The Allegory of the Cave is Plato’s way of thinking about objects versus ideals. In the same way that it’s impossible to draw a perfect circle but we understand mathematically what a perfect circle *is*, the shadows in the cave are imperfect approximations of the more perfect objects casting those shadows.
What HR is getting at is that, maybe, the objects are also imperfect, and that maybe there is a layer above both shadows and objects that is more perfect than either… and what would that be?
I think he’s talking about Plato’s theory of Forms. That everything is an imperfect version of a Form and only by understanding the Form can we hope to fix problems with the imperfect versions (as I understand it).
Well yeah. The world of Forms would be the more perfect layer I was talking about, at least according to Plato. Where HR takes the idea remains to be seen.
wow you missed it.
The analogy isn’t anything about ‘perfection’, it’s about REALITY.
You see, the guys in the cave see only the shadows cast by the object, and think they know reality. They have no idea that the real object exists, so if that’s all they see, then that’s all that exists. Think about this in a more philosophical realm and you have the conundrum of the senses. If I show you a red ball, you think I’ve got a red ball. In truth, however, you know nothing about the ball that I’m holding. Is it soft, is it firm, is it fragile? You see a red ball and think you know what it is. Not quite a match when it comes to the shadows, I know, but it’s not a perfect analogy.
The point is, Plato was suggesting that the entire world, everyone included, is living a life of complacent simplicity. Plato’s aforementioned idol coined the term “The unexamined life is not worth living”. The point is, if you just see a shadow on the wall and don’t look any further, you’ll never really understand the object.
Now, what HR is trying to suggest is that he has gone further and inspected situations more closely. He’s implying that he has examined existence and drawn more in-depth conclusions about it, but unfortunately he’s committed the same flawed assumption of knowledge. When it boils down to it, you can never truly observe any thing, you can only observe the light reflecting from it, the gravitational pull emitted by it, the changes it makes on its environment. The object itself is just beyond your reach. The same goes for what HR is trying to get at, the concept of TRUE reality.
wow you missed it.
The analogy isn’t anything about ‘perfection’, it’s about REALITY.
It’s a good thing you clarified that, or I would have kept on believing Plato’s explanation like Fenlander did. Stupid Plato, didn’t understand the Allegory of the Cave…
Of note: Plato believed that the ideal forms are observable, given sufficient thought. (One might draw a connection to the likely-apocryphal story of a group of philosophers spending three days debating the number of teeth a horse has without anyone ever suggesting a trip to the stables to look at actual horses.) Maybe I can understand that red ball you’re holding by observation, or maybe not; I don’t think Plato much cared. But if I think enough, I can determine objectively all the properties of the archetypical red ball, because the perfect archetypical red ball actually exists in the actual world of perfect forms, and I can actually access it by thought alone.
In certain ways, Plato can come off as pretty crazy.
Well… not exactly. Plato criticized the theory of forms himself at quite a length. Even if you discard that criticism – the notion that you just had to “think enough” doesn’t do his concept of anamnesis no justice.
Here’s a question to consider: why do we say the shadows aren’t real? They’re observable. They obey the laws of physics. Why should we define “real” such that that’s not good enough?
Another way to look at is that if we can project a virtual reality onto a computer OS, who’s to say that someone else isn’t projecting our reality onto something?
I was going to post a long-winded essay essentially making a similar comparison, but it seems you already reached an effective conclusion without making nearly as many predictive swipes at potential spoilers. So I’m going to sit on my speculation.
Besides, I don’t expect HR’s experiment to work the way he intends it to. I expect it’ll backfire, with horrendous effects – because that’s what happens when you meddle with dark and mysterious forces.
I took it the other way around. The world with color is projecting its light into this monochrome world of limited sights. But all we can see, when we play a game, are the shadows.
I’m not sure I’ve ever once been under the impression that anyone in this universe is a fictional character.
Well I mean this is a fictional webcomic. (I think. Man, what a plot twist it would be if it wasn’t.) But I don’t think “adventure world” is a fictional world created in this universe’s “modern world.”
Okay, yeah, fair point. Arkerra’s status as fiction is still well and truly up for grabs (and leaning towards non-fiction right now).
Main thing is, I don’t want the sepia world to discover our world.
(And I quite like threatening to burn down forests. It’s maliciously ridiculous, but weird enough that it can’t possibly be taken for a real threat even in this fucked-up world we live in.)
Same here. However, GA is using it in yet another context/perspective: discussing virtual reality (and, by extension, fantasy worlds). AMAZING. THUMBS UP. :-D
Have I gone on about how interesting I found Thomas Metzinger’s “The Ego Tunnel”?
Among other things, he describes consciousness as a matter of constructing a simulation of external reality in which we are situated, and comparing that “World 0” to other hypothetical worlds. One reason this appealed to me is that it agreed with an idea I’d long held, that narrative is fundamental to human consciousness and identity — which explains why we’re so compelled by fiction, by role-playing, and so forth.
One interesting question that comes up, is how can you distinguish “World 0” from other imagined or dreamed worlds? Metzinger suggests that our embodiment is critical — we identify “World 0” because of our innate sense of our physiological processes and awareness of the extent of our body, and so forth. In some mental states, of course, we can lose contact with our awareness of these things.
Adam Baldwin from the (short-lived) TV show ‘Firefly’, and longer running TV show ‘Chuck’, is not related to the ‘Baldwin Brothers’ except by coincidence of surname.
Yeah, that’s why said “the ‘real’ Baldwin’s”, and that Alec is really his brother (who got adopted by the other Baldwin’s, the ones with the 3 talentless brothers)
In a sense, He is right about the seeing part: We see only the waves of light, which are reflected of of a thing. (Regardless, if these thing are the real deal to begin with.) Also, our minds have filters, who are in place to prevent our brain from overloading on information.
And an overload isn’t pretty, just ask/search for people without all or any of these filters.
Also, if I remember correctly, light behaves sometimes as a wave, sometimes as a marterial. (Or was that energie/material?)
“Reality is an objective illusion caused by the absence of adequate alcohol concentration in the subject’s blood” – free translation of a modern Greek comment on Plato’s theories quoted by an anonymous vine-philosopher (ampelofilosofos) in a bar at Plaka, under the shadow of Parthenon
The object is just empty space. Crack it open and you’ll find just a few atoms. Crack open the atoms and you’ll find more empty space and just a few quarks. Crack open the quarks, and you’ll find more of the same. This road leads only to madness
The universe is a giant fractal. 99.99999…..% of the universe is nothing. 0.99999999……=1, so the entire universe is nothing. We do not exist. The universe does not exist. We are not real. We are just the dream world of what is real or perhaps the secondary dream world of what is real. Who knows we may even be the tertiary or further down the line.
Guys, you do realize Plato came up with this when he was compleately tanked right? He just remembered it… what makes the shadow is not always what the shadow shows.
So… All the drama in sepia world boils down to….. Am I a real boy? All of it because HR is stuck in some emo juvinial existential funk about the nature of reality. What a douche.
It is almost as if someone is illustrating our very existence, which we then play out in some sick play. At least we can then project our own illustration (but with animation!) for our own amusement.
Yes that must be it!
It isn’t the light, it is the thing between the light and the thing! Aliens!
“What is the light? Is it merely energy from the sun…”
No, it isn’t, HR. It isn’t even coming from the sun. Read your Plato, don’t just try to quote by heart!
You’re not alone, Alt Text, you’re not alone.
It is shadows, all the way down man.
You mean it is shadow all the way up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down
The Allegory of the Cave is Plato’s way of thinking about objects versus ideals. In the same way that it’s impossible to draw a perfect circle but we understand mathematically what a perfect circle *is*, the shadows in the cave are imperfect approximations of the more perfect objects casting those shadows.
What HR is getting at is that, maybe, the objects are also imperfect, and that maybe there is a layer above both shadows and objects that is more perfect than either… and what would that be?
Amber.
Other fan of Roger Zelazny`s Amber,everyone should read it!
The primal Pattern. Amber is merely the first reflection.
Dunno, but whatever it is seems to be crossing the shadow… streams.
Don’t cross the streams!
I think he’s talking about Plato’s theory of Forms. That everything is an imperfect version of a Form and only by understanding the Form can we hope to fix problems with the imperfect versions (as I understand it).
Well yeah. The world of Forms would be the more perfect layer I was talking about, at least according to Plato. Where HR takes the idea remains to be seen.
***WARNING! Brown-noseing ahead!***
Of course if there was a perfect Form for a web comic it would look like Guilded Age.
Brown Star?
Like onions!
Shadows have layers! Like onions and ogres.
And everybody loves ogres!
Wait… that can’t be right….
wow you missed it.
The analogy isn’t anything about ‘perfection’, it’s about REALITY.
You see, the guys in the cave see only the shadows cast by the object, and think they know reality. They have no idea that the real object exists, so if that’s all they see, then that’s all that exists. Think about this in a more philosophical realm and you have the conundrum of the senses. If I show you a red ball, you think I’ve got a red ball. In truth, however, you know nothing about the ball that I’m holding. Is it soft, is it firm, is it fragile? You see a red ball and think you know what it is. Not quite a match when it comes to the shadows, I know, but it’s not a perfect analogy.
The point is, Plato was suggesting that the entire world, everyone included, is living a life of complacent simplicity. Plato’s aforementioned idol coined the term “The unexamined life is not worth living”. The point is, if you just see a shadow on the wall and don’t look any further, you’ll never really understand the object.
Now, what HR is trying to suggest is that he has gone further and inspected situations more closely. He’s implying that he has examined existence and drawn more in-depth conclusions about it, but unfortunately he’s committed the same flawed assumption of knowledge. When it boils down to it, you can never truly observe any thing, you can only observe the light reflecting from it, the gravitational pull emitted by it, the changes it makes on its environment. The object itself is just beyond your reach. The same goes for what HR is trying to get at, the concept of TRUE reality.
In short, he’s going just a bit crazy.
It’s a good thing you clarified that, or I would have kept on believing Plato’s explanation like Fenlander did. Stupid Plato, didn’t understand the Allegory of the Cave…
Of note: Plato believed that the ideal forms are observable, given sufficient thought. (One might draw a connection to the likely-apocryphal story of a group of philosophers spending three days debating the number of teeth a horse has without anyone ever suggesting a trip to the stables to look at actual horses.) Maybe I can understand that red ball you’re holding by observation, or maybe not; I don’t think Plato much cared. But if I think enough, I can determine objectively all the properties of the archetypical red ball, because the perfect archetypical red ball actually exists in the actual world of perfect forms, and I can actually access it by thought alone.
In certain ways, Plato can come off as pretty crazy.
Well… not exactly. Plato criticized the theory of forms himself at quite a length. Even if you discard that criticism – the notion that you just had to “think enough” doesn’t do his concept of anamnesis no justice.
Here’s a question to consider: why do we say the shadows aren’t real? They’re observable. They obey the laws of physics. Why should we define “real” such that that’s not good enough?
As chickpeas mentioned: It’s an analogy. The object-shadow-relation corresponds with the reality-image-relation.
Another way to look at is that if we can project a virtual reality onto a computer OS, who’s to say that someone else isn’t projecting our reality onto something?
I was going to post a long-winded essay essentially making a similar comparison, but it seems you already reached an effective conclusion without making nearly as many predictive swipes at potential spoilers. So I’m going to sit on my speculation.
Besides, I don’t expect HR’s experiment to work the way he intends it to. I expect it’ll backfire, with horrendous effects – because that’s what happens when you meddle with dark and mysterious forces.
I took it the other way around. The world with color is projecting its light into this monochrome world of limited sights. But all we can see, when we play a game, are the shadows.
I love the sepia stuff, but if they end up discovering they’re *also* fictional characters I’m burning down a forest. (You guys like forests, yeah?)
I’m not sure I’ve ever once been under the impression that anyone in this universe is a fictional character.
Well I mean this is a fictional webcomic. (I think. Man, what a plot twist it would be if it wasn’t.) But I don’t think “adventure world” is a fictional world created in this universe’s “modern world.”
One of these worlds has color, and one doesn’t. Yet.
You know what color is? It’s light.
Or is it actually an *absence* of light? Think about it.
Okay, yeah, fair point. Arkerra’s status as fiction is still well and truly up for grabs (and leaning towards non-fiction right now).
Main thing is, I don’t want the sepia world to discover our world.
(And I quite like threatening to burn down forests. It’s maliciously ridiculous, but weird enough that it can’t possibly be taken for a real threat even in this fucked-up world we live in.)
Well, technically they are fictional characters (my apologize to the next forest that gets in Mr Ak’s way).
Hmmm… I wonder if this means we’re going to see some breaking of the fourth wall?
I know. I just don’t want *them* to know.
Quick! To the 8th Dimension and BEYOND!
No matter where you go, there you are.
But, are you? … Really?
Always felt that deserved a sequel
Reminds me of several extraordinarily stoned conversations back in college.
It’s all sophistry, anyway…
Have you ever looked at your hands? I mean really looked at your hands?
Saphistry is better for you
I have always loved the Allegory of the Cave. I really enjoy seeing it show up here.
Same here. However, GA is using it in yet another context/perspective: discussing virtual reality (and, by extension, fantasy worlds). AMAZING. THUMBS UP. :-D
Have I gone on about how interesting I found Thomas Metzinger’s “The Ego Tunnel”?
Among other things, he describes consciousness as a matter of constructing a simulation of external reality in which we are situated, and comparing that “World 0” to other hypothetical worlds. One reason this appealed to me is that it agreed with an idea I’d long held, that narrative is fundamental to human consciousness and identity — which explains why we’re so compelled by fiction, by role-playing, and so forth.
One interesting question that comes up, is how can you distinguish “World 0” from other imagined or dreamed worlds? Metzinger suggests that our embodiment is critical — we identify “World 0” because of our innate sense of our physiological processes and awareness of the extent of our body, and so forth. In some mental states, of course, we can lose contact with our awareness of these things.
Which brings us to the tanks.
And thus, people’s desire for lucid dreaming.
The ability to temporarily construct a world of their own rules and desires, while asleep.
Of course, then you have to start wondering if we’re all living in one gigantic lucid dream..
Within a dream..
Within a dream..
Within a dream…
There are four suns!
Quadruple… sun… power?
I keep committing myself to the idea that you are actually Patric Stewart. You want to keep helping me out with that is fine by me.
:D
You are educated stupid by the Greek aristocracy and cannot comprehend Plato’s harmonious four-sun time cube.
Love me some cubic time. :P
“the internet is a series of cubes…”
No, that’s Minecraft.
That should account for quite a lot of light.
How many suns do you see?
Yes, there are, Mrs. Baldwin. Alec, Daniel, Billy, and Stephen. And the firstborn sun is the most disappointing.
Always felt that that Baldwin who was Firefly stole the charisma and talent from the ‘real’ Baldwin’s (except Alec, maybe Alec was adopted)
Adam Baldwin from the (short-lived) TV show ‘Firefly’, and longer running TV show ‘Chuck’, is not related to the ‘Baldwin Brothers’ except by coincidence of surname.
Fortunately. :D
Yeah, that’s why said “the ‘real’ Baldwin’s”, and that Alec is really his brother (who got adopted by the other Baldwin’s, the ones with the 3 talentless brothers)
There was a fourth boy in the brady bunch?
And then Dedalus built the Matrix.
What if C-A-T….really spelled DOG?
No, no. Any cat will tell you that C-A-T spells GOD.
Onward to discover the HYPERREALITY.
Also, video games. Cause, y’know, peeling back the veil of reality with nothing but willpower ain’t gonna pay the bills.
In a sense, He is right about the seeing part: We see only the waves of light, which are reflected of of a thing. (Regardless, if these thing are the real deal to begin with.) Also, our minds have filters, who are in place to prevent our brain from overloading on information.
And an overload isn’t pretty, just ask/search for people without all or any of these filters.
Also, if I remember correctly, light behaves sometimes as a wave, sometimes as a marterial. (Or was that energie/material?)
Wave/particle.
Wavicle.
Particave?
Party Cave!
Allegory of the Cave Party!
I feel a little in the dark here… Maybe if someone could shed some light on the topic?
You’ll see.
See what though?
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one” Al Einstien
“Reality is an objective illusion caused by the absence of adequate alcohol concentration in the subject’s blood” – free translation of a modern Greek comment on Plato’s theories quoted by an anonymous vine-philosopher (ampelofilosofos) in a bar at Plaka, under the shadow of Parthenon
The object is just empty space. Crack it open and you’ll find just a few atoms. Crack open the atoms and you’ll find more empty space and just a few quarks. Crack open the quarks, and you’ll find more of the same. This road leads only to madness
No, this is SEPIA-WORLD!!
The universe is a giant fractal. 99.99999…..% of the universe is nothing. 0.99999999……=1, so the entire universe is nothing. We do not exist. The universe does not exist. We are not real. We are just the dream world of what is real or perhaps the secondary dream world of what is real. Who knows we may even be the tertiary or further down the line.
I’m sure Carol is thinking that she is not nearly high enough to be having this conversation.
Guys, you do realize Plato came up with this when he was compleately tanked right? He just remembered it… what makes the shadow is not always what the shadow shows.
Not Plato,
Socrates.
Plato just wrote it down.
We mortals are but shadows and dust. Shadows and dust.
How about Dust in the Wind?
Good thing I’m not mortal then.
So… All the drama in sepia world boils down to….. Am I a real boy? All of it because HR is stuck in some emo juvinial existential funk about the nature of reality. What a douche.
Can you prove that you are real?
How about this comment? Is this real or something your mind has created to fill a void?
If I cannot tell the difference with empirical results, it does not matter.
A yup what he said. The nature of reality is irelivant since I still need to poop
Yep. The look behind the curtain can’t not be disappointing.
It is almost as if someone is illustrating our very existence, which we then play out in some sick play. At least we can then project our own illustration (but with animation!) for our own amusement.
Yes that must be it!
It isn’t the light, it is the thing between the light and the thing! Aliens!
weird sync, i’m reading the last chapters of micheal reynolds’ ‘a coming of wizards’ and it’s pretty much all about this stuff. holographic principle.
Spoiler alert:
There’s no such thing as objective.
The end.
“What is the light? Is it merely energy from the sun…”
No, it isn’t, HR. It isn’t even coming from the sun. Read your Plato, don’t just try to quote by heart!