Showed this to my son... Asked him to not ask any questions till it was done.
His first question..."Daddy, are the people in the cave ignorant?"
From there, the questions kept comin'...

It ended with him asking if the person who was 'free" really saw reality the way it was. I explained to him about subjective vs objective, and related the story in this video with a fish one...
A bunch of fish are in an underwater cave, and the details are similiar.(used a waterproof flashlight instead of fire, naturally). the difference was that even through that one fish was able to leave the cave, he was a weak swimmer, and had no idea that there was anything above the surface of the water... no matter what we do, we still cannot comprehend 'ultimate' reality, but the more we push ourselves, the more levels of realities we can comprehand.
If we don't do everything we can to lift our children above ourselves, what is the point? 'good' parents try to raise their kids the best they can. they make mistakes. As parents, we try to avoid making those mistakes our parents made, and try not to make other 'new' ones...
We want our kids to be "less broken" then ourselves.
Don't want to raise them to be a
douchbag...
Wonder how many people out there understand Plato's cave, or even have ever heard about it. I hear people on the train blathering about Snookie, and I think "what a waste..." I see a guy backing up data while typing about Plato's cave, and I think..."what a waste". Man, things are so screwed up, we have people believein' in invisible friends and are so desperate for love/feeling bliss that they need to look at pics and videos of other people having pleasure...people not allowed to consume chemicals to make them feel good, yet can legally buy medication which does the same tyhing with dangerous side effects...
Still in the cave, or out of the cave taking meds to make the world more 'cave-like'.
Plenty of people who aren't , but far, far too many people who are.
So I walked out of the cave, and marveled at the spendor that was the world. But eventually, I grew tired with it all... I climbed up to the highest peak, and then I asked,
Is that all there is? Heh, I remember walkin' out of the theater after watching "Ther Matrix" thinkin' how Neo 'waking up' was so similiar to Plato's cave... and how Cypher was beggin' to be put back in...
Time to make the donuts.
[This message has been edited by FieroRumor (edited 05-23-2011).]