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Week 5 Essay
Plato, Descartes, and The Matrix
Michelle Heath
PHIL 201-D05
Dr. Ron Kuykendall
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In the Matrix, Plato and Descartes, all three of the readings are similar in that they cast
major doubt on reality and illusion of the world as we see it. In the Matrix Plato challenge reality
to a dream “how do one know if they are dreaming” or is life being played out by orchestrated
events out of our control? In Plato’s reading “Allegory of the Cave” doubt is cast on reality by
prisoners having limited and structured interaction with life. Therefore, the prisoner’s perception
of life is limited to sounds and the shadows on the wall. In some strange way Plato and Descartes
suggest that our minds hold us hostage to thoughts and perceptions against our will therefore,
subduing our beliefs.
The question that these readings strike are, is the world around us as we know it, is it
what we perceive it to be or is it orchestrated events controlled by other forces? Hypothetically,
the prisoners being released from the cave, being interpreted means there is no way to escape the
false imprisonment of our minds. Plato, describes this eye-opening event painful and hard to
believe by the beholder. Therefore, casting doubt on new events or realities that may pernitrate
that shell of illusion that we have become accustom to. When a dream becomes reality how do
your separate the two. My answer to this perception is somewhat covered in these three readings,
dreams are subconscious realities played in our minds.
All three readings are presenting questions of our human existence, as in the Matrix,
Plato and Descartes, are we being controlled by one big computer? are we being influenced by
outside identities outside of our control. These three readings are interesting in the fact that they
present some very good arguments on what is reality and what is an illusion. In one of my recent
classes in a reading By Charles Stanley “When the Enemy Strikes” the central location that the
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enemy strikes is the mind. The enemy seeks to control all Christians mind or thinking. If the
enemy can influence our thinking then he can very well influence the outcome of our existence.
The differences that these readings have are in the Matrix, it reveals a way out and a way
to return to the real world. Nevertheless, in Plato and Descartes the message was that there was
no way out and life is one big illusion or dream. Plato and Descartes paints a picture of life that
makes you question if anything is real. In “The Meditation” Descartes writes, “what has been
excepted as truth through senses up to this moment doubt has even shaken that existence”.
Nevertheless, there are many other manifestations of the truth that it is impossible for one to
doubt.
Several events in life makes you scratch your head and go hum…. that was strange.
Those are the times when you wonder is this happening or am I dreaming? There have been
many times that I have felt that same rush of emotions “this can’t be real, I must be dreaming.”
How can we prove that the world that we are experiencing is real? How do we know that we are
not dreaming, living in a platonic cave, or just trapped in some sort of matrix? “Let this mind be
in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). According to Descartes, the world we
live in is real a creation of God. Therefore, if we are in Christ Jesus we have this belief that “The
earth is the LORD's, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him” (Psalms
24:1).
“According to Descartes there are three formal realities experience, impartment and
synthesis.” Out of these three realities experience is the only proven reality simply because if you
experience something that’s proof that thing exist. Therefore, one’s perception of God and the
world we live in can be narrowed down to these three realities experience, impartment and
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synthesis. “Nevertheless, you cannot experience something that does not exist therefore if we
have experience God then he does exist.”
Bibliography
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Student.Blogspot.Com. Last modified 2017. Accessed August 4, 2017. http://classical-
student.blogspot.com/2013/02/plato-descartes-and-matrix-problem-of.html.
Carlson, B.V., L.F. Canto, and M.S. Hussein. "Semiclassical Coulomb Excitation Matrix
Elements". Brazilian Journal of Physics 34, no. 3a (2004): 859-861.
Davis, Joseph, Joseph Davis, and View profile. "The Argument from Adequate
Reality". Thejosephdavis.Blogspot.Com. Last modified 2017. Accessed August 4, 2017.
http://thejosephdavis.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-argument-from-adequate-reality.html.
Editors, The. "Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy". Journal of French and
Francophone Philosophy 3, no. 1 (1991): 56-57.
"Microsoft Copyright". Microsoft.Com. Last modified 2017. Accessed August 4, 2017.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/copyright/default.aspx.
"Plato, Republic 2.359D7-E2". Mnemosyne 69, no. 6 (2016): 1029-1033.
"Psalm 24:1 The Earth Is the LORD's, And Everything In It, The World, And All Who Live In
It;". Biblehub.Com. Last modified 2017. Accessed August 4, 2017.
http://biblehub.com/psalms/24-1.htm.
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