Allegory of the cave

Picture, a dark cave with a few slaves chained facing a wall. They are bound by the feet and the neck so they cannot move or even look around. Behind the slaves is a staircase as wide as the room itself. Above the stairs you find a bonfire which causes the slaves to see their own shadow on the wall they are facing. However in front of the bonfire you find a walkway which holds panel to blocks the light from the slaves, depriving them from their own shadows. Occasionally people would pass by holding various objects and sculptures above the panels, projecting the objects their shadows for the prisoners to see, “Puppet masters” if you will. The occasional echoed sound the puppet masters make would’ve originated from the shadows for the prisoners. They would start to recognize some shapes and start naming them, or remembering in which order the shadows would appear. If the prisoners would’ve been there their entire life, they would perceive the shadows as reality. But what if one of the prisoners would be set free, able to look around and see that what they perceived as reality are but shadows from objects projected on a wall by a bonfire he could now look upon. What would happen if someone were there to explain that everything he thought was reality up until now was false and asks him to reject his old vision? The man would feel pain and confusion, he will want to go back to his old reality, for it is the reality he understands.

Now imagine if the prisoner would be pushed outside, to be made to see our reality? He would be dazzled and in pain for his eyes are not accustomed to the sun. But soon enough he would realize that the things he has seen up until now were but illusions, shadows cast from the actual objects all around him. And when he remembers his fellow brothers down in the cave, he might want to share his new vision of reality. Sadly his old comrades have yet to see what he has seen, and will reject his explanation and mock him for his eyesight is not the same as before, leaving him near-blind in the dark cave. The freed prisoner, shunned by his old people, cannot return to his old life.

“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.” ― Plato

This story questions if our reality is part of a bigger reality, how we would be unaware of it and only by opening our mind to new understandings, might we find this new reality.

YouTube video "PLATO – Allegory of the cave " : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dlmsULpgjI
"Interpreting Plato's Cave as an Allegory of the Human Condition". Hall, Dale (1980).

A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science.
Lectures on The Republic of Plato. Richard Lewis (1922).