Early Retirement Extreme Forums

If we say there is nothing out there outside of the cave other than what we make out of it then we can say that the struggle with post ERE1 life or 'freedom to' is the struggle of making a cave of one's own - that is to say a cave limited by physics and one's imagination.

ETA: To follow the thread's title, I have changed the above to talk about making a cave of one's own which is a bit more friendly than talking about prison which was there before In the original lines 'prison' was in stead of 'cave'.

If you are going to make something out of your imagination, imagine a paradise, not a prison.

Well put, sky.

Yeah that looks better, thought this thought was going in the direction of stating that there will always be a limit. But yes, if the limit is practically so far away that nobody is able to see it, maybe paradise is a good proxy for the prison. In fact it should have been a cave, going by the thread's title!

ETA: I have amended the above to read 'cave' instead of 'prison'.

I don't know that "freedom to" factors into the allegory of the cave at all. We are compelled to leave the cave, and once we've ascended and seen the good sufficiently (through compelled education), we are again compelled to return to the cave and compel others to leave the cave (519d).

Hristo Botev wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 18, 2023 9:42 am

(519d).

What does this refer to ?

Hristo Botev wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 18, 2023 9:42 am

[...] we are again compelled to return to the cave and compel others to leave the cave (519d).

Not everybody is so compelled. People exist on a range and some are okay with not returning/leaving others behind/only leaving traces. For an example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proenneke ... He made a lot of effort to document what he was doing (perhaps inventing the original selfie), but he did not return to the cave on a regular basis to do Ted Talks or seminars in person.

It's funny how the cave is both metaphorical and real. After Musashi got tired of winning each and every duel, he spent several years in a literal cave introspecting and making art, being burned out dealing with human tropes like "winning and losing" which were still important to others but to him no longer, since he would always win.

I suspect it's actually quite rare for someone who has left the cave to re-engage with the cave dwellers. Re-engaging is a new cave in and of itself, but many seek/construct new caves.

I think the freedom-to-as-paradise perspective is maybe a bit more straight-forward for those of us who tend somewhat towards self-actualizing as gardeners/permaculturalists

chenda wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 18, 2023 9:44 am

What does this refer to ?

Stephanus page numbers; so that everyone can be "on the same page," so to speak, despite reading different translations, editions, etc. Forgive my silly marginalia:

@Hristo - Thank you.

jacob wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 18, 2023 9:57 am

Not everybody is so compelled. People exist on a range and some are okay with not returning/leaving others behind/only leaving traces.

I get confused with "allegory of the cave" references in these sorts of discussions: are we using the allegory as just a generic reference to a red pilling type experience, or are we talking about the allegory in the context of how Plato was using it as a tool as part of his overall project in The Republic? If the former, then you are no doubt correct, but if the latter, Plato is quite clear (to the extent that a philosopher putting made up words in the mouth of his teacher as part of a fictional dialogue can be "clear") that: (a) one is compelled (by agents/guardians/enlightened ones/escaped cave dwellers) to ascend out of the cave; and (b) the point of that compulsion is NOT one's own, individual happiness.

@Hristo - Mainly the former, because the latter includes constraints from the community/societal obligation. The metaphor is more useful in its generalized form even if Plato himself sought to push for a collective/community obligation.

jacob wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 18, 2023 11:42 am

@Hristo - Mainly the former, because the latter includes constraints from the community/societal obligation. The metaphor is more useful in its generalized form even if Plato himself sought to push for a collective/community obligation.

Then I think you just stay in the cave, or, as I think is being suggested upthread, just replace your current cave with a different one (which I guess is just a different version of taking the blue pill).

For what it's worth, I don't think Plato was necessarily pushing for a collective/community obligation, he was just trying to work out a definition of justice.

Hristo Botev wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 18, 2023 12:02 pm

Then I think you just stay in the cave, or, as I think is being suggested upthread, just replace your current cave with a different one (which I guess is just a different version of taking the blue pill).

Could be. I'm still stuck/exist in the construct of "caves/turtles all the way up/down". I'm not convinced/don't "feel"/experience a difference between "unitive" and going to the mathematical limit (for those who've gone there).

Glad this has sparked come conversation - sorry for not being able to contribute anything of immediately tangible merit here.

Now I diverged to ponder in what sort of situation or in what sense one can think of a shade casting shade. This is a different but similar take on cave within a cave.

Perhaps play yourself Spiegel im Spiegel to tune in contemplating this.

jacob wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 18, 2023 12:15 pm

Could be. I'm still stuck/exist in the construct of "caves/turtles all the way up/down". I'm not convinced/don't "feel"/experience a difference between "unitive" and going to the mathematical limit (for those who've gone there).

Turtles all the way up/down strikes me as correct, assuming what one is pursuing is some sort self-focused happiness/fulfillment/etc. I'm not suggesting that that is what you are pursuing or talking about, but that is I think one of the points Plato is making in the passage I excerpted above where he says that those who have ascended are not meant to stay in a state of perpetual education on the "Isle of the Blessed," but rather that justice requires that they then get to work bringing others to the "good."

Or, as DW is always telling me: my life is not about me.

Or, as I think Flannery tells me: mission and obligation follow grace.

If the end of the ascension exercise is merely self-fulfillment, and not some sort of purpose beyond oneself, then it is indeed turtles all the way up.

Life is but a dream.

Though it occurs to me because of multitude of potentialities, or horizon of possibilities too hard to count, we are well enough perceiving life / the world as reality where we have free choice or free will.