Inside Plato’s Infinite Cave System: Endlessly Outgrowing Old Paradigms
Throughout our relatively short history on this planet, the human race has gone through several different civilization-changing paradigm shifts. Most of these have been characterized by the adoption of radical new ideas and ways of thinking about the universe and our place in it by select individuals. More often than not, these ideas, despite mounting evidence for them, were, at least initially, dismissed by the establishment. Following long, drawn-out ideological battles, some of which even resulted in the deaths of the combatants, the new revolutionary ideas would take hold and become the newly established paradigm, often after the demise of their original proponents. However, as with any established paradigm, over time this revolutionary out-of-the-box thinking solidifies amongst some followers into a dogmatic belief that the paradigm represents a near-complete understanding of the universe. It is at this point, usually, that these followers begin fighting back against visionaries who tackle the question with new ways of looking at and conceptualising the universe.
Let’s think back to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In it, a group of prisoners is, and always has been, chained up in a cave, facing a wall onto which shadows are projected. These two-dimensional shadow-projections represent the totality of understanding of the world that these prisoners have. That is until, of course, one of the prisoners breaks free of their chains and exits the cave, experiencing the full impact of processing the splendor of the three-dimensional world for the first time, as well as understanding that their previous understanding wasn’t only wrong, but represented a minuscule portion of the experience of the real world. Having adopted this new paradigm as their own, the prisoner returns to the cave, wishing to free the other members of the group. Traditionally, the other prisoners, however, refuse. They call the escaped prisoner insane, claiming that it would be impossible for them to experience such a thing, seeing as all of reality was represented by the shadows on the cave wall. For our example, though, let’s imagine that this escaped prisoner manages to gain some disciples. Although initially few, over time, more and more of the prisoners start noticing problems with their existing paradigm, contending the idea that the entire world at large can only be experienced as shadows on a wall. Years later, after the freed prisoner had already been ostracised from the group and the prisoners who initially disagreed with them and called them lunatics have grown irrelevant, a majority emerges amongst them which, finally, decides that their paradigm is incomplete and boldly ventures forth into what, for them, is the unknown. Over time, these explorers build a framework for this new paradigm, transforming their hypotheses into concrete, empirical knowledge. With each success and minor revision of this new paradigm, this newly freed society of prisoners grows more and more certain in its understanding, until it reaches the same unwavering level of belief in the current paradigm as the prisoners who refused to believe they were trapped in a cave, all the while openly mocking these same prisoners for being so incredibly naive. And then, somebody comes along proposing that the community’s worldview is too small and incomplete and that existence stretches beyond the limitations set by the current paradigm. That there are worlds beyond this planet. Needless to say, such heretical propositions are met with disbelief…
Change is a constant. Although it is cliched, the statement persistently rings true, and will likely do so until the heat death of this particular universe (and even then we can’t really be certain). One of the things that are significantly affected by this persistent change is our consciousness, both on an individual and collective level. One of the main catalysts for a change of consciousness to occur is access to new information. Within developmental psychology, there are two ways to react to new information, assimilation and accommodation. While usually used to refer to children’s cognitive development, I believe that they perfectly exemplify societal developments of consciousness, too. Assimilation occurs when a person, having encountered a new idea, must fit it into their existing paradigm, while accommodation occurs when a new idea is so radical that it requires the learner to restructure their existing paradigm. Logically, and just as children, society finds it a lot easier to assimilate new information, and (once more just like children) when faced with new information which requires accommodation, society will be reluctant and will try its hardest to force it to assimilate, trying to explain it away and model for it using the existing, but flawed and incomplete, paradigm. This is entirely understandable as the accommodation of new information, especially when one is already operating on a developed paradigm, represents a massive energy expenditure, requiring a new paradigm to be built up from the tabula rasa. However, one must not be afraid to admit their inability to assimilate the newly uncovered information, as it is only through wholehearted accommodation of revolutionary information that our understanding of the universe around us moves forward, giving us ever more control over manipulating and interacting with it.
I conceptualise the path of human development as an endless system of Plato’s caves. We attempt to calculate and explain our current view of the universe around us using systems and paradigms until, seemingly, our consciousness and understanding start to outgrow the artificial boundaries set by our dominant paradigm, forcing us to take notice of these boundaries’ existence and possibility for their circumvention and, despite long and drawn-out resistance, causing the accommodation of its newly discovered understanding into public mass consciousness. On every rung of this developmental ladder, we reach a point where we egoistically (and foolishly), as a society, believe that we’ve reached a point of near-ultimate understanding, despite our obvious sensory limitations. Each step up on this ladder offers us an ever-more humbling view of an ever-larger and more magnificent universe, while also allowing us to devise ways of traveling beyond the limitations of the previously understood (and accepted) paradigm. I believe that what we are presented with today, ranging from To The Stars Academy’s announcement that they are in possession of alleged debris off of some Unidentified Aerial Phenomena that seems to display truly exotic and anomalous properties, right through to the seemingly endless onslaught of near “science-fiction”-level scientific papers and technological announcements, is clear evidence that we are currently midway through undergoing one of these dynamic paradigm changes. After decades of attempting to assimilate certain information into our existing worldview, at least in public view, we are finally making the first steps towards developing our next level of understanding, which, as our consciousness continues to expand will likely, too, prove to be finite and require re-thinking. Whilst likely turbulent, as all periods of paradigm flux are, this time of vast change will, in my opinion, be an exciting one to live through and experience. As we start to look beyond the limitations set upon our reality by our current understanding, humanity will likely come out of it with a better and richer understanding of the cosmos and our role within it. I eagerly await this time.