The senses are a prison

Plato's cave allegory

The allegory is the story of a people who's only reality is a cave where they are chained prisoners who can only face one wall.

The only light they can see is the light from a fire that is maintained on the other side of a wall, this is reflected off the rocks of the cavern in front of them. In this manner, their world has become a world of shadows of the objects that pass in front of the fire. The shadows, which they all see with their senses are their only reality.

One day someone manages to break away from their chains & ventures to the other side of the wall, and with great amazement begins to observe the process that creates the shadows. This prisoner sees the fire, and also sees the objects that obscure the light and thereby create magnified shadow images of the shape of these objects.

The freed prisoner begins to understand that the mythology of the world they had created for themselves was not real, but was merely a construct of their deduction from the limitations of their perception.

With this allegory Plato illustrates the challenge that we all face, to resolve the great paradoxes of human existence.

We live in a world of human thought that is defined by the limitations of what our senses are able to behold. We bow to the shadows that the limited senses tell us is the reality of our being and our universe.

We, like the prisoner, must break free from the chains that bind our existence & see the fire and the process that causes the shadows; to begin to understand the processes of the real world and finally see the exit from the cave.