Platos Cave

The Cave Allegory is the best known (and most widely excerpted) section of the Republic. This explanation works very well in describing the forms, even though it can be difficult to understand at first.

Basically, imagine a dark cave. There are many people there, weighted down with chains, sitting between a wall and a fire. Someone else is by the fire, putting objects in front of it so that their shadows are projected on the wall for the chained people to see. If all those people ever saw were those shadows, they may believe that shadows are the totality of the real world. This world inside the cave is that which most people experience.

Can we ever be free to express ourselves, in a democratic society?

[ 05 January 2005: Message edited by: forum observer ]

[ 05 January 2005: Message edited by: forum observer ]

If life was circumspected to the walls for consideration, and these people stared aimlessly, what value would they be to developing a greater perspective about these forms(directions and growths within the infrastructure), without knowing, that a greater potential exists with education.

So to stifle the expresson and growth potential within archaic models forms of government, and any institution that inhibits this free expression and creativity, would reveal that the images seen on the wall are really directed by positions behind you, that run these organziations. The models on the wall would only be as good as the structures allows them to be?

Now imagine what the light of education could reveal?

For those less familiar with forms, the hypercube, is what is shown after the light shines on the cube.

[ 05 January 2005: Message edited by: forum observer ]

Analogies presented:

Creativity and Light
Education and Light
Familiarity with your organizations and light.

How to stay healthy?

Should I delete?

[ 05 January 2005: Message edited by: forum observer ]

[ 05 January 2005: Message edited by: forum observer ]

since delay time in response to No Yards another thread was created....sorry

Now No Yards, you know you would have to supply documentation to prove the relationship of cancer to deaths in the pulpmill before you could espouse it.

Here's a counterproposal - Most people know there is light out there. Few are fooled by the endless machinations of the shadows. However, for the most part, our friends and families are in the cave, we have responsibilities and obligations, some profoundly felt (i.e. child rearing), and are inwilling or unable to take the leap of faith escaping the cave requires.

I really don't believe it has anything to do with elitism, rather a good sense of what is right and wrong Part of expressionism, would be to allow this free flowing aspect of democratic values, with a good sense about things in general.

Well, it should be obvious to even the most dim-witted individual who holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology, that Homer Simpson has stumbled into... the third dimension.

The picture above here is a humourous side of what is realized when this higher aspect of thinking could manifest in todays world(of course it has a mathematicla interpretation that is highly abstract). It's ownness, is on individual thinking and responsibiltiy to what we materialize in our actions. Sometimes you learn as you go along and make mistakes?

quote:

---

People are offering more than best wishes, and Canadians are letting their governments know they expect action. This New Year confirms what Plato thought: a moral sense of what is right, and what is wrong, is innate to the human race. by Duncan Cameron

---

[ 05 January 2005: Message edited by: forum observer ]

[ 05 January 2005: Message edited by: forum observer ]