Plato

The Allegory of the Cave

Behold! Human beings living in an underground cave,  which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

- I see.

And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

- You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

- True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?

- Yes, he said.

And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?

- Very true.

And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?

- No question, he replied.
To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

- That is certain.

And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, -what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?

- Far truer.

And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?

- That is true.

And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he 's forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.

- Not all in a moment, he said.

He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?

- Certainly.

Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.

- Certainly.

He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?

Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.

And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the cave and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?

- Certainly, he would.

And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,
Better to be the poor servant of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?

- Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner . . .

And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous?

Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death. 

Exploration

As Plato himself explains, this allegory is meant to depict our actual terrestrial existence.

The persons depicted are called "prisoners" because they're constrained by cultural chains that prohibit their seeing true reality or being in genuine communication with their fellow "prisoners." They can't expand their vision of "reality" because their life-long cultural and mental chains prevent them from looking beyond set limits. The "prisoners" identify the shadows cast on the wall in front of them as reality.

Actually, their "reality" is being contrived by "manipulators of reality," propagandists, mind-control experts who show them "shadows" (unreal images, sounds, and "facts"), thereby making them believe that the shadows are reality. Because they're unaware of their manipulators, the "prisoners" allow any of these mind-twisters to control them.

  The "prisoners" are powerless to communicate in a genuine way with the other "prisoners," but if they did they would merely confirm each others' belief that the "shadows" are reality.

  If one of the "prisoners" is "disabused" of his delusions, he would at first find this a very "painful" experience.

  If the "prisoner" was shown a higher, "brighter" aspect of reality, he would still think that the "shadows" were more real than actual reality.

  The "prisoner" would not move toward the "light" of truth on his own volition, because he would have been conditioned to believe that "reality" is something others must reveal to him, not himself.

  Being shown true reality would feel painful and irritating to him. The "light" of truth would dazzle him and he would feel bereft that none of his old realities are any longer available.

  As more of true reality is revealed to him, things similar to the "shadows" of his old reality will first be most apparent. Less "radiant" aspects of genuine reality will be most easily discerned by him.

  Only gradually will the true light of reality--the "sun"--become visible to him. He will see that the "sun" is the cause of all discernment, inside and outside the cave.

  When he realizes the truth about reality, he will feel pity for those still in the cave of ignorance and delusion.

  He would see through the false values, honors, glories, and prestige of the world of the cave. He would recognize that he is unquestionably better off with true knowledge and values than the illusions of wealth and fame in the cave world of delusion.

  The man freed of cave illusions would rather be a poor servant of a poor master in the world of Truth than a high potentate in the cave world of ignorance and deception.

  If the freed man returned to the cave, he would no longer be able to compete with the "shadow people" in comprehending their shadow images. They would say of him that his ascent to what he calls Truth has ruined his discernment; that the fantasy of trying to ascend to what is called Truth is dangerous, to be avoided at all cost.

  If a freed person tried to help a "shadow person," the other "shadow people" would try to capture and murder him.

This allegorical explanation of human life makes it clear why most people live in a world of illusion--and find it more comfortable to remain in that fantasy realm. They find it painful or unpleasant to be disabused of their delusions and find forthright exposition of Truth too much for them. "Shadow people" are incapable of communicating with others because they only know how to speak the language of pretense, not Truth.

Syllogisms ?

Syllogism is a word which everybody has heard of or even had to use in practice. This modern form of logical reasoning is almost always associated with intelligent tests and assessment trainings nowadays. But what is the origin of this word, what does syllogisms mean and more important how to solve it?

History of Syllogisms

Aristotle (384-322 BC) can be seen as the founder of today’s form of logical reasoning e.g. syllogisms. He was the first in his time to divert with the correctness and validity of logical reasoning. A lot of his work from those days unfortunately has gone lost. The few remains however of his work were bundled in books called “The Organon”. These books, consisting out of 6 parts, contain a lot of his works and documents concerning logical reasoning and as a part of that syllogisms. Until the dark ages these books were the only useful concerning matter of logic. Later on in history Boole and Frege followed with respectively their PROPOSITION LOGIC and PREDICATE LOGIC, both documents concerning a modern way of interpreting logical reasoning and connected to that syllogisms.

Aristotle’s was interested among others in syllogisms, a form of logical reasoning. A syllogism always consists out of 3 parts, namely the subject, the predicate and the middle term. The subject stands for, as the word already indicates, the central theme in the syllogism. This is the keyword of the syllogism. Predicate is another word for a specific feature connected to the subject. The last part is the middle term which consists out of all the remaining information in a syllogism. Each syllogism can be classified using these three terms, resulting in a valid or invalid conclusion of the syllogism.

Solving Syllogisms

Syllogisms can be solved in many ways, however the most frequently used method is by using the so called Venn diagrams. Venn diagrams show all possible and hypothetically logical relations between a collection of finite and infinite statements. By means of an overlap between some certain assumptions conclusions can be made using the (in)finite statements. Next a few syllogism examples will follow in which words will be classified and the syllogism will be checked on validity.

Syllogism Example:

1. All Canadians are right handed
2. All right handed are opticians
3. Conclusion: Some opticians are Canadian

To check the validity of this statement first the different terms are appointed.

Subject:          Optician

Predicate:       Canadian

Middle term:   Right handed

Since the two premises (a and b) from the example are valid, the conclusion must be valid two, since it is not possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false.

Syllogism Example 2:

1. All mortals die
2. All men are mortals
3. Conclusion: All men die

To check the validity of this statement first the different terms are appointed.

Subject:          Men

Predicate:       Die

Middle term:   Mortal

Again it can be concluded that the two premises (a and b) are valid and so is the conclusion. This is in general always the case with syllogisms, which is a form of logical reasoning of the deductive reasoning type. For more information about different types of syllogisms, you can take a look at our related pages shown below.

12 Lessons from Steve Jobs

 

Are there any life lessons for the rest of us from the career, and legacy, of Steve Jobs?

The death of the Apple (US:AAPL) co-founder has dominated the news from Cupertino, Calif. to Kuala Lumpur. Many are focusing on the way his products and services changed our world. Others are talking about Jobs, the man.

But this was the most successful business leader of his era, and one of the greats. Few have achieved so much, so quickly, and so publicly. It got me thinking: What are the lessons we can all take away? What do his extraordinary achievements tell the rest of us?

Here are 12 lessons from the life of Jobs:

1. Yes, you can make a difference

Anyone trying to achieve real change — in life, in a company or in any organization — probably feels the urge to give up half a dozen times a day. The naysayers and seat polishers will do everything to slow you down. No one is suggesting that what Apple achieved was the result of Jobs alone, but his career is proof of just how much one individual can change things.

2. You need a vision

It’s not enough to conduct opinion polls and customer surveys, and rely on consultants’ projections. Those are all based on the conventional wisdom and the world as it is today. Jobs imagined things — most obviously the iPod, and the iTunes services — that didn’t yet exist and for which the market was uncertain. While his competitors were still building the products of yesterday, he was imagining, and building, those of tomorrow.

3. It’s not about you

It’s horrifying how many business decisions are still made on the assumption that “well, we have to do something with the XYZ division, so let’s give them this project” or “Buggins has seniority, so he’s in charge.” Do you think the customer cares about Buggins or XYZ? Jobs built Apple into a streamlined operation, focused on the output, nothing else.

4. Focus, focus, focus

Hard to believe, but mediocre managers everywhere like to keep their staff “busy” because they think that’s “productive.” It isn’t. (Ask them what their top priority is, and they’ll name two things. Or four. Or 16.) Apple sure was “busy, busy, busy” when Jobs arrived. And it was going bust. One of the first things he did was ax about 90% of the company’s activities and focus — first on the iMac, then on the iPod.

5. ‘OK’ is not OK

Look at the way Apple’s competitors keep putting out mediocre or unfinished products and thinking they’ll get away with it. Are they for real? The days when you could get by with second best are so over. Jobs was famous for a fanatical perfectionism. It was a core element of Apple’s success.

6. It’s not about the money Steve Jobs’s life was a thumping rebuttal to all those who are obsessed with cash. The guy had billions: far more than he could ever spend, even if he had lived to 100. Yet he kept working, and striving to achieve greater things. Money? Bah. Something to think about the next time a CEO demands another $20 million a year as an incentive to show up.

7. It ain’t over till it’s over

Fifteen years ago Steve Jobs appeared to be a has-been in Silicon Valley. And Apple was circling the drain: plagued with losses, executive turnover, reorganizations, desperate asset sales and research cuts. Apple’s stock hit a low of $3.23 in 1996, and hardly anyone wanted it even at that price.

8. Give people what they really want

Sounds obvious, right? But most companies don’t do it. They simply produce what they’ve always produced, or what’s comfortable, or what Buggins thinks people want. For years the computer industry churned out ugly, clunky beige products with complicated operating systems. They all did it, and they all assumed that’s what people wanted. Turns out it wasn’t at all.

9. Destroy your own products — before someone else does

Jobs made sure that Apple kept innovating, and rendering its own products obsolete. Creative destruction came from within! That’s why Apple is a $354 billion company, and, say, Palm has vanished from Earth, even though a 2004 iPod is just as out of date as a 2004 Treo. How rare is this? Jobs knew full well that his $500 iPad threatens to cannibalize sales of $1,000 laptops. But he moved forward nonetheless. Most companies wouldn’t.

10. We are all spin doctors now

Critics point out that a lot of what Jobs achieved at Apple was put down to hype and hustle. But that was the point. And Jobs was a master at it — the product teasers, the showmanship on stage, even the black turtlenecks. Truth be told, we live in a superficial age of infinite media. We are all in the spin business. Deal with it.

11. Most people don’t know what they’re doing

It takes nothing away from Steve Jobs to point out that he couldn’t have done it without his competitors. Microsoft, Palm, Nokia, Dell, H-P — the list goes on. They missed opportunities, stayed complacent, failed to innovate and generally mishandled the ways their industries changed. It’s normal to assume that the people around us — and in power — know what they are doing. As Jobs proved, they often don’t.

12. Your time is precious — don’t waste it

Steve Jobs was just 56 when he died — a comparatively young man — and yet during his short spell on Earth he revolutionized the way we live, several times over. What are we doing with our time? It is the resource we waste the most — and it’s the one we cannot buy. Make the most of your short spell on this planet. Make each day and hour count.

15 Facts About Jack The Ripper's Case.

Facts about a notorious killer and events that followed.

A crime that fascinates modern detectives.

A savage killer of women became known as Jack the Ripper. The gruesome nature of the killings left an indelible mark on the the city of London and on the rest of the world.

Ripper Letter

 

1.  1. Jack the Ripper was an alias for a killer who preyed on prostitutes.
2.  2. The murders occurred between 1888-1891, killings that terrorized London’s East End.

 3. The drama played out in a 1-mile area around the district known as Whitechapel, part of City of London proper.

Whitechapel High Street, 1905 

 

Survey Map of Whitechapel: Murder Locations 

 

George Lusk, President of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee

 

 4. The killing spree was believed to be too much for the Whitechapel CID and Scotland Yard became involved, sending in reinforcements.

 5. Ripper victims possibly numbered 11 with a strong belief that actual Ripper casualties were about 5 women.

 6. The nature of the murders included throat slitting and abdominal mutilation. Surgeons who examined the bodies saw evidence of a degree of anatomical knowledge on the killer’s part, which included exact excision.

 7. The “Jack the Ripper” handle was derived from a mysterious letter that was sent to Central News Agency, and then forwarded on to the Metropolitan Police. The letter related that the author was “down on whores” and that he wouldn’t cease “ripping them.”

Ripper Massive?

 

8. Another missive arrived via a postcard. The writer used red ink and referred to himself as “Saucy Jacky,” then signed it Jack the Ripper.

 9. Although there were a number of suspects in the case, eventually this was narrowed down to four contenders.

10. The Ripper murders and the Whitechapel murders are not one and the same thing.

11. The notoriety of the murders became international, with lurid accounts appearing in newspapers of the day.

 12. A female torso was discovered in the cellars of the new police building under construction at Whitehall.

 13. The chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee received half a human kidney in a box accompanied by a letter “From Hell” that concluded: “Catch me when you can.” Was Jack taunting authorities?

“From Hell” Letter

14. The murders apparently ceased by 1891.

15. In 1896, another “Jack the Ripper” letter surfaced, with corresponding press activity and speculation that the Ripper had returned.

Jack the Ripper left a bloody and mysterious trail that fascinates, while it horrifies. The puzzle continues.

Does This Painting Reveals The Identity of Jack The Ripper?

The American crime novelist Patricia Cornwell was accused of "monstrous stupidity" for ripping up a canvas to prove that the Victorian painter Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper.

Even in the context of the crackpot conspiracy theories, elaborate frauds and career-destroying obsessions that London's most grisly whodunnit has spawned, Cornwell's investigation is extreme. Not only did she have one canvas cut up in the vain hope of finding a clue to link Sickert to the murder and mutilation of five prostitutes, she spent £2m buying up 31 more of his paintings, some of his letters and even his writing desk.

Like so many before her, Cornwell, 45, a former mortuary assistant who amassed a £100m fortune from her Kay Scarpetta novels, is staking her reputation on her sleuthing and her reading of one of the artist's most dark and teasing paintings, The Camden Town Murder, in which a naked woman is shown trying to ward off a glowering, fully clothed man.

Nevertheless, that has not stopped her declaring she is "100% certain" that she has cracked a case that has driven so many to distraction. "If someone proves me wrong, not only will I look horrible about it, I will lose my reputation," she admitted.

Sickert, regarded by some as the greatest British painter between Turner and Bacon, has been linked to the murders before, but usually as an unwilling accomplice in a masonic conspiracy to cover up for the Duke of Clarence, Queen Victoria's dissolute grandson, whose passion for whoring in the East End left him with syphilis of the brain. The artist's name came into the frame when a man calling himself Joseph Sickert, and claiming the childless Sickert was his father, said the painter had confessed his part in the plot shortly before his death in 1942.

Cornwell is more direct, however, claiming that Sickert - who made no secret of his fascination with the killings - was Jack himself. "I do believe 100% that Walter Richard Sickert committed those serial crimes, that he is the Whitechapel murderer," she told a US TV show.

More sensationally still, Cornwell, who paid for a battery of forensic tests, is convinced that a defect in Sickert's penis, coupled with his failure to procreate from any of his three marriages and numerous affairs, turned him into a serial killer. Nor, she claims, were Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Kelly - all slain between August 31 and November 8 1888 - the only women he killed.

Cornwell's suspicions were sharpened by a series of pictures Sickert painted in 1908, prompted by the murder of a Camden prostitute, which Cornwell claims have an eerie similarity to the autopsy pictures taken of the Ripper's victims. "This painter never painted anything he had not seen," said Cornwell. "This man was a very smart man. If you have these murders going on then you started painting pictures of disembowelled women on the streets, somebody is going to say, 'Let's go take a look at this guy.'"

In one painting of a woman with a pearl necklace, Cornwell said the pose was identical to that of Kelly's when as she was found by police, the only one of the women to be murdered in her bed. Another showed a woman's face mutilated by paint in a way similar to Eddowes's wounds.

But Cornwell's claims - which are to form the basis of her next book - were met with derision yesterday by Sickert experts and biographers outraged that one of his paintings had been sacrificed "to add credence to this silly theory". Their only consolation was that Cornwell appears to have paid well above the market rate for her collection.

Even so, one of the London dealers who sold her two Sickerts this year said Cornwell had "gone beyond the pale". Andrew Patrick, of the Fine Arts Society, who refused to say which paintings she had bought from him, said: "If as is claimed a painting was cut up, that is very wrong. Everyone knows this stuff about Sickert is nonsense. He loved these dramatic titles, and to play with the idea of menace."

Richard Shone, who curated the last big Sickert show at the Royal Academy in London in 1992, said: "I can't believe she has done this, it's such a red herring. It all sounds monstrously stupid to me. Is she so obsessed that she doesn't mind the destruction of a painting by such a very fine artist to add credence to this silly theory? If even Sickert were Jack the Ripper it would not justify this. It's like taking a Caravaggio apart to investigate the stabbing he was involved in. It's mad."

He added: "Sickert was interested in the music hall, the theatrical and low life, and he played around with these themes like Degas, his mentor. He always painted from photographs, and was one of the first artists to do so."

Although Cornwell failed to find any DNA on letters held by Scotland Yard, written by a man purporting to be the Ripper, to compare with samples taken from Sickert's desk and canvasses, she claimed to have made one breakthrough. One letter had the same unusual watermark as Sickert's writing paper, provided by his stationer father.

"If a jury then had seen that," she said, "they would have said 'hang him'."

Walter Sickert