Hi, how does the quote "Fanaticism is a clear sign of repressed doubt" (Dune the Butlerian Jihad) tie in with Plato's "Allegory of the Cave?"

I was thinking that the quote means, fanaticism blinds us of our rational thought. In the famous parable of the cave, representing mankind in a dark cave, plato shows that the dwellers of the den can see only the shadows of puppets, which are themselves only imitations of really living things. That is, they see only the appearances of material things, not their true nature. The shadows which they are accustomed to observe, appear more real than the puppets that caused them.

Rejecting the sight of the puppets and not the shadows of the puppets, the prisoners have repressed their doubt of what reality is, which is a sign that they are fanatics?

I need help, im not sure if im making sense :/

In the most simple way you see shadows as a reality. It requires some thinking to contemplate that the shadows do not necessarily represent reality (but are only shadows of it). Prisoners do not reject "reality". They only do not see the Plato´s world of ideas which he put behind the real world.

Is to refuse such metaphysical world a fanafic act? No, it would put ateists in the group with fanatics.

Plato gives no means by which to distinguish puppet from shadow. His utterances might well be 'shadow' belief, for all we know. I have often heard the cave analogy used as a argument supporting fanaticism or transcendentalism: that fanatic is actually the one that sees the puppets and not the shadow.

Try this page on Plato's Cave if anyone checking in is unfamiliar with the allegory.

I almost posted a page on The Matrix, The Truman Show, and The Cave, but the damn thing was nearly incomprehensible.

Rejecting "such metaphysical" does not count as fanaticism because at some point the practical must necessarily intrude. For many Americans, the practical is all there is, and no, they don't know they're prisoners. However, rejecting the metaphyisical by option, when necessity does not dictate, can be exceptionally limiting. Or can it be said, "Who cares why a man loves his wife or doesn't?"

The means to distinguish shadows from reality comes only after one gains a comparative data set. On the one hand, try describing a sphere to a two-dimensional object. To the other, in the scientific world we can never erase the effects of the presence of the observer in the system. What we do to observe a system invariably, it seems, affects its behavior. Rarely does science get its candid-camera moment, unless it's the moment Bob realizes that Jim has filled his labcoat pockets with whipped cream.

Or so says me. It would seem to me that atheists could appreciate this particular metaphysic, as it has nothing to do with God, and sets a different condition upon the ultimate reality, while we must wonder if the trees and the sunlight can ultimately be said to be real.

,
Tiassa

According to some interpretations of brane theory we might literally be the shadows on the wall.
The question then comes to mind; Am "I" the shadow or the object that projects the shadow?
If the cave is all we can experience does it matter if/what the outside is?

~Raithere

The point Plato was trying to make is the opposite of what you wrote. The message is that we are able to experience more than the cave as long as we realize that cave is not everything there is.

This is a Hermetic allegory.

Plato said that people would fight you if you tried to lead them out of the cave. I would take the relationship between the quotes to be that fanaticism is an attempt to fight whatever forces (logic, other people, whatever) that is attempting to get the fanatic 'out of the cave'. If they didn't have doubt, leaving the cave wouldn't be an issue.

I understand his point, I simply do not believe that anyone has truly experienced it. It seems to me that everyone has staked out their claim as to what is really real. Certitude abounds; black is black, white is white, and never the twain shall meet. But with every decade science peels another layer off the universe and things only seem to get more bizzare.

~Raithere

That may be true, but the starting point of the cave allegory is the the divided line.

I think the Dune quote simply means people who have unresolved doubts usually compensate by being fanatic about what they believe. They refuse to accept anything other than what they see, even if everything points to a possible world beyond.

*Long live the fighters!*

Yeah (to all posts)!

I think the important thing to remember is that Platos world of ideas correlates to the fact that the forms we see are merely the transcendence of heavenly objects. A chicken is a chicken, and all other chickens are born with the same form. A chicken born with one leg is not seen as having a different form, but it is recognised as just what it is:a chicken missing a leg. I hope this helps! (it can take a bit of grasping ).

Fanatics are like the prisoners of the cave in that they do not see the possiblity of a world beyond their beliefs (or senses in the case of the cavedwellers). This inability to allow doubt is what ties the two together.

Or to put it more bluntly, the fanatics and cavedwellers are both stubborn and foolish.