Except it diverges markedly from the text starting at around 517b!
Neb's interested in our feedback? Get Rick Deckard over there.
They completely left out Tom Bombadil.
I liked it too. I hadn't read the allegory itself and didn't know how much "If people disagree with me that only proves how blind they are" subtext it had.
The whole "why, I bet they'd even kill someone who tried to enlighten them!" thing for some reason jumped out at me way more prominently in this version than it ever did when I'd merely read it.
I hadn't read the allegory itself and didn't know how much "If people disagree with me that only proves how blind they are" subtext it had.
Oh, boy, does it ever.
I remember that when we read it in tenth grade, it was accompanied by a useful illustration of the layout of the cave. The internet suggests that this is very common, but now I find these diagrams comical. Yes, wait wait wait! Before I can interpret this not remotely subtle parable, by all means it is totally crucial to understand how of its elements are arranged in space.
It is, however, consistent with my understanding of Socrates, which I mostly get from Larry Gonick.
6: My reaction was something like "Don't be so melodramatic, Socrates ... Oh."
Blushing, one admits to having composed a few scenes for an action movie, set around the time of the 'Cratester, the narration for which would have commenced with "Yesterday I went down to the Piraeus with Glaukon ... [Styrian accent] to clean tings ahp."
Moby's 4 wins +5 Internets and a slice of unbuttered toast.
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This seems neat, for those who are into that sort of thing (large-scale digitization of old texts); I wonder if ttaM is involved at all.
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5, 7: Hmm, I rather thought it's a serious attempt to explain why even if philosophy's claims are true, you would expect to see reasonable, thoughtful people claiming that philosophy is nonsense.
At least at first, the one who has re-entered the cave is worse at interpreting the shadows than the ones who remained there the whole time. Actually, really, genuinely worse at it.
Just as in the parable of the ship, the philosopher is not monotonically wiser. They know more about the stars and the way the ship ought to go, but less about how to attain command.
7: Actually every time I read that parable, I get caught up in just how ridiculous the physical arrangement is. If they're chained in one position, and can't affect the shapes on the wall, what advantage would there be in better predicting the shapes? What could they do about it.
10: Plato is all about the poignancy of impending death.
I thought it was a description of someone coming down off a hallucinogen.
If they're chained in one position, and can't affect the shapes on the wall, what advantage would there be in better predicting the shapes? What could they do about it.
People like to know what's coming even if they can't do anything about it.
At least at first, the one who has re-entered the cave is worse at interpreting the shadows than the ones who remained there the whole time. Actually, really, genuinely worse at it.
Yes, but the story still to my mind denigrates "interpreting the shadows" as an objectively meaningless pastime, and "reasonable, thoughtful people" as blinkered prisoners like everyone else except the philosopher, just a bit cleverer than the other prisoners.
I hope that soundtrack is not what the real world sounds like. If so, I request that I remain chained.
I saw this same film in high school, when it wasn't any more convincing.
This also looks a lot like some of the Eames films.
In the action film adaptation, the one who is allowed out is filled with a desire for revenge but, after being befriended by [INSERT STOCK CHARACTER HERE] suppresses these feelings of rage and takes up the cause of justice. In battles that conveniently kill all of the prisoner-keepers with no need for any messy trials, the former prisoner, with a few allies who we are told have been agitating underground for the liberation of the cave, frees the remaining prisoners. In the final scene they emerge from the cave, first squinting, then gazing upon the world of light.
7: Actually every time I read that parable, I get caught up in just how ridiculous the physical arrangement is. If they're chained in one position, and can't affect the shapes on the wall, what advantage would there be in better predicting the shapes? What could they do about it.
I think that the puppets are supposed to be ordinary physical objects and the shadows their appearances. Plato is denigrating the picture of science that takes it to be about predicting appearances.
Lord Castock's 12 leaves out Tom Bombadil.
25: I know that, I'm just saying the analogy is a poor one in some ways. The epistemological component is OK, though it does not allow for experimentation. But the social part of the analogy is worse than useless.
Compare it with the analogy of the ship at sea, where everything pretty much represents itself.
Right. You can't have an alluring metaphor for a wicked political system that's apt in all its details.
They left out the part where the guy who's been out of the cave tells the others: "Be excellent to each other."
22: How's it supposed to be convincing? Part of the point is that we'd have no way of knowing whether we're in such a situation. Putting aside the unfortunate subtext of self-promotion, I think of it as basically a thought-experiment that doesn't prove anything but may help broaden one's thinking.
If Plato also meant it to denigrate science (such as it existed at the time), that does certainly fall flat.
Shadows are flat by their very nature.
He meant to invent science, as it exists now.
"Convincing" as in "I'm convinced I should learn more about Plato." That class plus the line "all of Western philosophy is a comment on Plato" or whatever made me decide to basically ignore philosophy.
When I taught Homeroom at Heebie U, the Cave was part of the curriculum. We took two days to watch The Matrix, because I am ________ . (Lame? Lazy? Understand my students well? Etc.)
This post is different from what I read on most blog. And it have so many valuable things to learn.
We seem to be in the midst of an onslaught.
We have been chained for so long that, until now, we had lost sight of the true form of the internet.
We took two days to watch The Matrix, because I am ________ .
Chronically unable to keep my eyes open?