" Plato's parable of the cave is a metaphor for ignorance and knowledge. Imagine, says Plato, a cave in which prisoners are chained in such a way that all they can see are shadows thrown on a wall in front of them. All they know of life are these shadows. They would think that these shadows were reality, having known nothing else. If one of them were freed, and allowed to emerge into the daylight, he would see things as they are, and realize how limited his vision was in the cave. He would be quite unwilling to return: And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?...you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell. (Republic VII, 516)Yet to his fellow-prisoners, he would seem the fool, not they: And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady...would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending. (Ibid, 517)I suggest that the lethal text may not in fact destroy the mind, but rather cause it to move up to a higher level of consciousness, which would seem "weak" to the people left behind. He might have a direct apprehension of Plato's world of Ideal Forms. Instead of having been destroyed, such a person might simply have transcended the body and no longer have need of it. (Such a fate is implied in Macroscope.) I further suggest that the person who enters cyberspace has, in a metaphorical sense, left the cave. She has entered an abstract dataspace-a world of Ideal Forms-and has no need of the physical body. Indeed, the person wearing a bodysuit and VR goggles seems vaguely ridiculous to anyone watching her twist and turn in response to no apparent stimulus. She is, in a literal sense, a visionary." Great metaphor of how the world is ran today, I wish people could understand that there IS a life behind capatalism. It's pretty frustrating when you've broke on through the other side, only to find you are the only one. That's why I'm trying to find a balance for myself between the socially acceptable "way of life" and the life of spiritual connectivity.
Kind of reminds me of how, after starting to smoke, one does not want to return to their previous, non-stoned lifestyle.
oh it was plato who first wrote of that. well well, the fella did come up with something of worth. ((digit has a grudge against plato for all the damage he percieves has been done by the various (mis)interpretations and (mis)representations of his work))
Just to be clear, I wasn't ragging on your post. The World's Funniest Joke is also deadly. It's a lethal text, of sorts. And Monty Python gives the subject their usual brilliant treatment. I thought it apropos.
wow. a first. never heard anyone say that before. i thought it was universally loved. i quite dislike how monty python seem to be like ambassadors of british comedy. they're a long long way off the best, and fairly untypical of it all too, though they have coloured alot of it.
Yeah, me too. Especially among stoners. lol You could certainly do worse. That's a hell of a bunch. Untypical? Hmm. Benny Hill, Monty Python, Douglas Adams, The Black Adder, Eddie Izzard, and Ricky Gervais spring to mind, in a stream of consciousness sort of way. I'm gonna say they all have a great deal in common. In particular that very British fondness for the absurd juxtaposition. So please enlighten me. What troupe or personality is more representative of "British comedy" than Monty Python?
yea, I get that alot. I don't know, I never took a liking to it. It just seems too distasteful, and the stupidity in it is just too overwhelming for me to handle.