Allegory Of The Cave

What is the Allegory of the Cave and how does it relate to Aleatoric Music? To begin with, The philosopher Plato once wrote about the philosophy of dualism. In the Book VII of Plato’s Republic, Plato wrote an allegory of three prisoners are chained up in a cave their entire life unaware of reality. They’re backs are to the entrance of the cave and they can only see the shadows against the cave’s interior created by a fire. They can occasionally see the people and other things pass by and cast shadows on the wall. The prisoners name and classify these illusions and believe that they are perceiving actually entities. One prisoner is then freed and goes outside the cave and is told that the objects around them are real and their shadows are
just reflections. His eyes gradually adjust and is able to comprehend the world around him. He then returns to the cave and has a hard time seeing the shadows he once saw before because his eyes are used to being in light. He tries to free his fellow prisoners but they resist believing his journey has made him stupid. Plato comments on how people are comfortable living in ignorance and are hostile to those who point it out to them. He formulates a theory, that there are two worlds that there are two worlds. The intelligible world and the visible world. The visible world is the world you believe to be true and have a perception of like the prisoners in the cave. The intelligible world is one that can only be reached through intelligible reasoning and experience such as the prisoner who was freed. Plato urges people to leave the “shadow world” and see the realm of true forms but his ideas are rejected due to their ignorance and stubbornness. This allegory displays how dualism is about perception of the person. Plato believed that everything that exists on Earth has a corresponding form. A simple object such as a table is linked to the perfect idea of a table that exists independently. In addition to, the philosophy of dualism relates a lot to Aleatoric music. Aleatoric music is the use of chance in composing a musical piece. The composer can roll a dice or flip a coin right before a performance to determine key elements in the piece. In Aleatoric music the way one plays a piece is all up to the factors up to the performance. Aleatoric music is just a form of music that exists along other forms of music. So what is the perfect idea of music that exists in the world. Music is an important aspect of society as we know it.
Everywhere a person travels they hear music whether if it’s in a mall, grocery store or even an elevator. In the past when people thought of music they usually believed music has to have a rhythm or sound. Even the renoud dictionary Merriam Webster definition states that music is the “science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity.” Music has always been thought of as a sound that unites to create a composition of melody. According to Plato, this is just one form of music and not the perfect idea of music. John Cage came up with another form of music through the teachings of Zen Buddhism and the Chinese classical oracle book, the I
Ching. How does John Cage use Zen in his music? Next, D. T. Suzuki, the great Japanese scholar who introduced Zen to the West, settled in New York in September 1950. Zen is a philosophy about finding one’s self through meditation. Cage sought out Suzuki’s classes and Zen showed Cage his true nature of being peaceful and loving. His immediately decided that he would put all these teachings into his music. To John Cage his music was discipline or medication to help him. Buddhism teaches that abandoning your ego freed you from all illusions. John Cage used his music to free himself from his conscious choices. Using the I Ching oracle book to write his music, Cage was able to compose music without his own personal desires and fondness. This idea completely contrasts Plato’s philosophy which argues that it takes intellectual reasoning to abandon the “shadow world” instead of abandoning one’s ego. How is John Cage’s 4”33 significant?
In 1952 a famous composer named John Cage created a piece that challenged the original idea of music.
It was called 4’33”. The pieces duration was entirely made up of silence where the performers wouldn’t play there instruments. This piece challenges the very dynamic of music that people have known. During the performance of the piece, the composer goes on stage and does nothing at all . The audience witnesses the act and is still quiet the whole time. This sort of piece is difficult for most audiences since sitting quietly for any length of time is not something people are accustomed to. Presented to silence the outcome is unknown. Anything could happen during the performance of the piece. People could desire to hear more interesting sounds or feel insulted,baffled or bored. Furthermore, Cage’s piece through silence and aleatoric music was able to produce endless content full of both expected and common sounds. John Cage through Zen and his understanding of silence, he was able to create a new form of his
music. Is silence music?
In spite of John Cage’s musical accomplishments, a few questions comes to mind. Does silence really count as music? Was John Cage making an ingenious point or was he just eccentric? According to Plato, the answer is yes, silence is music. As stated before, Plato philosophy of dualism is based on perspective. Plato believed that everything that exists on Earth has a corresponding form. This also includes music. Music is not just sounds in a piece, but it is also the absence of sounds. Many people may reject this idea of music because they are ignorant to the truth. The truth of which John Cage knows; he tries to tell them in his musical composition 4’33”. Just like in the allegory of the cave, the person who knows the truth when he tries to explain what he has found, his ideas are rejected. John cage found the perfect way for people to have to listen to his concept of silence. He had a master musician, David Tudor play the piece in a distinguished concert hall. The etiquette of the hall kept everyone quiet instead of their being an uproar. There is a problem with the way John Cage performed his piece. He performed the piece as the composer and not as the listener himself. It was through composing that he made the discovery that all sounds occur through silence and through any order. The audience can hear the results of the discovery but they aren’t reliving Cage’s experience. Without the experience Cage had, the piece really has no resonance with the crowd. They are left with ideas about silence, confusion and thoughts about what the meaning of the piece actually was. Just as Plato had wrote about over 2000 years ago in Book VII of Plato’s Republic, the person who has found the truth can never get another person to fully believe them if they don’t experience it themselves. How does John Cage’s 4’33” relate to Chaos theory?
John Cage’s 4’33” relates to chaos theory because it can never be replicated. Chaos theory states that even if you do an experiment over the same exact way, the results will always differ. John Cage’s original performance of 4’33” will never be heard exactly the same. Even in silence the noises that are heard by the audience will always differ because of perspective and circumstances. It is interesting to examine that even in silence, there is a difference between silences. Their are awkward silences, silences in speech ,silences in the senses etc. In our class experiment, we had first sit down in our chairs with our heads up, and see how long we could go without making a sound. Then we had to do the same thing over again, but this time with our heads down. The types of silence of each experiment was different. The first time, it was a sort of awkward silence and the second one was a silence of the senses. During both trials you could hear people breathing or coughing so it was never complete and total silence. That brings up the question if silence is ever achieved? Can true silence ever be achieved? John Cage asked himself this question when he was developing one of his most controversial pieces, 4’33”. John Cage entered an anechoic chamber in Harvard University thinking he will hear true silence. However, when he entered, he heard two unintentional sounds. One high sound and one low sound, which were the nervous system and blood circulating respectively.