Our daily experiences shape our understanding of the world we know. Every moment of existence shapes the person we will become. What if the world as you know it was just an illusion? How would this affect your behavior, and would you even be able to experience the illusion of the world? In the short story “They,” by Robert Heinlein, the author creates a thought experiment that examines these same questions. Through his story, Heinlein manages to convey the idea that there can never be certainty about one's own reality and that the only thing one can be certain of is one's own mind. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In “They,” the protagonist of the story is a patient in what appears at first glance to be a psychiatric hospital. The protagonist is there because he believes that the world he lives in was built for himself and that everything he experiences is just a facade. His "doctor", originally known as Hayward, attempts to convince him that the world is real by providing him with what might be called typical answers to the patient's existential questions about the world. The patient states that he realizes that people are plotting against him because of the apparent futility of life, to which the doctor responds: "Life is indeed like that, and perhaps it is simply so futile. But it's the only life we ​​have. Why not decide to make the most of it? (Heinlein 91). These same challenges faced by the protagonist are not uncommon frustrations faced by those who are perceived as other human beings. As unrealistic as these claims may be, they are all validated by the end of the story. Which raises the reader's question: how can I be sure that my life is not a bad formulation of my existence? This is the same question that Descartes tried to answer in his work Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes assumes the following: I will therefore suppose not that the Divinity, who is sovereignly good and the source of truth, but that an evil demon, both extremely powerful and deceptive, has employed all his artifices to deceive me; I will suppose that the sky, the air, the earth, the colors, the figures, the sounds and all external things are worth nothing better than the illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has set traps for my credulity. (31) The essence of Descartes' dilemma is the same as that of our protagonist in “They”. Descartes is able to reason that the only thing he can be sure of is himself. Descartes comes to this conclusion by examining his reality and realizing that everything is based on his own lens of observation. If the way he perceived the world could manipulate everything, even his memory could be a lie. This is the same principle that Heinlein is trying to convey. When trying to determine if he is under the influence of an evil being or organization, the protagonist rationalizes that “self-awareness is not relational; it is absolute and cannot be reached to be destroyed or created. However, memory, being a rational aspect of consciousness, can be altered and eventually destroyed or created” (Heinlein 95). This quote directly resembles Descartes' work and shows the reader the basis of the character's understanding of his environment. In fact, this piece makes for a very nice thought experiment if a person fully accepted the skepticism expressed by Descartes. Such an example would not be as powerful without learning the truth about the patient's situation. The mode ofOrdinary life is a way of life that many may say they know, but the end of the story reveals that the patient is actually the only conscious being in his world. This revelation makes the reader wonder, could this be a possibility in my own life? This uncertainty of reality places much more emphasis on the self and what it means to be conscious. While Descartes would simply accept the idea that he will never be able to fully know whether or not other appearing beings are conscious in his world, Heinlein asserts that if the others were conscious beings he would be able to know, saying : “If they were like me, then I could communicate with them. I can’t” (Heinlein 92). Through this line, Heinlein asserts that a meaningful connection with the soul could be established if all other human beings were conscious, but since one cannot achieve this connection with most, then most must simply be empty shells and soulless. In other words, individuals should be able to communicate with each other, and since observation and the senses can be manipulated, any form of communication through this medium can be manipulated. Therefore, unless souls can communicate, there is no reason why one should believe that another being possesses a soul. Additionally, once skepticism is established, should it affect a person's life like it does in "They"? In our own lives based on pure practicality, the easy answer might seem like no, because even if our lives were a pure deception, there would be very little evidence to try to prove it. Except that when we consider the protagonist of "They", after accepting his skepticism as truth, he then learns that it is true, so to what extent does one simply accept his surroundings as true, and in to what extent must one accept that one's world is true. FAKE? The answer must lie somewhere in between, and Plato often provided the best answer. In The Republic, Plato describes the allegory of the cave, in which he demonstrates the duty of the philosopher and the effects of Enlightenment on the world. The allegory describes a prisoner emerging from a cave, from which he saw only shadows, into the light of day, experiencing, within himself, the real world. Plato says: The prison is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not be mistaken if you interpret the journey upwards as the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief . , what I expressed to your desire, rightly or wrongly, God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of ​​good appears last and is seen only with effort.(27) This reasoning, if it is accepted, encourages one to continually seek enlightenment, whether from one's own experience or by listening to those who have reached a closer degree of enlightenment. It can also be said, however, that what we may believe to be the actual sun, after escaping from the cave, may in fact be just another larger fire in a larger cave, and its appearance is only there to deceive even more. Therefore, I believe that the perfect degree of skepticism should be one in which you live in your world and act according to its rules, while recognizing that a new set of rules may arise and lead to a greater degree of understanding. on reality. This being my final conclusion about how one should experience the world, has the patient reacted rationally by accepting skepticism as truth? Certainly, from a purely logical point of view, by accepting anything as truth, we would simply find ourselves in.