What is reality? Meh…classic question posted by various types of people, from philosophers to mere uneducated people. One analogy which may help the thinking process was posted by Plato, a Greek philosopher (May 21, 429 AD — …).
The analogy goes like this: imagine three people or prisoners who have been kept chained inside a cave for their whole life. They were locked facing the wall. Behind them was a fireplace constantly burning throughout their whole lifespan. People were always passing by behind them. Those moving people behind them combined with the light from the fireplace created shadows on the wall which they’ve been staring at the whole time. From their perspective, they always see two dimensional shadows moving on the wall they’re facing at. One day, one of the prisoner’s locking chain broke apart and that one guy was free to move. He realized that he could fully move his body from the top of his head down to his feet. He turned around and was shocked when he saw a three dimensional fireplace. Curious and confused, he continued walking through the cave until he accidentally found light in the end of one tunnel. He then walked out and experienced something he had never crossed his thoughts. At first, he was blinded by the sunlight. After a while, he had finally adjusted his eyes to the condition. He then saw three dimensional people everywhere, complete with their features such as eyes, nose, lips, nails, you name it, and everything else we usually see in our daily live (simply said, he saw the world we know for the first time lol). He also experienced colors, not just black shadows (hell, he might had no idea that colors exist, let alone the names, another lol). He saw buildings, butterflies, puppies, adults, kids, grass, forests, trees, the sun, etc. Then he decided to return to the cave, fueled with excitements and the urge to tell his fellow prisoners about this “outside world”. When he entered the cave and went deeper, he went kind of blind since his eyes were earlier exposed to the sunlight. After a while, he finally found his fellow inmates. But unfortunately, they responded his actions simply by shaking their heads, telling him that he had gone nuts. They persisted with their experience of “this version of reality”; the shadows on the cave’s wall. They decided not to move an inch from their spot because once they’re “free”, they would be as insane as the free man. Even an extended conclusion stated that whoever’s going to try to break them free, they would kill that person.
This analogy is related to Plato’s theory of forms; a world of ideas, not the material world which we can sense using our sensors (eyes, skin, nose, ears, & mouth). “The highest and most fundamental type of reality” so to speak.
The point is that reality might be different than our experiences. Well, at least it might be different from our PREVIOUS experiences. This is an important point because it kind of indirectly influenced the well known deductive thinking or reasoning, a method of thinking which consists of reasoning from one or more premises to finally reach a logically certain conclusion. This method is highly efficient and effective for finding out what is true and what is known. One of the most common example of this deducing activity is…well of course, engineering. Engineers uses mathematical language to analyze problems and to later find the solution. This example might only be one small demonstration of Plato’s idea of his world of ideas. But classical physics engineers might not be the best example to represent Plato’s implicit statement; reality might not be as it seems. The best demonstration in the science world for that point might be present from the modern physics world; relativity, particle physics, astrophysics, you name it. The results of the deducing and experiments are often counter intuitive (so often that experts in those fields started building an intuition that counter intuitive is indeed intuitive, 3rd lol).
A bit deeper into the story, you might also notice the presence of a conflict between the free man and the other prisoners. Some people are just too afraid to challenge themselves. The fear of being wrong, simply said. The locked prisoners might’ve felt that what they’ve experienced their whole life is the truth, the reality according to their perspective. Imagine how did the free man felt and what were his thoughts for his friends. Yes, the conflict might sounds so foolish to you, my fellow readers, but the sad truth is that this kind of conflict is still present up to this day. We still see flat earth society, in extreme case a geocentric universe believer, and many other hoaxes, fighting what seems to be an eternal battle with science. Some might have thoughts about killing the ones who present any ideas which counter theirs (well, I’m team science of course).
But let me post another question: is everything that we experience or sense IS never the reality? Well, it’s not like that either. Things that we are able to sense are also the things which contributes to the expansion of our knowledge horizon. Sensors are made to absorb information from the surroundings of the system which uses those sensors. For example, you know something’s cooking when you smell it through your nose. But that’s it, you only know something’s cooking. You might not know if it’s beef, pork, or anything else. An experienced person might be able to make educated guess about the dish being cooked but that person might also have no idea about the chemical and thermodynamic events surrounding the smell he/she experienced. Simply speaking, our experiences might often be a part of a reality but not the whole of it. But some people are learning well using this “empirical” method, so be it. I mean, a good chef is still able to cook a damn fine dish without knowing stoichiometry, right? There’s a thin line between what is “true” and what is “necessary”, but ehm…it’s going to take another whole page.
To finally finish this post, let me extend the analogy further: the free man then walked around the three dimensional and colorful world when he suddenly heard a mysterious sound calling him. Looking around, he saw no one. The voice started laughing and suddenly an object started appearing in front of him, a point which in no time became sort of a cube and then shrunk and disappeared. The voice then asked the free man “what are you doing in this “cave”?” The free man became so confused that he started trembling on his feet and passed out. My question is: “Could this free and open world might just be another cave to another higher being? And could there possibly be another “allegory of the cave” containing infinite loops of realizations? Goddammit, who knows. I think it’s about time for me to stop thinking about this stuff before I went bananas then started laughing while staring at my shadows on the wall.
