this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
467 points (94.8% liked)
memes
15012 readers
3599 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I know. The matrix (or any other metaphysical idealism for that matter) is an example of a situation where we cannot trust our perception for knowledge about the true nature of the universe (much like the allegory of the cave), although taken to the extreme. The epistemological and metaphysical aspects of Plato's cave are very much intertwined.
But you're assuming, from what I'm reading through your comments, that these shadows are cast by metaphysical forces, and I'm interpreting the allegory as how our senses are ultimately something we can't trust completely.
As accurate as science may seem, it is ultimately based on these senses. It's the best way we can understand the physical world, but science, wisely, always has a caveat at the end of every law and discovery: "... As far as we know."
This is a good thing, it means that nothing is held sacred and everything can be tested and questioned again.
Our senses and measurements (or are those the same thing, with one merely augmenting the other?) tell us that we live in a purely material universe. I'm not claiming that our senses are perfect or that science is over with every secret revealed, but questioning the validity of our observations on such a foundational level invokes questioning the validity of the worldview (metaphysical materialism) built on top of them. That's what I interpreted Mickey was on about in the meme.
Donald is despairing about the inherent meaninglessness of a purely material universe, so I assume that Mickey, with his radical rejection of all that Donald says, represents at least some sort of metaphysical dualism or idealism which would allow for inherent cosmic meaning.