Dr. Greg Schneeberger
After reading through the three short literary pieces assigned in this module and spending time in reflection about them, I have come to the conclusion that they all revolve around the theme of reality being a facade, or dream, and that the truth of existence may be too hard for people to handle, and would take time to get used to. The Matrix Synopsis states the idea of everyone leaving inside a dream and that they have never experienced true existence as truth, while the Rene Descartes more debates over if the concept is valid or invalid. The last piece, which is a dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon, focuses more on using logic and reason to prove this belief and how one would transition from the dream world to actual reality.
Out of the literary pieces, I find the dialogue of Socrates and Glaucon and the Matrix Synopsis to have the most similarities. Both excerpts discuss how incredibly difficult it would be for someone to switch from the dream life to living in reality. "All of this comes as a huge shock to Neo. It is almost too much for him to accept. He experiences fear, denial, and confusion, but eventually acceptance and then sadness. He realizes that all of his “life” had been a lie. Morpheus reminds him, “I didn’t say it would be easy, Neo. I only said it would be the truth.” (Matrix Synopsis) “Then there would be need of habituation, I take it, to enable him to see the things higher up. And at first he would most easily discern the shadows and, after that, the likenesses or reflections in water of men and other things, and later, the things themselves, and from these he would go on to contemplate the appearances in the heavens and heaven itself, more easily by night, looking at the light of the stars and the mo...