Plato's The Allegory Of The Cave

Words: 800
Pages: 4

When a person ask about an answer to a question, the solution is simple; google it and it only takes two seconds. However, a two second search might not give a person the best results. Phillip Lessens’s image accurately presents the idea that people cannot expect the initial results they receive from a search to be accurate or truthful, and in actuality, it requires and promotes one to think critically.
The internet has an abundance of information, but not all of it can be truthful. In the image, the man is condemning a student for using Google as his source for obtaining his information. As thought by the man and most people, the internet is not known for its credibility, and it is something you do not want use as a way to back up your claim.
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The company is just wanting to draw in the viewer so most of the time, the ads are not fact or …show more content…
Although the internet cannot be reliable at first glance, it can provide amazing information once a person can look past the advertisers or distractions and critical thinking is applied. In Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, three prisoners have been tied up in a cave, facing a wall since birth only able to see the shadows reflected from a fire behind them. As a result, they believed that the shapes of darkness is reality since it is the only thing they have been exposed to. Socrates uses this story to explain to a student that people are blinded by what they think is the truth, but it could in fact be an illusion. In this case, the unreliable websites and information on the internet is the illusion. One day, one of the prisoners is freed and slowly makes his way out of the cave and he follows the light to the outside and realizes that there is so much more to the world than just shapes and shadows. People need to find there “light” and begin to dig deeper if they want to find out the truth by researching on the internet. Unlike some researchers who believe that internet is altering the way people think, critical thinking skills can be applied when searching for credible information. As Plato said, what you first see is not true and one can be exposed to some other enlightened thought or idea once you