Truth and Reality

Truth and reality can be two completely different things, as Plato explains in “The Allegory of the Cave”.  Truth can be subjective, which may seem paradoxical, but what one may believe is true may be seen as untrue to someone else, and they can each be equally right within their own personal views of their realities. The prisoners believed the shadows they were seeing were the actual objects, because in their world, they had only ever seen these images, so they did not know they were just shadows of the actual three-dimensional objects. Once the prisoner was released, his reality was shifted, and what was once a truth now seemed an illusion. Reality itself does not change, because it is the actual state of the world, but one’s perception of reality, one’s beliefs of what is true, can change. This is possible because of ignorance. As is explained in the beginning of the story, we live in ignorance. We accept this state of ignorance as true, as reality, because it is all we have ever known. But once something comes along to enlighten us, and we are no longer ignorant about something, our understanding of truth is changed as this new knowledge is registered and integrated into our existing knowledge. With this new definition of what is true, our perception of reality is changed to reveal this new piece of information, the latest version of the truth. As Plato explains, once one has been exposed to this new truth, one adjusts their view of reality to match, but it is a process, it takes time to adjust to this new view. But once one does, it opens up even more opportunities to discover more truths, and trying to deny this new truth and go back into the ignorance is not only impossible, but is eventually not desired.