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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3320 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 10, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Isn’t the allegory of the cave kinda lame ? All you see are shadows, but I, the philosopher, see the true nature of things. You’re nothing but a groundhog to me, kid.

Not to mention how tortured it is. People have nothing better to do than to chain NPCs to a cave and give them an indonesian muppet show all day long? Can’t those shadows be made by real animals, walking along the road, or something?

When I was first introduced to the allegory it was in a Media Philosophy class in college, and we watched The Matrix right afterwards. And it happened to be the first time I had seen the movie so in full context the whole discussion was rather mind-bending to me.

Throw in some information of how one's environment and upbringing can directly influence how they are able to perceive reality with their senses and I think there's quite a bit of meat there.

Yes, scientists have more-or-less literally carried out Plato's cave experiment on young kittens.

If you were one of the cats raised in an environment consisting only of vertical lines and was incapable of perceiving horizontal lines (except by turning one's head sideways!) wouldn't this be a massive 'hobble' on your understanding of baseline reality? And wouldn't we want you to gain a clearer, more accurate image of the world?

So perhaps the point of Plato's cave is to pose the question of whether the prisoners are not just only experiencing a 'flatter' version of reality, but whether they are fundamentally less able to perceive things in 'higher' reality. And, taking that a step further, whether even 'normal' humans raised in a 'normal' environment might be missing out on some facets of their world that they simply haven't gained the ability to see? Shouldn't we be trying to find ways to improve our own perceptions, because we wouldn't even know if there were 'higher' parts of reality and experiences out there unless we make a decision to start looking for them?

Plato's terminal point was, I believe, that there are 'platonic ideals' of certain concepts out there that are beyond our mere senses, and education/reason must be employed to perceive them. Those lacking education or reason are forever cut off from this extra plane. Which is probably where the "foolish mortals, us philosophers have access to whole dimensions of reality that you can't even fathom" part comes from.

Compare that to the idea of the simulation hypothesis, where our simulation masters are the ones who control everything we experience and perceive and can expose us to as much or as little of 'true' reality as they wish, and much of this thought experiment seems prescient.

Managing to generate an idea this 'out there' as an ancient philosopher is, I'd assert, rather impressive!

The objection I have is that this is coloured by hundreds of years of interpretation, people read into it what they want. It's like a story in the bible. Originally the author may have put it there for the stupidest of reasons, he was reffering to a petty fight he had with his neighbour last week. After millions of washing cycles in the minds of clever people, there is no end to the brilliant insights to be found in that story.

I would also assert that the Bible DOES contain much valid wisdom that was inserted there less because of a petty fight with a neighbor, and more because there were society-level problems that were ameliorated by adding in particular cludgy solutions which had to be enforced by an all-seeing God in order to stick.

For instance, consider that many of the more ridiculous behavioral constraints that many Christians assert belief in are based in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. i.e. the ones written when the Israelites were wandering in the desert for 40 years. Seriously, anytime someone cites some 'absurd' rule that Christians believe is an inviolable moral principle, check which book of the Bible it came from. It's gonna be one of those. This includes the Ten Commandments! Many of those rules seem EMINENTLY SENSIBLE in the context of a large group of nomadic people who have to survive for decades under extremely harsh conditions.

So the failure of interpretation is mostly removing those rules from their original context and trying to apply them to a world where we are not under such survival threat.

In Plato's case, I don't think he was motivated by such incentives, but if you're trying to convince people that they should take concepts which cannot be directly perceived seriously, such as this newfangled 'geometry,' maybe it is useful to get them to think about it in terms that are comprehensible to a somewhat bright person.

I guess the question is whether you think future 'better' ideas built off of his work, or replaced it with better understanding derived from superior logic?

I also happen to be reading Neal Stephenson's Anathem right now, and a core theme in there is the conflict between one faction of intellectuals who believe that the ideals of geometry, mathematics, etc. actually exist on a higher level, and spend efforts trying to perceive them, and those who believe that they don't, but are simply symbols which we impose on a messy, uncertain world in order to force it to make sense, and the symbols themselves don't have inherent meaning.

I adore Anathem, in part due to comparisons with my freshman dorm, but I don’t remember those two factions. It certainly fits with the themes!

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