Brandon Minter PHIL 201 18 February 2013 Essay #1 Skepticism Most film adaptations often derive advertently or inadvertently

from some sort of belief, historical archetype, or a type of philosophical method. Great philosophers such as Plato and Descartes attempted to use allegories to describe a specific thought process involving skepticism. Centuries later a film adaptation of the same sort was created titled The Matrix. Descartes explained his questionings in his meditation series, whereas Plato did so in the allegory called The Cave. These three relate in many ways, but also share small differences. These relations are the question of reality. The major difference is the opposite of the good and positive realms. In all three of these explanations of skepticism, there is a question of whether the things we perceive are real or an illusion. This is plausible considering our brain receives information an perceives it as reality from our senses, but our senses are also effected by our brain. For instance, in the movie, The Punisher Frank Castle explains to a man he is interrogating that when your skin burns enough it begins to destroy nerve endings and feels cold. As he is explaining this he is lighting a blow-torch while holding a Popsicle in the other hand stroking it across the mans back. The man begins to shriek in pain and begins to release information. This same concept has been used in other movies such as Jarhead in which a man his held down by other men and shown a burning iron brand, they go to stick the brand on his leg and he screams and passes out. He wakes up to see no brand mark because they had switched the brands using a cold one. In dreams one can be in a cold temperature room, but have a dream about a desert and

wake up hot. It is difficult to consistently trust the senses when it almost moves in a circular pattern of the brain drawing from the senses and the senses from the brain. Since our senses are only generally reliable, and are normally the main source for what we call, knowledge, we can be skeptical to what else is merely and illusion. Descartes describes this in his meditation and The Matrix explains it as a type of alternate reality. Platos The Cave does not question the senses necessarily, but what one is exposed to. The people chained in the cave are only exposed to shadows. This does not mean that the shadows arent real, but that they are the product of something else that is more real. Because that is all that the chained ones are exposed to, the shadows are reality. The same is shown in The Matrix. The matrix may be an illusion, but it is based off of a reality that once existed, a shadow in a sense. It doesnt mean that what they see is completely fake, because it is real to those who are solely exposed to it. To those who have been pulled out of the matrix, however, are able to see what is causing what they once saw, much like the man who was set free from the cave. A difference in these explanations of skepticism is the idea of the realms. Descartes merely describes that there is possibly another truth other than the one that he knows. In Platos The Cave and The Matrix there is an actual questioning of realms. The Cave includes the realm of the cave, as well as that outside the cave whereas The Matrix includes the matrix and the ruins of the real world. In The Cave the cave itself is thought of to be dreadful. It is the only thing that the chained men know, but it is not necessarily a happy place. The real world is what is exciting to the free man and that is what makes him want to come back to share with the others. The matrix in the move described is a realm that I what is more comfortable to the humans minds. It is not perfect specifically so that it can be perceived as real to what the humans nature is used to, but it is not as morbid and depressing as the real world. When one

exits the matrix, they see the real world for what it is as well as face the fact that what they knew is a lie. Their motive for retrieving others from the matrix is purely about truth, much like Descartes. The reaction from the freed man in The Cave is joy, whereas the reaction from the freed in The Matrix is commonly depression. These are but a few of the similarities and differences of all these explanations of skepticism. Because this view includes the fact that there will never be a true answer to the questions other than, we cannot know, Skepticism is simply good for thought experiments. Even as a part of a religion that believes in life after death, there will still be a question of reality and a possibility of multiple realms. This may drive people crazy, but it is always good to question reality as best as possible in order to determine for ones self what is at least most real to them personally, whether it is real in reality or not.