The Nature of Reality: Pi and the Allegory

Plato's The Allegory of the Cave and Aronofsky's Pi reflect the view society has on the idea of truth. They pose the question, what is the nature of reality? Pi and The Allegory of the Cave have many similarities. They view the role of the philosopher in a parallel light, use similar symbols and beg questions about absolute truth, and both bring up the issue of the nature of reality and how it is defined.

In The Allegory of the Cave, Plato imagines a group of people who have been chained inside a cave for their entire lives. They cannot move their heads and cannot see beyond the cave. Behind them burns a fire and images pass before it, casting shadows on the cave walls in front of the prisoners. The shadowy shapes are in the form of real objects. The prisoners, seeing nothing else throughout their lives, believe the shadows to be reality and give the shapes names and meaning. Plato then imagines what would happen if one prisoner were released into the outside world. He would at first be blinded by the light, but then become adjusted to it. He would learn of truth and reality. Upon returning to the cave, he would most likely speak to his fellow prisoners, still chained to the cave, of the world outside, who, no doubt, would be skeptical. The free prisoner would then, once again, have to readjust to life inside the cave, as he adjusted to life outside of it.

In Aronofsky's movie Pi, a number theorist, Max Cohen, is searching for a pattern in both the number pi and in the stock market. As he begins to discover more and more, he becomes obsessed with his work. He suffers frequent headaches and hallucinations, and begins to withdraw from society. Upon discovering a 216 digit number that connects all things in the world, Max also discovers absolute truth. He can't, however, deal with it properly, and begins to suffer more and more, physically and mentally, until eventually he decides to give up his obsessions and live a more peaceful life without numbers and patterns. This movie has many similarities with Plato's allegory, as both discuss the nature of reality.

In the allegory, Plato uses shadows on the wall to represent reflections of an absolute truth and the lies that people believe. Because those sitting inside the cave have only seen shadows throughout their lives, they have no perception of a world outside their own. Thus, they are forever doomed to live in a shadowy state, just like the shadows around them.

Aronofsky also uses symbols to deceive Max throughout Pi. In Max's case, however, there are no shadows, but there are hallucinations. Throughout the movie, Max experiences periods of these daydreams, where he may sometimes see someone, or something, that he believes to be concrete, but is actually a figment of his imagination. These "shadows" are keeping him from the absolute truth that he seeks, the mathematical pattern that connects everything around him. They are also symbols of his progress as he digs into the depths of his mind.

The idea of exposure and experience is common in both Pi and the allegory as well. In Plato's work, he shows that when exposure and experience are limited, they will equal a false sense of reality. The people in the cave, watching the shadows on the wall, have never been exposed to the outside world. Thus, they don't know of its existence and maintain that their reality, the cave and the shadows, is the true reality. By limiting their experience, they are held back in ignorance and maintain their false perceptions.

It is very similar in Pi. Those who do not know of the 216 digit number do not know if its existence. They are unaware of absolute truth and are unaware that everything around them is interrelated. Max, however, has been exposed to this number, and has experienced pure knowledge. He is the one who went outside the cave, and everyone around him is still just watching shadows on the wall. Max has not been limited in experience, and thus does not maintain the common false perceptions of his peers.

This leads to another point that both works have in common, the alienation of the philosopher from society. In Plato's allegory, the philosopher who goes outside, the one who finds truth, will be ostracized by those he left behind. He will come back to the cave to speak of the light outside, of the reality they have yet to witness, and will then be mocked. Those who have not found absolute truth, will not believe it, and will thus alienate the discoverer from the group. Once again, the reason for the isolation of the philosopher, is the lack of exposure those around him have experienced. Because one person tends to think outside the box, he is considered foolish and mad, even though that which he speaks of may be true.

In Pi, however, Max is alienated in a wholly different way. He tends alienates himself. Those around him want to have the information that he possesses, but Max believes that only he is able to hold such powerful knowledge. Thus, he slowly withdraws from society, leaving the people he knows chained to a cave wall behind him. When people hold such powerful knowledge, as absolute truth, it becomes difficult to know who to trust. Max thus becomes paranoid, and at the same time, he believes himself to be superior to those around him. As he withdraws from society, he digs a deeper and deeper hole for himself, which becomes harder to get out of as he continues to pursue knowledge.

Although the philosophers are alienated in different ways, the view of the philosopher is very much the same in Plato's and Aronofsky's work. They are both lone philosophers who seek new knowledge by thinking outside the norm, by taking a different perspective of reality than those around them. They withdraw from society, only to come back with new ideas that differ from those commonly perceived. A philosopher is a dreamer, a theorist, a thinker, and a truth-seeker. It is presented as such in both works, Pi and the allegory.

The symbols of light and daylight are also a common concept. Light and daylight represent knowledge and understanding, truth and awareness. When the philosopher leaves the cave in the allegory, he steps out into a world of daylight, a world of reality, and a world of truth. Those he left behind, however, are still trapped in the darkness of the cave, watching shadows on the wall that represent ignorance and unawareness.

When Max figures out absolute truth, he too finds light. His eyes begin to glow once he understands the 216 digit number, and he experiences a dreamlike sequence where he steps into an environment surrounded solely by bright light. There is also a motif throughout the movie, of how Max was told by his mother not to look into the sun when he was six years old, but he did it anyway and was temporarily blinded. He looked into the sun because he sought knowledge, he wanted to know what was up there, and what would happen once he discovered it.

The fact that Max was blinded upon discovering such knowledge is also related to the cave. Plato states that when a man first steps outside the cave to discover truth he will be blinded by the sun, because he has become accustomed to the shadows on the wall. Thus, knowledge is overwhelming at first, just like Max was overwhelmed by the light of the sun, and must take time to get used to. The philosopher's eyes must adjust to the discovery. Once they have adjusted, the philosopher can see truth for what it really is, for he is no longer blinded.

However, when the philosopher returns to the cave, it will seem completely different, for he has already adjusted to the outside world. When Max discovered the number, upon returning to reality, everything seemed different to him. There was no more chaos and no more confusion. Everything made sense and had a predictable pattern.

Most important, both works discuss the nature of reality. They want to show how a set of beliefs that a society holds to be true can vanish in an instant. Reality is an abstract and malleable concept that man defined with theoretical words and ideas. One day, the earth is flat, and that is reality. The next, it has all of a sudden become a sphere. One day, we are the center of the universe. The next, we revolve around the sun.

Pi proved that any idea, any notion, could be easily discarded when another comes along. Everyone in a society believes that the world is random, that life is chaotic, until Max discovers a number that can predict anything and everything. Although, no one truly knows absolute truth or the nature of reality, and although many believe there is no such thing, someone someday may discover it, proving them wrong.

We define what we consider reality, just as the people sitting in the cave define their reality. Throughout their entire lives, they have seen nothing but shadows, thus, that is their truth. Perhaps we too, have only been watching shadows, and there is an outside world full of daylight we have yet to discover. Perhaps we too are chained to a rock in a cave, watching the same things pass before our eyes for six thousand years, naming them, one by one, as the fire burns behind us.