Plato S Cave Quotes

“We are the New World Order. We are the dizzying, upwards spiraling trajectory of the Hegelian dialectic. We are the new, bright, glinting, gleaming, sparkling future, as dazzling as fresh crystals of newly fallen snow. We are the new dawn, the new sun in the sky. We are the higher sun and the higher sky for a higher humanity. We are those who escaped from Plato’s Cave of Ignorance and Delusion and discovered the true light.”
― Thomas Stark, Base Reality: Ultimate Existence

“...the Other World has different things in it. Words such as "Manchester" and "police station" have no meaning here. Because these things do not exist. Words such as "river" and "mountain" do have meaning but only because those things are depicted in the Statues. I suppose that these things must exist in the Older World. In this World the Statues depict things that exist in the Older World.'
'Yes,' said Raphael. 'Here you can only see a representation of a river or a mountain, but in our world--the other world--you can see the actual river and the actual mountain.'
This annoyed me. 'I do not see why you say I can ONLY see a representation in this World,' I said with some sharpness. 'The word "only" suggests a relationship of inferiority. You make it sound as if the Statue was somehow inferior to the thing itself. I do not see that that is the case at all. I would argue that the Statue is superior to the thing itself, the Statue being perfect, eternal and not subject to decay.'
'Sorry,' said Raphael. 'I didn't mean to disparage your world.'
There was a silence.
'What is the Other World like?' I asked.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“This allegory, known as Plato’s Cave, is a powerful illustration of a simple truth: what we take to be reality might only be a shadow.”
― Kevin L. Michel, The Council of Gods

“The celibacy of the machine entails the celibacy of Telecomputer Man. Thanks to his computer or word processor, Telecomputer Man offers himself the spectacle of his own brain, his own intelligence, at work. Similarly, through his chat line or his Minitel, he can offer himself the spectacle of his own phantasies, of a strictly virtual pleasure. He exorcizes both intelligence and pleasure at the interface with the machine. The Other, the interlocutor, is never really involved: the screen works much like a mirror, for the screen itself as locus of the interface is the prime concern. An interactive screen transforms the process of relating into a process of commutation between One and the Same. The secret of the interface is that the Other here is virtually the Same: otherness is surreptitiously conjured away by the machine. The most probable scenario of communication here is that Minitel users gravitate from the screen to telephone conversations, thence to face-to-face meetings, and ... then what?
Well, it's 'let's phone each other', and, finally, back to the Minitel - which is, after all, more erotic because it is at once both esoteric and transparent. This is communication in its purest form, for there is no intimacy here except with the screen, and with an electronic text that is no more than a design filigreed onto life. A new Plato's retreat whence to observe shadow-forms of bodily pleasure filing past. Why speak to one another, when it is so simple to communicate?”
― Jean Baudrillard, The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena