Our daily experiences are what shape our understanding of the world we know. Every moment of existence shapes the person we will become. However, what if the world as you know it is simply an illusion? How would this affect your behavior and would you be able to know the illusion of the world? In the short story “Them,” by Robert Heinlein, the author creates a thought experiment that examines these very questions. Through his story, Heinlein manages to convey the idea that there can never be any certainty regarding one's reality, and 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 Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In “Them,” the protagonist of the story is a patient in what at first glance appears to be a mental hospital. The protagonist is there, because he believes that the world he lives in was created for himself, and everything he experiences is just a facade. His “doctor,” originally known as Hayward, tries to convince him that the world is indeed real by providing what can be called typical answers to the patient's existential questions about the world. The patient states that he realizes that someone is conspiring against him because of the apparent futility of life, to which the doctor responds: “Life seems just like that, and maybe it is just that futile. But it's the only life we ​​have. Why don't you decide to enjoy it as much as possible?” (Heinlein 91). These same challenges faced by the protagonist are not uncommon frustrations faced by what are perceived as other human beings. As unrealistic as these claims may be, they are all validated at the end of the story. This raises the question for the reader: How can I be sure that my life is not an evil formulation of my existence? This is the same question that Descartes tried to answer in his work Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes presupposes the following: I suppose therefore not that the divinity, which is supremely good and the source of truth, but that some evil demon, which is at the same time exceedingly powerful and deceitful, has employed all his artifice to deceive me; I suppose that the sky, the air, the earth, the colors, the shapes, the sounds, and all external things, are nothing but the illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has laid traps for my credulity. (31)The essence of Descartes' dilemma is the same as that of our protagonist in “Them”. Descartes is able to reason that the only thing he himself can be sure of is himself. Descartes comes to this conclusion by examining his reality and realizing that everything is based on his lens of observation. If the way he saw the world could be manipulated, even his memory could be a lie. This is the same principle that Heinlein tries to convey. When trying to reason whether 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. Memory, however, being a rational aspect of consciousness, can be tampered with and possibly destroyed or created” (Heinlein 95). This quote is directly reminiscent of Descartes' work and shows the reader the basis for understanding the character of his environment. In fact, this piece is a very nice thought experiment if a person completely accepted the skepticism provided by Descartes. Such an example would not be as powerful if one did not learn the truth about the patient's situation. Many can say they know the worldly lifestyle, but the end ofstory 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 life? This uncertainty of reality places a much greater 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 other beings who appeared are conscious or not in his world, Heinlein states that if others were conscious beings he would be able to know, saying: "If they were like me then I could enter into communication with them. I cannot” (Heinlein 92). Most must simply be an empty, soulless shell. In other words, individual selves should be able to communicate with each other, and since observation and the senses can be manipulated, any form of communication through that medium can be manipulated. Therefore, unless souls can communicate, there is no reason why one should believe that any other being has a soul. Furthermore, once skepticism is established, should it affect one's life as in “Them”? In our lives based on pure practicality the easy answer might seem no, because even if our lives were pure deception, there would be very little evidence to try to prove it. Except that, when we consider the protagonist of "Them", having accepted his skepticism as truth, he then learns that it is, so how much one should simply accept what surrounds him as true, and how much one should accept that his world is True? false? The answer must lie somewhere in the middle, 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 philosophe and the effects of enlightenment on the world. The allegory describes a prisoner emerging from a cave, of which he saw only shadows, into the light of day, experiencing, in itself, the real world. Plato says: The prison is the world of sight, the light of fire is the sun, and you will not misunderstand me if you interpret the journey upwards as the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief. , which at your wish I expressed, whether 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 accepted, encourages us to continually seek enlightenment, both from one's own experience, and from listening to those who have reached a closer degree of enlightenment. It can also be said, however, that what one may believe to be the real sun, after escaping from the cave, may actually just be another larger fire within a larger cave, and its appearance is there only to deceive further. Therefore, I believe that the perfect degree of skepticism should be one where you live in your world and act according to its rules, but at the same time recognize that a new set of rules can arise and lead to a greater degree of understanding. on reality. This being my definitive conclusion about how one should experience the world, did the patient react rationally when accepting skepticism as truth? Of course from a pure logical point of view, accepting anything as truth would simply find oneself in a bigger cave, to put it in the terms of Plato's allegory. However, even before the patient realized he was being manipulated towards the end of the story, he had accepted his reality as purely false. This does not mean.