Small Gods

58

This paragraph is a very loose parody of a famous Socratic dialogue in Plato’s Republic, Book VII. I quote (and edit down a wee bit) from Labyrinths of Reason by William Poundstone, p. 203:

“Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open toward the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

[…] and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave? […] And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would see only the shadows? […] And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose they were naming what was actually before them? […] To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.”