What Is The Allegory Of The Cave

In his Allegory of the Cave, Plato suggests that reality may be very different from what we imagine it to be. We can see this in the novel Ubik where the inertials experience illusions rather than reality. Some people are comfortable with living in their own reality, which is based on their subjective ideas on the world. Plato believes we should all seek to escape from this “cave”, our realities, made up of false perceptions and face the harsh realities although it can cause us pain. Just like the inertials had to face the reality that they were all in half-life and that they would eventually die. Like Plato states in his analogy, we will become accustomed to "reality" like the prisoner's eyes adjusted to the sun. Once the team of inertials …show more content…
Little by little, they started to make sense of what was happening until Joe discovers who the evil entity is. The freed prisoner would then choose whether to go back to the rest of the prisoners or not. Joe Chip becomes this “freed prisoner” who accepts to go against Jory. We shouldn’t be like the prisoners who accepted what they were shown, instead, we should challenge and think critically about the ideas being presented to us. Just like Joe Chip and the rest of the inertials did when they started analyzing Runcitiers “manifestations”, to come up with several explanations of why they were experiencing the regression of time. Their first explanation is that the explosion in Luna affected them, but then they start believing that it is someone that is fooling them. All human beings should seek to escape from the cave as Socrates states, “Or do you think he would feel Homer that he would much prefer to ‘work the earth as a serf for another man, a man without possessions of his own,’ and go through any sufferings, rather than share their beliefs and live as they do?” (Plato, 516a). It is best to gain knowledge than remaining ignorant. In the end choosing to escape the chains of ignorance is what is best for humans, although there could be pain and …show more content…
There are several ways in which the novel supported Descartes ideas. It is stated that all the inertials are in half-life which is described as a dream state, there are also some characters that have some qualities that make them seem insane, such as Francesca, Jory, and Pat. At the end of the book, we also learn about Jory being the evil entity, which fooled them. But it could also be argued that Pat could have also been the evil entity. Descartes’ claims that we can know reality using our minds and reason, I believe that Philip K. Dick would agree with this claim up to a certain point. Just like Descartes, Philip K. Dick would agree that we must question things before we accept them to be true. Many times, throughout the book, once it looked like Joe had figured out who was causing the regression of time they were experiencing, something new would be thrown in that made them question everything again. Just like Descartes, Joe rebuilt his knowledge once he found something to be