Around 2,400 years ago, the philosopher Plato proposed a thought experiment. Imagine people who have been held since infancy in a deep cavern. They are chained, facing a blank wall, so tightly that they cannot move or turn their heads. Behind them, puppeteers use light from a fire to cast shadows of various objects on the wall. In such a scenario, Plato argues, the captives would naturally assume that the blurry shadows comprised the full extent of reality.
Next, Plato explored the likely outcome of a prisoner being freed from captivity. Would he be able to accept that everything he thought real was actually just a shadow of reality? And, if he were able to do so, would there be any way he could convince the still-restrained prisoners?
For the past two millennia, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave has been discussed within the context of religious thought, political theory, and the nature of existence. But today, it’s difficult to see it as anything other than a vivid analogy for the impact of technology.
A century ago, we were a species that looked at the world around us with curiosity and wonder. Today, many of us have trouble coping with any experience that is not mediated and diluted by technology. And, like the stubborn prisoners, many among us scoff at the idea that truth could look like anything other than shadows cast by unseen puppeteers.
Mediating Reality
Plato’s idea of what it would take to create an illusory reality was somewhat cumbersome. Digital technology has made the process much more efficient. The online world provides the mechanism that powers the illusion (the fire), the filtered view of reality (the shadows), and the controlled environment that traps us (the cave).
To extend the analogy further, we can view tech companies, media conglomerates, and AI algorithms as the puppeteers, choosing what we see and when we see it.
Together, all these elements combine into a system that “mediates” (that is, acts as an intermediary) between ourselves and reality.
While Plato may have been the first major thinker to explore the implications of a life in which our experiences are mediated by a system that obscures our sense of reality, he was certainly not the last. One of the most succinct and intriguing angles on mediation was developed by a largely unknown 20th-century anarchist philosopher named Hakim Bey (AKA Peter Lamborn Wilson). In his 1994 essay Immediatism, he writes:
All experience is mediated — by the mechanisms of sense perception, mentation, language, etc. — and certainly all art consists of some further mediation of experience.
However, mediation takes place by degrees. Some experiences (taste, smell, sexual pleasure) are less mediated than others (reading a book, looking through a telescope, listening to a record). Some media, especially “live” arts such as dance, theater, musical or bardic performances, are less mediated than others, such as TV, CDs, Virtual Reality.
As Bey explains it, when we directly participate in an activity, such as performing music with friends, we are experiencing reality in the least mediated and most natural way. At the opposite end of the spectrum would be watching a corporate-sponsored, AI-generated music video in virtual reality – an entirely unnatural experience mediated by countless unseen puppeteers and unfathomably complex technology.
The idea that we encounter a spectrum of experiences ranging from less-mediated to more-mediated neatly bridges the gap between Plato’s allegorical prisoners and ourselves. From an audience perspective, the difference between shadows cast on a wall and images projected in VR goggles is a purely technical one. In both cases, we are served a limited view of reality, filtered and curated by entities that stand between us and an authentic experience.
The more mediated the experience, according to Bey, the more it prompts a feeling of alienation in us. Although he was writing in the pre-smartphone era, the word “alienation” is an excellent way to describe the sense of apathy and isolation that pervades modern society. Is it hard to believe that our steady diet of maximally-mediated, screen-filled experiences is partly to blame for this cultural malaise?
We, the Prisoners
In Plato’s Allegory, the prisoners are willing to reject the idea of a more fulfilling reality, because they have been prevented from experiencing anything other than shadows. In our current state of being, we don’t need restraints to keep us staring at the wall – for many of us, the synthetic, mediated reality on our screens is preferable to the one we actually inhabit.
It’s not hard to understand why: doing things in real life requires effort, a tolerance for uncertainty, and a willingness for delayed gratification. By comparison, the online worlds of games, social media, and digital entertainment are easy to control, totally predictable, and deliver immediate, built-in rewards. Does gardening seem too messy or time-consuming? Play a farming game instead!
Of course, it’s not entirely a choice. While the captives in Plato’s cave were bound with iron chains, our restraints are invisible – forged from the addictive elements that keep us glued to our screens. From the gamification elements that hook us on games and learning apps to the intermittent reinforcement that continually prompts us to check social media, we are subjected to an onslaught of sophisticated behavior modification techniques.
To make matters worse, the overwhelming, high-stress nature of modern life makes us even more susceptible to mediated temptations, because our brains automatically look for ways to conserve energy. Scrolling, clicking, and watching videos uses fewer internal resources than any tangible activity, so when we’re tired or anxious – which, for many of us, is too much of the time – it’s just easier to zone out with a phone, computer, or TV than to tackle a project, go somewhere, phone a friend, cook a meal, open a book, or even make a decision.
Escaping the Cave
Many of us might say we want less mediation in our experience of life. But, when confronted by the stress and isolation of daily life, we still find ourselves scurrying back to the familiarity and comfort of the cave. Unfortunately, there is no quick and easy way to free ourselves from the digital cavern in which our minds are imprisoned.
A realistic approach likely includes a combination of deliberately “unplugging” from screen-mediated reality, cultivating awareness of the ways in which technology influences our perceptions and behavior, and intentionally prioritizing authentic experiences over synthetic ones.
It’s hard to do any of this alone, but a growing number of individuals and organizations are developing ways to help us reconnect with reality. From initiatives like Unplug Collaborative’s Global Day of Unplugging to Nature Unplugged’s outdoor exploration programs, the effort to escape the cave is growing.
In Plato’s allegory, the cave’s inhabitants were perfectly content with their filtered reality. We, it seems, are not so easily separated from the truth. As Hakim Bey observed three decades ago, technological mediation creates a sense of alienation – from others, from the world, and from ourselves. This alienation is prompting more of us to question whether the shadows displayed to us really are the ultimate form of being.
The answer is not far away. Plato’s captives could not turn their heads to see the truth. But all we have to do is look up from our screens.