The Invited Philosopher
Francesco
The Menu
- First Course: Italian seasoned turkey burgers with organic mixed greens salad in balsamic vinaigrette
- Second Course: Cauliflower gnocchi with three cheese tomato sauce
- Third course: 4 cheese plate with Norwegian crackers and Italian Sourdough bread
- Drinks: Italian Prosecco* and Wine
*Courtesy of Francesco
The Philosophy
I invite you to read about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave here, here and here, and all over the Internet. Different translations add a little to the essence of the story or message. Consider also watching some of the movies that use Plato’s Cave as their main theme: The Matrix, The Truman Show, Dark City, Cube, The Comformist. You will find all movies in Amazon, Cube does not have good reviews, but The Comformist goes in my bucket list!
The story
The story describes prisoners in a cave chained since birth in such a way that they only see shadows in the wall of the cave, shadows that move and that they observe mesmerized, guessing what shadow will appear next. But one prisoner, frees himself from the shackles, walks out of the cave and sees the light. The light signifies wisdom and knowledge, the prisoner is a philosopher who questions life, while the prisoners are ignorant humans attached to whatever emotion those shadows trigger in them.
Four Meanings for the Cave
Francesco saw 2 meanings for the shadows in the cave, one more obvious than the other. I had always seen one but with his help saw one more.
We did not discuss what the “light” really means except that it means “wisdom” or ”freedom from ignorance”. But the light itself has a deeper meaning that has been studied at length by many philosophers and religions and there is much to say about that, but we will leave it for another dinner topic.
The Cave of Naiveté
Francesco saw the cave or the shadows as the naiveté of people who romanticize life and especially love.
I agree with him, because I read it in the book “The Road Less Travelled” by Harvard Psychologist M. Scott Peck, that most people misinterpret falling in love with real love, and Dr. Peck explains that real love is what happens “after” the falling in love period ends. Real love is when you accept the other person for who he/she is and you seek to learn more about him/her to find out how to help him/her flourish and bloom like a garden.
That may sound again too romantic and puts me right back in the cave according to Francesco, but this is my blog and so that is how I interpret it.
The Cave of Society
The second way Francesco saw the cave is the classic way of thinking about society, government, religion oppressing us with their traditions, rituals, rules and regulations. That one is so obvious I will not discuss it, but may get back to it in another dinner. But I content that it is useless to look for the imprisonment there, because there is a bigger prison, and it is the only one that really matters.
The Cave of the Ego
My take is that, the real prison is our ego, or our egocentric mind and all our self-serving thoughts that are centered on finding satisfaction and pleasure. It is our ego that has us always judging what we like or don’t like about everything, people and situations, what we want or don’t want, have or not have, often disregarding the needs of others.
There is too much to say about that and I would only recommend reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle as a good start to understand the fallacy of the ego. But basically, if we want to liberate ourselves from some or all suffering, which is always unnecessary suffering, then we have to escape from the prison of our ego. The ego manipulates us and makes us feel fearful about all kinds of things. Fear is a prison and the ego causes it. Much can be said about the ego but I will leave it for another dinner topic.
The Cave as Our Expectations
The new take on the meaning of the cave is also linked to the ego. Francesco and I talked about people’s expectations as being a prison for people. And how we live our lives based on those expectations. How some people have a simple life with no children or big responsibilities but they will make a fuzz about little things. Others like him and myself have children and bigger responsibilities and we only complain when those bigger more significant things go wrong.
While it is true that the shadows game is described as getting the prisoners enthralled in the expectation of seeing the next shadow, and this can be literally translated as our “life expectations”, I contend that the level of intensity of expectations varies between humans based not on the substance or impact of a particular situation on one’s life but on a person’s lack of awareness of the manipulation of their ego. Shakespeare comedy play “Much Ado About Nothing” comes to mind. However, this implies that there are situation worth “Much Ado”. I claim that nothing in life ever deserves “Much Ado”.
As Markus Aurelius wrote:
The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.