Blog #5 The "Other" and Gattaca

Many of us have abilities and traits that separate us from everyone else. As much as we don’t see it, we are all unique. Everyone’s DNA is different and therefore despite the fact of millions and billions of human beings, no one will ever be completely identical when it comes to personality. We are all condemned to be our own being and our personality is what makes us into who we are. However, many believe because they have advantages in certain areas they are higher status and makes them better than the rest.

In the 1400 hundreds when the Spaniard conquistadors came into the Americas, they were seeking to find gold, and to conquer the land. They believe they were superior and were by far much better than the natives (Incas). This was due to the fact that they had much better resources and more advance equipment and claimed to be more knowledgeable. In our current society people believe that because they have certain skills and are more knowledgeable than others it makes them superior. The one with the better job, better car, and more money, is usually the one with higher status and looked highly and respected by everyone else. Is this really true? Is one an infidel if one lacks knowledge, experience, and is not economically wealthy than others? Most of us came assume that yes indeed it makes one worth less if someone is more intelligent than them.  In Plato’s Allegory of the cave the prisoner who comes out of the cave and has seen the real world, now is considered to be superior. He looks down to everyone still in the cave and feels pity for them. He contemplates how he was ever so dumb to have been stuck inside the cave. One can conclude that this prisoner is by far more intelligent and knowledgeable than his former peers in the cave. He is now a superior individual because he is aware that they are living an illusion and he is no longer part of it.

However, those still living in the cave might think their superior and will assume that the prisoner who came out of the cave is crazy and therefore inferior to them and their reality inside the cave. They will feel also in power thinking that coming out of the cave is ridiculous and damaging. That is brainwashing and now the prisoner who came out will be laugh at and ridiculed because he is seem like an infidel to them. The truth however is that the enlightened one is the one who is right. He is the one who has more knowledge and has seen the light. Therefore, making him truly superior to those in the cave. We all have skills that make us better than others, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have the capacity to gain such skills and knowledge as well.

I personally often think because I have had many Philosophical encounters and know many theories that many are not aware of; it makes me better and superior. Does it really? I think we can say in a way it does. I cannot get angry though because those people are not aware of it, because if they were I’m pretty sure they would have the same capacity and knowledge I now possess. Being better doesn’t necessarily mean you truly are, maybe you’re just ahead of the game but everyone else has a similar ability if they only were aware. We are humans and we always strive to be better and superior, often looking for something that separates us from everyone else. Truth is, is an ever going war when it comes to comparing ourselves with “the other”. We always will think that we have something that makes us into someone better and superior.   

  

Essay #1 Typed

     When one has got used to the idea, that everything we see and know is reality, it can be shocking to be told that we live in a world of deceit. Coming out of the cave for Plato is being exposed to the truth, and adjusting. Encountering a new reality can be awful. However, for Plato it will be worthwhile being enlightened and coming out of the cave because eventually our world will be better. In the Matrix when an individual comes out of the cave, his reality will also be shocking but when he adjusts to it, it will not be a better world but a dystopian one.
     In our current society we have human beings who reject coming out of the cave and prefer to stay in their comfort zone. As Plato mention "the prisoners don't know their prisoners, this is the only reality they know" (The Cave). People are not aware that everything they know, everything that has been taught to them has a bigger reality that they can ever know. These people Socrates would have called "sleepwalkers" (John Chafee's Philosopher's Way Textbook). When one does not ask themselves what? Why? This is giving in and allowing to live a world of illusions and dreams created by others. Philosophy is resisting the given. As Plato said “the true Philosopher would seek to escape the cave” (Chafee’s Philosopher’s Way textbook). The cave meaning the physical world. If one follows and believes in everything they have been social condition to believe, they live a world of illusion.

     Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is more accurate than the Matrix because I have personally experience being enlightened and coming out of Plato’s cave. Awful, shocking, not easy to adjust, but once I did adjust; my world became much happier than it ever was. Everything I knew, everything I had been taught, religion, moral & ethics had all been part of what my family and society social condition me to believe. As I came out of the cave and began for the first time thinking for myself, I realized that there is a bigger reality than we can ever know. Most people who have not have a Philosophical encounter, everything their taught becomes a habit and they eventually start repeating everything they hear. As Socrates mentioned people (“sleepwalkers”) “think they know stuff” (Chafee’s Philosopher’s Way Textbook). Socrates was a wise man, but he was wise because he knew that he didn’t really know. He spent his whole life searching for answers and at his death he knew that “the only thing we know, is we don’t really know”. Sleepwalkers (people) think because they Google something, or heard it somewhere, they know for a fact that is true. No way! They don’t know anything.

     Coming out of the cave can cause pain, because you will see that you are not going to find answers to your questions. This can be very stressful to some people because “the only thing that is certain is that nothing is certain” (Socrates). If one believes in God and is now exposed to knowing that we won’t know if he really exists or not, this person can lose meaning n their lives. God resemble something great for them and now it’s all gone. This can definitely make certain people’s lives a living hell. They would have rather stay inside the cave where they were happy to know that a God really existed then to not be sure. I believe the Matrix is trying to show a dystopian world where people can’t cope up with it as a symbol that uncertainty can cause people’s lives to ruin. In that sense it would have been better to live a lie than being exposed to the truth.

     However, both the Matrix and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave are similar to me because all the individual has to do is turn that dystopian world into an utopian one, As the famous Marine Phrase “ adapt, overcome, improvise”. To me is a satisfying feeling knowing that “the only thing we know, is we don’t really know”. At first of course it can be a dystopian world being uncertain of things and skeptic, but you turn that world into a utopian one where you strive everyday to seek for truth and knowledge. “Living the unexamined life is not worth living” (Socrates) and I plan to continue living the examined life, which is quite exciting, I must admit.  

Blog 4: Ignorance, Bliss, and Knowledge in Oedipus the King and The Matrix

Is the truth really worth knowing? If an individual had the choice between living an extraordinary life, full of joy and happiness or a tragic world full of troubles, pain, and suffering. What would he choose? It seems only obvious that we all like peace and being surrounded by joy. When the truth hurts we do well to stay away from it. However, is human nature to want to seek the truth once we become aware that the life we’re living might be full of deceit.

Oedipus the King was a man in power who had control of his own town and was well looked at and respected. The reality he knew was joyful enough for him. He started as every Philosopher does, questioning and questioning. We can see from the reading that Oedipus had a much better life before he was exposed to the truth. The truth brought his world to hell. He hated himself, and his people looked at him differently. He could no longer be admirable but be looked at with eyes of pity. Oedipus in line (1330) says " In my wretched life why should I have eyes when nothing I could see should bring me joy?" Knowing the truth will no longer bring him any joy and he blinded himself to not see because "the man who sees with his eyes is blind" (Plato) in John Chafee's Book, A Philosophers Way. By not having sight he must believe that he can gain knowledge. It seems however, almost always the truth is hurtful and can destroy us. When one has a girlfriend or boyfriend we like to think of them as being honest, caring, and loving. When we are emotionally attach to our partners and they bring happiness into our lives, it would kill us to find out they would hurt us. If one is in love, would it better to find out our partner has cheated on us or stay ignorant to that truth and stay with our partner refusing to know if he/she has done you wrong. One of those choices has a happy ending, the other does not. One can happily stay with their boyfriend/girlfriend ignoring they have played you or one can seek to know the truth but be deeply hurt and causing a break up and a broken heart. Indeed, we can see that ignorance is bliss.
In The Matrix Neo comes out of the cave into the real world. To him it was shocking and hurtful being exposed to this new reality. It took getting used to, but he gain knowledge he did not have inside his cave.  He asks Morpheus in the movie if he would be able to go back, as in going back into the world he knew(the cave). Morpheus tells him he cannot. This could be because when one gains knowledge of "the real world" we can no longer accept the cave. As I read in Kevin Reilly's Worlds of History Book "if you have learned about the peasant, you will not be able to be one". Once one has seen the truth we can longer live the lie. However, for there was an exception. Cypher loves it how ignorance is bliss and has an arrangement with agent Smith to make him go back into "the cave". Cypher liked the cave, he enjoyed it, it made him happy. For him, it was fascinating that all the knowledge he learn outside the cave will be erase, so he can be ignorant again inside the cave and have a happy life The real world was terrible and not worth living for him. The truth he could not bare, he couldn't take it, he wanted to live a lie. There are many individuals who would agree with Cypher and their lives would have been different today if they wouldn't have found out certain truths.A large amount of population I would safely say would praise the idea that "ignorance is bliss"
Both Oedipus the King and The Matrix show the readers that finding out the truth can ruin us. One minute we're living an amazing life and the other we find out the truth and our world becomes a living hell. This brings the question once more if knowing the truth is really worth knowing and necessary? I personally would say yes, ugly truths can hurt but we can embrace it. As the marines say "improvise, adapt, overcome". It will take getting use to, but one can construct a new world and leave behind the past. For Oedipus, he can't retract the decisions he made, but he could have affected the decisions he was going to make from there on. In The Matrix Cypher could have accepted that though living in the cave is more pleasant and comfortable, he could have fought and try to establish joy and pleasure in the real world. Is not going to be easy, but is by all means possible. Only the cowards and the weak minded would decide to go back into the cave and live a life of deceit. I cannot, and definitely will say that ignorance is not bliss, as a Philosopher I have to reach out to the absolute truth. As Plato once said "for only truth does never change, and thus never looses it's value.

Blog #3

Coming out the cave has two interpretations, one is being enlighten and coming out to a beautiful reality as Socrates mentioned. The other is as seen in the movie The Matrix; humans coming out into a dystopian reality, horrible to live in. We can all agree that seeing the truth is better than being exposed to a lie, but the truth sometimes can be awful. There are many who prefer to not know, and claim that ignorance is bliss. When it comes to finding out an ugly truth, I can honestly say that is preferable to want to live with ignorance and not know. However, by denying ourselves the truth we just give in into a false reality full of deception and lies because it pleases us. I like to resist the given and try to seek the truth, no matter how terrible and ugly the truth will be.

            Plato’s theory and The Matrix are total opposites. One has a happy ending and the other does not. I would like to clarify that when Socrates says leaving the cave will give you a much better  life once your embrace it, he means according to John Chaffee’s book (The Philosophers Way) that you would feel good about yourself knowing that there is a bigger reality than humans can ever know. Being aware that there are many possibilities and that we make our own world. A life where an individual finally gets to use his mind, and think for himself. Not following others ideas and way of being. When one comes to conclude that the answers we thought were true have more answers and more possibilities, not just the one taught to us by our parents and society. Then we will come to a beautiful realization, a new world, we will wake up and be enlightened and the world we knew (the cave) will no longer exist, only our new reality which will be beautiful as Socrates mentioned.

            Though the way we view the world will be beautiful, we have not free the others from the cave. As we are forced to interact with the prisoners that do not know their in a cave, will make us once again be reminded that we were once there and will make us want to free them but at the same time be angry that they cannot see their prisoners. Since we are living together and they have not seen the light, it makes the enlightened person’s life in a way miserable because he is forced to live with people who live in a world of illusions and dreams created by others. Ridiculed if he so much as tries to explain to them that they are living in a cave. They will laugh at him and think his crazy. That being said, leaving the cave will be extraordinary but we cannot free everybody and our misery comes from living in a world where were exposed to live with unenlightened dumbasses. That is the ugly truth, to know that you’re awake but others are still sleepwalking. In a way both Plato’s Theory and The Matrix end up in a dystopian world, is just that in The Matrix is a bit worse.

            The Matrix has a sad truth once one comes out the cave, there’s barely enough hope to live in a beautiful world unless all the machines are destroyed. This is a sign I take also as if all the machines are destroyed then there will be happiness. Therefore, if all human prisoners in Plato’s theory come out of the cave, there will be happiness. We cannot know if everyone will leave the cave but we do know that if they do, the world will be a beautiful one. The Matrix I believe is a way of showing that once an individual has been enlightened and sees things more clearly he is still forced to live in a world of hell. In Plato’s theory you are free and enlightened but like I explain you are also forced to live in a world of hell though you see everything more beautifully than before. One is glad to have left the cave but sad that he cannot help others do the same. Knowing a new reality can make you depress looking at everyone else reality.