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We slaves of truth (Plato's allegory of the cave, revisited)

We slaves of truth (Francesco Galgani's art, January 3, 2022)
(We slaves of truth, January 3, 2022, go to my art gallery)

Truth is iridescent, elusive. At the exact moment we believe we possess it, it owns us. We become its slaves and are even willing to die for it: all the martyrs of the world know something about it.

We all create a reality for ourselves because we need it to live. When we don't like it anymore, we make another one. More or less, it's like when a person abjures their religion and converts to another one. But all this does not change the primary problem: reality is personal, subjective, temporary, and arbitrary. Above all, we are slaves to it.

To make a comparison, it's like a mathematical problem. If we replace one variable with another in an expression, we get another expression utterly equivalent to the original one. So, in life, if we replace one religion with another or one reality with another, the starting problem remains the same: we are slaves to our imaginary creations.

Reality creations are rarely exclusively the work of the individual. They are usually creations within a group.

All this could make us rethink Plato's cave allegory from a new point of view: the person who comes out of the cave is as deluded as the people who remain inside the cave.

The person who comes out of the cave feels the need to create a new reality: for that reason, they search and find it. But the new truth is not more accurate than the previous one was: both realities (inside and outside the cave) coexist and are equally valid. The only thing that has changed is the person's level of awareness because an effort has produced a change.

The journey of awareness and research could continue until we discover that the reality outside the cave is another illusion. There is another reality to find. And so on.

All this leads to a new question: what changes from being a slave to one reality rather than another?

As Thomas' Theorem says: «If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.»

(January 3, 2022)

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