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Originally Posted by zen_tom
Coppertop, I'm a HUGE fan of Plato's cave, and yes, I'd have to agree with you, though I do think the difference between my senses having "evolved...to experience what IS there" and yours having "evolved to protect us from reality" is splitting hairs somewhat.
If there is something there, then it follows that we might need to be protected from it, hide from it, react to it, chase it, or even hit it with a stick and eat it. All these things are requirements for survival, even if they are just shadows dancing on a cave wall. What Plato missed out is that the shadows can bite, and if we miss our shadow footing, we still fall down the shadow stairs and break our shadow necks.
The process of training ourselves to take our eyes from the cave wall will help us understand what creates these shadows, and mastering them, maybe even allow us to play shadow-puppets ourselves one-day, but after we have achieved the most incredible magics, we are always going to have to return to eating our shadow bread and drinking our shadow milk and living our shadow lives.
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Maybe this is just the former chemical-user in me speaking, but I've always seen it as our minds shield us from reality by only allowing us to directly experience the shadows. Were we to spend all day in the sun, we wouldn't be bothered to procreate or do anything really. We'd be basking in the light and be content. Obviously the species cannot survive this way, hence the cave.
But we can experience it, taste it so to speak. Some try to reach it and call it enlightenment. Some get a glimpse through chemicals. It is there, and it is good, and I believe all will be revealed when I die, so I do not fear death but instead look forward to it.
*edited (as always) for typos