory of the Cave and the Movie the Matrix

Plato's Allegory Of The Cave And The Movie The Matrix

Plato's allegory of the Cave and the 1999 Matrix movie share many similarities and look at a similar question of what is real and who has the responsibility to point towards the truth. It is obvious that the creators of the Matrix have inspired quite significantly from Plato's work and putting in a modern contexts, aiming for a different result.

In Plato, the dialogues he presents offer the image of a strange dual-world, in which men are tied together facing a wall, from birth, with only shadows of people and objects projected in front of them. When one of them is released by force, he is taken away from the cave he was born into and shown a different world from the one he knew. Besides this, he understands that the reality he has lived so far is a faked one and his role is to release the others from their chains and show them the truth. The metaphors used by Plato can have a high number of meanings, but the clearest of all goes to the role of the ancient philosopher that, with the help of others like him, understands the truth and has the responsibility to share it with the uneducated. Many questions remain after reading Plato's cave, especially from a modern point-of-view: who chained the men, who freed the man, what is the reason of their imprisonment or why not all of them are released into the real world? The dilemma of what is real and what is not is similar to many other stories, philosophical ideas and beliefs of many civilizations in different times. For example, one of the most famous Chinese stories tells the dream of a man that dreamt of being a butterfly. His lifetime question is therefore whether he is dreaming to be a man whilst sleeping as a butterfly, or the other way around.

Similar to the Cave, in the Matrix, the main character is released from his mental and physical confinement and enters a world he knew nothing of before. Different from the Cave, Neo-is voluntarily asked to free himself, unlike the man in the cave, so his path is slightly different. Summarizing, the main character is contacted by strange individuals and presented with a world different from what he was accustomed to. His life has been a lie, as well as everyone else's, as he lives in a virtual world, controlled by machines, electronic entities that rule the Earth. Due to the lack of solar energy, these machines have taken men and women and prisoners, offering them normal lives in a virtual world that seems as real as possible -- and taking in return the bio-energy they need to exist and develop. The world the movie presents is the modern world, unlike the Matrix where men are kept in semi-solitude and in chains. The real world that Neo-discovers after releasing himself from the labyrinth of electronic plug-ins is dreadful. Close to the year 2200, machines rule the world in a complex one-mind system, with scarce humans living in an underground city called Zion. These man had been freed by a messianic leader, called "the One," similar to the person that released and took into the light Plato's prisoner.

The stages through which both Neo and the released cave man pass are similar in finding the truth, understanding it, embracing it and, further, promoting it. As the men in chains lived their lives predicting what the next shadows will be, their state is of speculation, similar to what Neo-lives daily in his conspiracy-based reality. From a philosophical point-of-view, the cave man and Neo-pass from speculation to knowledge, and further on, to acting in the name of such an understanding and responsibility. For this is the main theme of the two pieces, responsibility in the face of truth and how one handles it. First, rejection of a different reality appears as a normal reaction in face of a total novelty; second the accumulation of information and integration with own systems of beliefs and values and third an internal battle between what seemed until then real and what looks real. Going through all these stages leads to knowledge of what is good and right, yet this without the necessity and will to act in order to eliminate and prevent evil is almost useless.