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PHILOSOPHY ESSAY

PHIL 201

JUNE 9, 2015

BRITTANY MICHELLE HUGGINS

LIBERTY UNIVERSITY ONLINE

In this life sometimes we dream so clearly, that is it hard to distinguish what was real, and what was not. Sometimes we dream of things that could not possibly happen. But then sometimes we dream of a love one who has passed on before us, or dream about something that could be happening in real life. It takes us to another place. How do we know that what we believe to be real life is not a dream? In the movie, The Matrix Mr. Anderson, a computer programmer/hacker also known as Neo questions if the life he lives is real, or if they are all being programmed somewhere by a machine. Neo meets Morpheus who shows him that people are under a computer program called The Matrix. Cypher has been shown this as well but tries to forget what he has seen and move on with his life. This task is not so easy. We see also in “The Allegory of the Cave” that the task to forget what you have seen, and lived for so long is a lie. Socrates presents to Glaucon a scenario of men who could only see shadows and that what they saw was their life. Just like in The Matrix, people believed that their day to day life, was all there was, and all that was happening. The men in the scenario think that it is their only reality, just as the people in The Matrix. Then one day in Plato’s excerpt, one man see’s real like just like, Neo. At first it id hard to believe. Then you start to think that, that reality is a dream. But in a way this one that saw the light is lie Chypher. In the excerpt the man could not forget what he had seen, or had been lead to believe was reality all his life. Just like Chypher wanted to forget all that he had seen, and go back to his reality that he knew. Socrates then throws out a question that asks if the one man would see the light, be happy in it, and then pity the other men. That’s a lot like The Matrix. Neo sees that the reality he once knew was sad. That the reality he now knew was not exactly happy, but something that everyone must see. So in a sense, he pities the others. Just as the man in Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave”. In the excerpt from Descartes is someone who questions their reality. They think that reality is not as clear of that, which is a dream. Just like Neo thinks in The Matrix. As they sit in front of the fire, writing, and feeling. The more they think about life the more they think that it is a dream. That everything that is happening in that exact moment is a dream. Just like Neo feels. Neo kept having that feeling that something just was not right about reality. In “Meditation I of the Things of Which We May Doubt”, the person believes that they could be deceived by the things they were taught like 2+2, or that the sky is blue. How do we know that is true? Just like Neo, He felt that the reality he was stuck in was deceiving him. Although in the end of this excerpt they decide to go back to what they believed to be true to begin with. Just like Chypher. Chypher wanted to forget what he had seen, and just go back to living the reality he was used to. As did this person, even though they never saw a true reality. They chose to forget that they once thought everything was a dream. That the reality they were used to was much better than that of a dream.

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