How do we know the things we see are real? What is the nature of reality, and can we ever hope to see behind the curtains? 2400 years ago, the famous Greek philosopher Plato came up with an interesting allegory to tackle this issue. 

Imagine a group of prisoners chained up in a cave. They’ve spent their whole life staring at the cave wall, unable to move or look around, while a campfire behind them was the only source of light. Sometimes, there are people passing by in front of the fire behind them, so the prisoners cannot see them directly. All they could see was their faint shadows casted on the wall. Because of the prisoners' very limited knowledge and experience, they thought that the shadows on the wall were actual entities, some of them even took to worshipping the shadows, not knowing that they are merely the reflections of real objects and people. For them, the shadows were reality.

One day, a prisoner was freed and taken outside of the cave. After spending all of his life in the dark staring at the cave wall, reality was disorienting. The light was blinding to him, and he could not comprehend the sight of actual people walking around, trees swaying in the wind, or the campfire’s flickering flames. He could not comprehend what he was seeing, frightened, the prisoner tried to hold on to the only thing he knew, the shadows. Even though the people around him told him that shadows are merely a tiny representation of reality, he would not believe it. 

But slowly, as his eyes adjusted to his new environment, he could see the objects a little clearer, while the shadows started to blend into the background. As he saw more and more, he began to understand that the reality he had constructed in his head was simply a fraction of the truth, he realised that all this time he was being ignorant, deluding himself by thinking he knew everything.

The freed prisoner ran back to the cave and started to share his discoveries with the other chained prisoners. He delightedly told them that the shadows on the wall were mere reflections of the real world, that reality is far more beautiful and colorful than what they could possibly imagine. But the other prisoners would not believe him, how could they? A lifetime staring at the shadows on the wall was all they knew. The other prisoners aggressively denied what they were told, saying that his journey has made him blind and stupid, that of course the shadows were the only true reality. They stubbornly refused to be freed, instead choosing to stay in their ignorance, content to be chained up and stare at the cave wall until they die. 

Plato told this story in order to convey how difficult it is being a philosopher trying to educate the public. It illustrates how most people are not just comfortable in their ignorance, but hostile to anyone who points it out.

"Would you rather be a happy simpleton and live a life of blissful ignorance of the world around you, or be a miserable intellectual who is enlightened to the true nature of the world but rejected by the rest of society?"