𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘼𝙉𝘾𝙄𝙀𝙉𝙏 𝘼𝙇𝙇𝙀𝙂𝙊𝙍𝙔 𝙏𝙃𝘼𝙏 INSPIRED 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙈𝘼𝙏𝙍𝙄𝙓

Introspection, Vol. 38

Roughly 2400 years ago, long before simulated realities, artificial intelligence, and red pills, the philosopher Plato imagined a group of people imprisoned inside a cave. They had been chained there since childhood. Unable to turn their heads, they could see only the wall in front of them.

Behind them burned a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners, objects were carried past, casting shadows onto the wall. The prisoners watched those shadows and called them reality. This doesn’t mean necessarily that they were fools, but it was because they had never seen anything else.

More than two thousand years later, “The Matrix” movie gave this allegory a modern body. It was not a cave made of stone, but a digital world. There were no chains around the neck, but cables connected to the mind. There were no shadows on a wall, but an entire simulated life.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝘅.

They eat, they form relationships, they worry…