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a blueberry muffin and it was delicious

News: PeaceMaker game simulates Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “ImpactGames has released PeaceMaker, a new game that puts you in the role of Palestinian and Israeli leaders, trying to find a peaceful and lasting resolution to their conflict.

(Via Macworld.)

Imagine mankind as living in an underground cave which has a wide entrance open to the light. Deep inside are human beings facing the inside wall of the cave, with their necks and legs chained so that they cannot move. They have never seen the light of day or the sun outside the cave. Behind the prisoners a fire burns, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way on which a low wall has been built, such as is used in puppet shows as a screen to conceal the people working the puppets. Along the raised way people walk carrying all sorts of things which they hold so that they project above the wall - statues of men, animals, trees. The prisoners, facing the inside wall, cannot see one another, or the wall behind them on which the objects are being carried - all they can see are the shadows these objects cast on the wall of the cave.

The prisoners live all their lives seeing only shadows of reality, and the voices they hear are only echoes from the wall. But the prisoners cling to the familiar shadows and to their passions and prejudices, and if they were freed and able to turn around and see the realities which produce the shadows, they would be blinded by the light of the fire. And they would become angry and would prefer to regain their shadow-world.

But if one of the prisoners were freed and turned around to see, in the light of the fire, the cave and his fellow prisoners and the roadway, and if he were then dragged up and out of the cave into the light of the sun, he would see the things of the world as they truly are and finally he would see the sun itself. What would this person think now of the life in the cave and what people there know of reality and of morality? And if he were to descend back into the cave, would he not have great difficulty in accustoming himself to the darkness, so that he could not compete with those who had never left the cave? Would he not be subject to their ridicule, scorn, even their physical attack?

Of the many allegories in the history of Western thought, the Allegory of the Cave is the one most often cited. But what is an allegory? An allegory is a kind of story in which what is talked about is being compared to something else which is similar, but what that something else is, is left unstated. An allegory is accordingly defined as an incomplete simile - the reader must supply what is similar to the events described. What, then is the Allegory of the Cave to be compared with? The people in the cave are living out their lives in semidarkness, chained by their necks and legs, unable to turn around, never knowing that what they see before them on the wall of the cave are only shadows. They are in bondage, but unaware of it. They remain ignorant of themselves and reality. With whom may they be compared?

Each historical generation since Plato’s time has been tantalized by the question, how does the Allegory of the Cave apply to our time, to our society? To what may the cave be compared in our lives? The question tantalizes us too: What is the relevance of the Allegory of the Cave to our present world? With what in our lives may it be compared? The following broad and general interpretations of the allegory have been made for generations and remain relevant and moving for many people in our own time: It is an allegory of sleep and waking, of our time as asleep in the dark of the cave and needing to awake to a clear vision of the world. It is an allegory of our time as needing to be born again, to emerge from the darkness of corruption into the light of truth and morality. It is an educational allegory of our time as needing to ascend through stages of education from the darkness of intellectual and moral confusion in its everyday beliefs, to the light of true knowledge and values. It is a religious allegory of Christian conversion from the cave of self-love and self-gratification to the love of God and devotion to His truth.

There are also interpretations of the allegory which are specifically relevant to our own society and to the present time.

1. The Allegory of the Cave may be viewed as a devastating criticism of our everyday lives as being in bondage to superficialities, to shadow rather than to substance. Truth is taken to be whatever is known by the senses. A good life is taken to be one in which we satisfy our desires. We are unaware that we are living with illusion, superficial knowledge, and false and conflicting ideals. Our lives are dominated by the shadow-play on the walls of our cave made by newspaper headlines, by radio broadcasts, by the endlessly moving shadows on the television screen, by the echoing voices of opinion-makers.

2. The Allegory of the Cave may be taken as an equally devastating criticism of much of the science of our time, with its emphasis upon that which is known by the senses. Science, too, is chained so that it can see only shadows. Its basis is in sensory observation, its conclusions are only in the form of correlations of observations. It does not venture into true causes or into long-range consequences. The empirical scientist is not so different from the winner on TV quiz shows who knows the dates of the Humphrey Bogart films, of from the prisoners in the cave who excel in identifying the sequence of shadows on the wall. It is a criticism also of our scientific technology and industry, developing and producing to meet superficial needs, without regard for our true needs or for moral or environmental considerations.

3. It is of course a political allegory. The life in the cave is the life of politics. Both the leaders and the public are ignorant and corrupt, without true knowledge of themselves or of the world, motivated by greed, power, and self-gratification. They are chained in bondage to ignorance and passions, to mob hysteria for or against fleeting issues, believing in current ideologies which are the illusions, the shadows of the moment on the walls of the cave.

4. It is an allegory of the philosopher-king. The liberated one, having made the ascent to know the truth and the good, has a mission: to return to the cave, to bring enlightenment, to bring the good news, even though he may be killed for his services. Plato was thinking of Socrates; we think of Jesus.

For Plato, those who have completed the ascent out of the cave into the light of the sun are thereby alone fitted to govern, to the philosopher-kings of society, to be its guardians. But here suddenly the Allegory of the Cave comes into conflict with contemporary views of ourselves, the world, and politics. Two questions are at issue: First, is there, as Plato believes, a single, absolutely true immutable and eternal concept of justice, of virtue, of the ideal society, of the ideal human being? And are these concepts such that only a few persons of superior intelligence can be educated to know them? Second, would this knowledge justify an authoritarian government by this elite of intelligence and virtue who would rule with absolute, unchecked power? This would be in total opposition to modern democracy, which is government by the many through their elected representatives.

Plato answered yes to both questions. This was Plato’s solution to the intellectual and moral decay of his time - an absolutist, authoritarian government by a small elite, educated to true knowledge and virtue, which are fixed in their essence for all time. After Plato’s time, the history of Western philosophy struggles with these two questions. The modern world for the most part answers no.

5. Finally, for us as for Plato, the Allegory of the Cave is an allegory of despair and hope. Like Plato, we live in a time of loss of meaning and commitment, of crumbling standards of truth and morality, of corruption in political life and decline in personal integrity. This is our despair. But there is a hope that we share with Plato’s allegory, the hope of ascending to truth and values which are the best we can know as guides to the good life. For us, as for the prisoner freed from his chains, the first step is to recognize current illusions for what they are, the current flickering shadows on the wall of our cave.

best thing ever done in the history of man

oh god how did this get here i am not good at computers

It looks like Google Calender could be launching tonight! The official Google Calendar logo was found on Google’s servers and calendar.google.com redirects to the actual CL2 login screen now.

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So apparently my flight back to Raleigh has been cancelled and I am incredibly bored. I’m sitting in the lobby of the hotel with absolutely nothing to do

Here are some pictures: