The allegory of the cave is one of the most well-known philosophical examples. The idea is that. If people see only the cave's wall the cave is their entire world. All information that people in the cave get delivered by some other people. That means the goodwill of those people determines what kind of information those people in that cave get.
So we can say that Plato's Allegory of the cave is the first case of synthetic reality. What differentiates the people in Plato's cave from the people who are serving in the underground nuclear weapon facilities? The fact is that those people who are serving in those underground facilities get also information that other people want to share with them. In the modern nuclear center, high-tech screens have replaced the shadows on the walls. But the set is the same as that cave about 500 B.C. The screen just transmits information to people who are fully isolated.
Allegory of the cave (Wikipedia)
Internet is the next-generation Plato's cave. If somebody wants that tool would use to deliver filtered and corrupted information. The case that some person would sit in a place where are no windows entire life? The only way how to get information would be a computer. That case would be like Plato's cave allegory.
The information that this hypothetical person gets. Could be fully controlled. Like the shadows on a cave's walls, the internet would deliver information that might be true or false. The information that this person gets would be true or it could be grotesque.
What if we would stay in one building and one room our entire life? What if our only contact with the outer world would be the internet? When we are thinking about theories like synthetic reality, which claims the entire universe is a simulation, we might ask why that thing is done?
If we would close people in the closed bunker and use the simulated, and synthetic reality. We might claim that those people are Adam and Eve. And the person who created the enhanced or virtual reality is God. In that case, the idea of the simulated or synthetic reality is to train those persons for their ultimate mission.
The technological singularity is based on implanted neural circuits. Those microchips make the nervous system interact with the internet. And that means the person would not even know what is reality. And what is virtual reality? When we think about movies like "Matrix" where people die in real life, when they die in the virtual life is possible by using the existing technology. The requirement for that kind of thing is that a small explosive device is implanted inside the player's body.
And when the character that this person controls dies the explosive destroys also the physical player. Or the player sits on an electric chair. And when the player's avatar dies. That activates those electric chairs. When we are thinking of the case that the person is connected to the internet all the life. That person would not even know what real reality looks like. There is one very interesting and the most extreme theory about existence.
That theory is called the "Simulated universe theory". We know that there is a 50% possibility that this theory is true. But then the thing that fights against that theory is the motive. Why somebody would make that kind of virtual place called the universe? The origin of that theory is in Plato's cave.
The people who would see only the cave. Where they are. Believe, that the shadows of the wall are true. Their entire world would be in that cave. And then the persons who would live in that cave for their entire life would believe that the cave is their entire world. There are many versions of that allegory. And in the modern version, there are people inside the nuclear shelter, deep underground. Those people have not seen the world at all without technical filters.
The internet delivers all information that those people get. That means those people can believe that they are on another planet. All things that they see happen on the screens.
But we know that reality is reality.
The idea of the simulated reality is taken from the nuclear command centers. Those extreme underground facilities communicate with surface systems by using extremely secured communication lines. There is introduced an idea that what if somebody will claim that outside is the nuclear war. Then the system shows that personnel the fake film about the launch of the nuclear weapons.
And then they would get faked information about the highly polluted Earth. The persons who are in that center would get the faked information about the destruction of the civilization. So would they come to the surface for checking that thing? There is an urban legend that some of those facilities tried to launch. And then the entrance of that center was buried. That means that there are people in the underground facility who believe that they are the only people on Earth.
There are many versions of that urban legend. Some people are born in those underground facilities. And whose only contact with the surface is the internet. Those tales are inspired the philosophical discussions about the people who see only things that other people want to show them. There are many tales and versions of Plato's cave.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_reality
https://artificialintelligenceandindividuals.blogspot.com/
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