Can you truly come out of it?

One would imagine that figuring out Earth’s shape is a relatively simple task. With today’s vast access to information, there’s no need to replicate Erastostenes’ smart use of trigonometry to measure Earth’s radius. It would suffice to read a couple of Wikipedia entries, or pick up any high school textbook, to understand that the Earth doesn’t have the shape one would naively infer from perception alone, and that a sphere makes logical sense. We would think that if someone believes in a Flat Earth, it’s because of a lack of interest in or research on the topic, or a misunderstanding of the limitations of our sensory perception.

In terms of Plato’s allegory of the cave, it would be tempting to interpret Flat Earthers as those prisoners trapped in the cave, who conflate the shadows with reality. But when we take a look at the language employed by many Flat Earthers, we find something deeper: what they actually suffer from is an excess of scepticism and information, not a lack thereof. Take a look at how these Flat Earthers introduce themselves:

‘I’m a critical thinker’, ‘I’m a truth-seeker’… others assure us to ‘have looked into it’. These Flat Earthers do not find themselves trapped in Plato’s cave; they seem to have come out of it, only through the wrong end.

There is something profound to be learned about Plato’s famous allegory from these Flat Earthers: that education and reason are actually not guaranteed to take you outside.

The Allegory of the Cave

In the Republic (book VII), Plato uses a metaphor to explain how we access knowledge through education. Plato invites us to imagine a group of prisoners chained to a wall inside a cave, such that the only thing they see are some shadows projected onto the wall produced by some objects passing in front of a fire. The prisoners, ignorant of anything outside the projections, take the shadows as base reality, as “truth”.

Plato then invites us to imagine what would happen if someone were to free one of the prisoners and force him to climb the steep ascent that leads to the outside world.

The prisoner would initially be confused, even angry, and, his eyes, having grown accustomed to the dimly lit cave, would be blinded by the powerful sunlight. After the initial shock, he would distinguish the shadows cast by the objects, the objects themselves, and finally, after a period of acclimatization, he would see the ultimate source of all knowledge — the Sun itself.

Having acquired a new perspective on reality, the prisoner would regard those still trapped inside the cave as miserable, and any discussion regarding the shadows’ symbolism as ridiculous and foolish.

The allegory of the cave has had such a profound influence in the Western world that it is regarded as the most famous allegory in history, due to its clarity, symbolism, and richness of philosophical ideas. It is taught in all major schools, and its influence on our culture is obvious in influential movies such as The Matrix and The Truman Show. Its success lies in its relatability, because we’ve all experienced this “aha” moment, this “awakening” — the painful process of dismantling our wrongly held beliefs so a new perspective can grow out of them. We have all, at some point, felt something wrong with our ideas and the resistance to take in or accept new information (confirmation bias). But once the new truth is assimilated, we look back at our old selves as that prisoner who mistook the shadows for reality.

But herein lies the problem: how do we know whether we’re outside or inside? How do we know we haven’t left the cave only to fall into a deeper rabbit hole? Who is to tell us we are truly watching the ultimate source of knowledge — the Sun — and not another illusion?

The Cracks in the Cave

The Flat Earthers above are arguably the best case in point with the problem of the allegory of the cave. Many believe to have truly come out through education. Despite having been under the illusion of a spherical Earth, their critical thinking led them to “look into it”. Through study and reasoning, they realized to have been looking at the shadows all along, but freed from the veil, they climbed the steep slope and came out of the cave. There, they witnessed the outside world, and they saw crystal clear, much like the prisoner witnessing the Sun, that the Earth is flat. Flat Earthers are convinced that the one who remains inside the cave is you, my friend. They do seem to have come out of it, only through the wrong end.

Closely related to Flat Earthers are cults, which follow a similar principle: making adepts believe they’ve just “awakened” and that the rest of the population still remains trapped inside the cave. They want to make you believe it is the “others” who unknowingly hold a distorted view of reality.

Andrew Tate and his following provide the perfect modern example. His whole rhetoric is about convincing people they hold a distorted worldview — that you’re living inside “The Matrix”, brainwashed by the system. Tate’s Hustlers University motto is “Escape the Matrix” and in the first two minutes of the programme, he has repeatedly mentioned that the “mainstream” (the others) want to “brainwash” you, and that all “other” multimillionaires are “lying” to you. In other words, he’s trying to convince you that you’ve been lied, that you hold a distorted view of reality. But don’t worry — he sells a course to help you escape.

But here’s the thing, what if he’s right? For all I know all I have is my conviction to be on the ‘right side’, but other than my gut feeling I have no other certainty. In some instances, we can rely on empiricism, on hypothesis-testing, to confirm or disprove our suspicions. But in many facets of life, we can only assume. What if you have truly been brainwashed to follow a script: to find a job, get married and procreate? What if you think of yourself as free, but you’re under the illusion of choice, of freedom? What if the world is truly run by a few, and the rest is a veil, a propaganda machine to keep you calm and obedient? You have no way of knowing.

In many aspects of life, we may all be like Flat Earthers, we may think to have it all figured out, we may believe to be outside, laughing at those inside the cave — but from their perspective, we are the ones that remain trapped inside. But how do you know who’s right?

There’s yet another crack in Plato’s cave that Andrew Tate and his cult illustrate: How do I get out of the cave in the first place? Or similarly, who is going to get me out? In the Republic, Plato tells us “someone” frees the prisoner. But what if it is Andrew Tate who frees you from the chains holding you inside the “cave”? You end up leaving one cave, only to enter a bigger world of illusions.

Inside Plato’s Dungeon

For this reason, I propose reframing the allegory of the cave as a dungeon — a labyrinthine network of underground tunnels connecting multiple Plato’s caves. One may, through the acquisition of new information or by being persuaded, exit one given cave, but nothing guarantees you’ll end up outside or in a better place. Objects will have different shapes, shadows will be sharper, the firelight will have a warmer tone — all to give you the illusion of having acquired a new perspective on reality, yet with no way of knowing whether that’s truly the case. In fact, I’m not even sure an exit exists. And even if you were to leave the dungeon, nothing would prevent you from falling back inside.

The Matrix is often posited as the perfect modern analogy for Plato’s allegory of the cave. Neo finds himself trapped inside, taking the artificial reality constructed by the machines as base reality. Morpheus — representing the philosopher — frees Neo by giving him the red pill and shows him the “real world”. But what if Neo is still dreaming? How does Neo know Morpheus truly took him outside the cave? He cannot know; he can only assume. It is possible that none of the characters have truly left the Matrix — that the whole artificial/real worlds are layers of a meta-Matrix, a mischievous plan to give them a false sense of ‘freedom’ — of having ‘escaped’ the cave.

Because therein lies the ultimate question: can we truly know if we’ve come out of it?

Plato describes a world in which certainty about certainty is attainable. A world in which certainty is given, it is apparent, or provided by a benefactor — the philosopher, a person we can trust to take us to the outside. But what our own experience and the rise of groups like Flat Earthers show is that what pervades the human condition and our path towards knowledge and truth, is the uncertainty about certainty.