Simulacra and Simulation will start this thread>>>
that book sucks, weakest and least insightful of all the pomo french bros
I preferred Odysseus Weeps
>>7792267
is it really that hard? I havent read much straight forward philosophy, only in novels. gimmie a summary OP, or else everyone will think you're full of shit and didnt read the book.
>>7792273
Damn that title always gets me. It's so convincing and sounds pretty good
>>7792273
what is this?
>>7792267
Borges did it better (big surprise, huh?).
>>7792275
At the beginning of the book the author talked about the difference between actual reality and simulated reality (simulacrum) or "original vs. copy"
with his "Disney World Theory". He stated that by copying "original reality" we negate all of its key aspects and render it meaningless. In the author's
point of view, keeping "original reality' as authentic as possible is the only path that will lead humanity to absolute truth or enlightenment.
In the middle of the book the author went from having a materialist to a nihilist point of view about the nature of reality. He talked about
the American zeitgeist during the lated 1960s in regards to The Space Race and how the whole thing was a simulation of competition and
grandeur of science in order to control and baffle the minds of the American people or (Total Control by Simulacra.)
At the end he touched on how the creation of nuclear weapons by the American military–industrial complex was a tool to disturb the authenticity
of "original reality" in order to control other world governments. He was really anti-American in his rhetorics, (mainly the American Political System)
I can tell that he was deeply influenced by the Cartesian school of thought, because the author wanted to persuade his readers that a philosophical
theory such as an "Original Reality" was the sole indicator of absolute truth.
>>7792267
Ulysses
>>7792403
also just seem like debord repackaged with a straight face
>not any of those three
Manit took me one whole year to fully understand the thought processes of Hegel, Heidegger and Derrida.
Actually Baudrillard is not that hard (but then I might be biaised because I'm reading it in my native language)
>>7792414
>>7792403
But is it really such a tough read?
>>7792455
Yes, because it was translated in a "Philosophy 129" style english.
Baudrillard is literally garbage
>>7792267
whys that book hard? you dont lik ee abrstraction you fucking noo?
>>7792474
Right, okay.
While on the subject; The Society of the Spectacle has two releases (Rebel Press and Bureau of Public Secrets). Which would you recommend?
So, correct me if I'm wrong, but B-dog argues that as we tend to prefer the simulation to the reality, and that the simulation is not a reality, and therefore not the truth, that writing in general is a social evil?
>>7792541
Haven't read Rebel Press but BPS was edited by a confidante of Debord's IIRC.
>>7792548
>translations
even if you understand it, you didnt.
>>7792685
Please explain how I interpreted the guy's post wrong. Seriously.
>>7792734
Like I said earlier... >>In the author's
point of view, keeping "original reality' as authentic as possible is the only path that will lead humanity to absolute truth or enlightenment.>>
>>7792548
Literature is Evil.
>>7792758
Exactly, therefore writing is not evil by default, it's neutral.
>>7792548
Isn't he arguing that simulation and reality have cancelled each other out? Because there isn't a clear way to distinguish between the two, they both get rolled up into hyperreality (which can't have truth values). Writing, as a simulation then, is not evil. It's just another "genetic miniaturization" of a model that came before (like reason, experience, etc). A organic extension of the hyperreal through reflection or iteration.
![kant-children-disclaimer[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/wj5lY60.jpg "kant-children-disclaimer[1].jpg")
>>7792787
>still reading books written by privileged white men
B O O M
>>7792986
The existence of that paragraph kills me inside.
>>7792986
Hey thanks for your interest in my post
>>7792361
I don't get it please explain
>>7792361
He didn't do it better, because Baudrillard is doing something different? He uses the map as an example, but takes it in a different direction.
"In fact, even inverted, Borges's fable is unusable. Only the allegory of the Empire, perhaps, remains. Because it is with this same imperialism that present-day simulators attempt to make the real, all of the real, coincide with their models of simulation. But it is no longer a question of either maps or territories. Something has disappeared: the sovereign difference, between one and the other, that constituted the charm of abstraction."
>>7793084
>>7792986
>>7792986
Are children really reading Kant?
I'm being serious here. I can't imagine a kid being so depend they need their parents to pick out books for them and that same child being into Kant.
>inb4 meme responses
>>7793084
borges' story explains the desert of the realm pretty well, IMO. "the map is not the territory" as korzybski stated. and, yet, we live on the map while the real reality wastes away. in fact, it could even be argued that we aren't even living on the map, but, rather, on a simulacrum of the map, or maybe even a simulacrum of that simulacrum. a copy of a copy of a copy of a...
>>7793140
*real
>>7793117
That warning is for college level people. You don't want to trigger no PTSD and doom a poor student to an evening in their safe space free of contradicting opinions, now do you?
>>7793198
>tfw you can't even tell if this post is supposed to be a comedic exaggeration or not
These people are becoming real living parodies of themselves. I'd laugh if I weren't so disgusted.
>>7792431
>took him a year to understand Hegel and Derrida
Heidegger tho...
>>7793140
Borges is not explaining the desert of the real though. He still differentiates the real empire from its simulation, the map (what Baud means by “the sovereign difference”). It’s more of a meditation on the trouble in differentiating “models of reality” from “reality itself”. It is the map, the pride of the empire, that rots here.
Baudrillard takes it to the “copy of a copy of a copy” level (hyperreality), he argues that neither the empire, nor its map were/are real. They are a procession of simulacra.
The desert of the real is the result of simulation: as soon as something (the empire) is simulated, its reality is destroyed. The map does not rot, but acts more like a succubus that destroys the reality of its referent. As is the case with all simulation. “Duplication suffices to render both artificial”.
>>7792414
That's pretty much what he was, verborrhagic, pessimistic Debord (who hated him btw)
>>7793040
"On Exactitude in Science" is the title.
Think about that when reading it.
>>7792414
What's wrong with Debord's?
>>7793401
>verborrhagic
Well said, my spanish friend!
>>7793140
My question is whether we can really "live" outside of the map.
>>7793470
what does this mean?
>>7793488
There is no outside the map
We perceive the map culturally and ideologically, strip away culture and ideology and we're left with the id without the superego to keep it in check - only the can we perceive the what's outside the map, ie surfaces, geometry, lights and temperatures
Does Baudrillard at one point explain what the unsimulated reality is like?
>>7792986
Wait, what "views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations" does Kant even hold? I thought he dealed more with logic and metaphysics, and not a philosopher like Nietzsche or Schopenhauer who'd diss people.
>>7792267
Just watch The Matrix, bro. Most accessible adaptation of a philosophical work ever produced and it hits all the important points.
>>7793488
According to Baudrillard: no, we can't. Then, again, this is all a metaphysical argument. Personally, if you are willing to look beyond ideology, you can see past the simulated cultural reality you are living in.
The Real reality, however, can't ever be communicated, only conveyed as a map since, as another poster made mention: "the map is not the territory". Nature is wordless and silent. It doesn't care of the cultures we create through language.
>>7793536
>strip away culture and ideology and we're left with the id without the superego to keep it in check
But isn't that just another level of language? A non-verbal language, but language still.
>>7793546
The real isn’t being conveyed as a map. And “the map is not the territory” relates more closely to the theory in Borges’s story.
Baudrillard's arguing that the initial sources, or the models from which other models are simulated, are just too remote in time for us to ever recognize. We're too far out on a branch of a rhizome to look back and say where any of this started. There is no true or false, no empire or map, because everything we can and can’t perceive (ie, from atoms and genetic codes, to the dimensions of space/ time and beyond) are just products of a massive system (the hyperreal) that echoes itself on different scales. It’s “produced from a radiating synthesis of combinatory models in a hyperspace”. Language, and therefore how we perceive and construct reality/unreality, is just another operation “produced from miniaturized cells, matrices, memory banks, and models of control”.
Living on the map isn’t a bad thing. Also I don’t agree with your separation of nature from culture. Culture is just a (cancerously) successful model that was produced by nature (through the operation of evolution, leading to human intelligence, and the creativity to produce new modes of control over the environment, etc).
I could even argue that culture is to nature, what the map is to the empire. Both simulations that overwrite the models that produced them
>>7793654
It could also be argued that culture is nothing man than a social-construction brought about by language (it is by this process that meaning is made). While nature is impartial and indifferent and silent, culture is filled with prejudices, beliefs, values, ideologies, etc. Nature doesn't care how people think about it (in Baudrillard's or Deleuze's terms). In short, nature isn't conscious enough to actually care.
>>7793711
*man=more
>>7793711
I don't understand how nature lacking the consciousness to care is relevant. The pencil on my table does not have a consciousness, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was produced in a system to operate as a tool. You point might be useful if nature didn't care, but it's just not possible of caring. This makes your point absurd.
My point is that nature not being conscious of culture, or human processes and models of control (like human reason which comes from language) does in no way separate it from whatever you believe “not nature” to be. Everything is interrelated, everything grows out of what came before. It’s binary distinctions like you’re trying to make here that Baudrillard’s theory is trying to undo. Think of the way that organisms produce waste, from the microscopic cells, to plant photosynthesis, and human or ape defecation, to the macro waste disposal of a major city through garbage collection and dump systems. This is an example of a model of control (of waste) that has proven to be successful, and thus continues to be simulated. The features of culture (ideology, language, creativity, thinking etc) are just tools, similar to waste disposal, that have been successful, and will continue to be simulated in the future (artificial intelligence being the most relevant example).
>>7793827
I should have specified. You stated that
>Baudrillard's arguing that the initial sources, or the models from which other models are simulated, are just too remote in time for us to ever recognize.
This isn't necessarily true since we can trace back the origins of ideology to language. This is why I make the distinction between culture and nature. All this philosophizing we are doing falls into the realm of culture. It's all talk (i.e., words).
Nature on the other hand is indifferent and impartial. As I said, it isn't conscious enough to care about what words we humans wed. It doesn't even care what tools we make; what concepts we create; how long we live; nothing. Nature isn't conscious enough to care about anything. In fact, the universe doesn't even care about nature. Scientifically, everything is just a flux of energy.
Therefore, any representations that human may make about existence by using words or language is, ultimately, absurd. We can surely represent reality as an outline or map (as philosophers like Deleuze & Baudrillard do), but, ultimately, this CULTURAL way of interpreting the world has nothing to do with the way NATURE works.
The world is not made up of words, after all. Words have no impact upon the planet (nature), though they do have an impact upon cultural societies.
>>7793879
Your statement, that "everything is just a flux of energy" is closer to the point I’m trying to make. Simulation would be a symptom of this flux of energy, and both culture and nature are parts of its processes. Culture is part of nature, and nature is part of culture, in spite of language, ideologies, and nature's indifference, because they both come out of “miniaturized cells, matrices, memory banks, and modes of control”.
>Words have no impact upon the planet (nature), though they do have an impact upon cultural societies
If words have an impact on cultural societies, and cultural societies have an impact on nature (which they obviously do), then words have an impact on nature.
>>7794004
>If words have an impact on cultural societies, and cultural societies have an impact on nature (which they obviously do), then words have an impact on nature.
No. Words impact the actions of people in cultural societies (ideologies can manipulate men to act in certain ways). And it is those ACTIONS that have an impact upon nature.
It's not the words that influence nature. Nature is not influenced of effected by words, but solely by actions. That's why I can't say that words and cultures influence nature. Only nature can influence nature. Man is a part of nature, but not words. It's a subtle distinction to see, but an important one I think.
>>7794031
>Words impact actions, which in turn impact nature.
How are you not seeing the connection here? CEO uses words to tell workers to cut down trees, workers perform requested action, nature is affected. If CEO hadn't spoken (or even had the idea to cut the trees down) they would not have been cut down.
The only way your situation works is if I physically walk up to a tree (metaphor for nature) and start telling it about my ideas/ideologies. In this situation my words have no effect on it, because as you say, nature isn't conscious.
Similar scenario: I knock a glass of water off of a table, the glass falls and hits the floor, the water gets on floor.
Under your reasoning, the glass falling would be the cause of the water getting on the floor. My slapping it off of the table would not have been the cause.
Words are actions.
>>7794077
those words are inherently meaningless though, only culture/ideology make them intellegible and cause them to result in action on the part of the workers
>>7794077
>If CEO hadn't spoken (or even had the idea to cut the trees down) they would not have been cut down.
And even if the CEO said the words "Cut down those trees", the trees still would not have been cut down until his workers performed the ACTION to do it.
You can't cut down trees with words. You must take action. Words don't influence nature, only action does (this is Physics 101).
>the glass falling would be the cause of the water getting on the floor. My slapping it off of the table would not have been the cause.
Not at all. The cause of your glass falling to the floor would have been caused by you knocking it off a stable surface. The force of gravity would then push the glass downward. The glass (not being strong enough to push the floor down) would be met with the floor's counter-force, thus, breaking it and getting water everywhere.
>Words are actions.
No, they simply aren't. I can say for someone to move. But until they actually move, my words will have had no effect.
Words may INFLUENCE a person to take action, but they are not actions in and of themselves.
The only way in which words could possibly be seen as action would be if the sound-waves produced enough force to actually move things. For example, a high-pitched sound can shatter glass, for instance. But, again, these aren't the words that are shattering the glass; it is simply the high frequency of the sound's wavelength.
Bullshit. This is my toilet reading.
The Canterbury tales in its native language is the hardest.
>>7794106
I agree that they're meaningless, but what makes them intelligible doesn't matter. The results are the same. Trees get cut down because someone in a meaningless position of culturally constructed power opened their mouth and made sounds.
>>7794129
>Trees get cut down because someone in a meaningless position of culturally constructed power opened their mouth and made sounds.
No. Trees got cut down because someone cut them down.
The words are influencing the workers' actions, but they are not actions by themselves. Words (culture) does not impact (nature). Only nature can impact nature.
This is why there is a distinction between philosophy and physics. Philosophy focuses on culture and physics focuses on nature.
For me, philosophy is great because it rids people of their false ideologies. And physics is great because it helps us manipulate the physical world.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to find people who enjoy both fields. Thus, why we often use science for destructive ideological and economic purposes. But that's just my opinion.
>>7794115
1. Would the workers have performed the action if they had not been told to by their employer? No.
2.
> The force of gravity would then push the glass downward…
That’s what falling means, you didn’t respond to the argument you just reiterated it in more scientific terms
3. What is an action? See pic related. How do we make words? By moving our tongues and vocal cords to produce sound and achieve an aim.
Try harder. Your arguments are all fundamentally flawed.
>>7794160
Scientific theory is a form of reasoning constructed by language.
>>7794183
Someone's getting nasty. We can have a civilized discussion about this... or not.
If you really think words are actions (not just things that may INFLUENCE a person to take action), then you have successfully shattered the foundations of modern physics.
Write a paper on it and submit it to a scientific journal. You'll either (1) win a Nobel or (2) be laughed at by the publishers there.
Words are not actions (as I've said). They have no impact upon the world. Only when people act is the world affected.
>How do we make words? By moving our tongues and vocal cords to produce sound and achieve an aim.
Yes. That is how words are made. Words are made through action. But this does not mean that words ARE action (as you claim). See the difference? Physically, words are vibrations of sound. And, as I said earlier, the only way words could influence nature is if they created a sound that was strong enough or loud enough to create a force necessary to push or pull a said object. For example, having speakers in your car's trunk can cause your seat to shake when the music is played. But, again, it's the physical vibration (the SOUND) that is causing that. Not the words. Any noise or sound could be coming out of that speaker. The words aren't moving the seats. This is basic physics.
>Try harder. Your arguments are all fundamentally flawed.
If my arguments are flawed, then physics is wrong. And it means you understand the laws of nature better than a physicist. And I do not think that is the case.
>>7794183
quick question, bro: can "word" be considered a verb? is "word" something you do?
"yo, mickey, man, i worded, today, son!"
see, brah? words ain't actions, man.
>>7792352
a meme
>ITT people who don't understand Baudrillard
>>7794306
>ITT people who don't understand ________.
Isn't this all /lit/ threads?
>>7792273
Telemachus Sneezed was better desu
>>7793544
>>7792548
Baudrillard never claims to believe in an original truth, never claims there is a naked reality which precedes the image, and never makes any moral judgements of any kind. He believes all these things to be outside the scope of what his theory can represent.
>>7792270
You're an idiot.
Everyone ITT: starting with Simulations is stupid. Baudrillard is highly specific with his usage of terminology. In order to understand his mid-period theory you must have read Symbolic Exchange and Death at an absolute minimum, or you will walk away with any one of a number of disastrous misreadings, or worse, you will come to believe he has nothing of value to say when the truth is just the opposite. Simulations is also far from Baudrillard's most interesting work of his post-1980 period.
>>7792403
You have likewise outrageously misunderstood Baudrillard if you think he is a philosopher, is a follower of Descartes, or valorizes any notion of "absolute truth."
This brings me to another point. If you don't understand what Baudrillard is attempting to accomplish with his theory, what Baudrillard believes theory to be capable of, and how these things manifest in his writing, then you will reap nothing but frustration from his work. All misreadings of Baudrillard stem from this basic misunderstanding, and almost all his most strident detractors share in it.
>>7792267
Jamais ne fut mieux vérifié ce mot de Michelet : « Règle générale à laquelle je n'ai guère vu d'exception : les hommes supérieurs sont tous les fils de leur mère; ils en reproduisent l'empreinte morale aussi bien que les traits. »
>>7793247
>not being able to recognize blatant memeing after expecting memes in your post
I think you should go back to easier books, nothing personal, you just need to work on your analytical skills
>>7794315
DUDE HE FUCKS AN APPLE LMAO
>>7794218
posts like these make me want to spree kill everyone on this board
>>7793551
define language, define sublevels of language
I'm just curious, not debating
>>7795077
It's provisional, but: "A finite set of parts arranged systematically yet variedly, so as to produce value or meaning, primarily arranged through history and necessity."
I was mostly referring to the case of the "id" and instinct, which is seen as obscure and illogical, but very obviously is subject to the same drives as any other animal mind.
>>7795729
>>7794692
>Simulations is also far from Baudrillard's most interesting work of his post-1980 period
What's your favorite by him?
>>7792517
The System of Objects is great. But reading Baudrillard quickly really lets you take in in full his anti-americanism.
>>7794706
More precisely, Baudrillard makes very little metaphysical commitments. He's more interested in metaphysics as a way to diagnosticate the spirit of the era.
>>7795803
The Transparency of Evil is good late-period Baudrillard, as are The Perfect Crime and The Intelligence of Evil. I think his most successful theory came after he abandoned the idea of simulation for the most part and began theorizing on the various aspects of what he called the fractal, viral stage of value.
His most significant work is still probably Symbolic Exchange and Death, which is more or less a prerequisite to understanding everything that comes after it.
>>7795834
This is true. However the root reason that Baudrillard does not engage in philosophy is that he is deeply suspicious of anyone that argues from the standpoint of truth. Believing there to be no stable position from which he could claim to describe the world as it is, he doesn't try to - in fact, he says he is not interested in "realism." Instead, his later work is almost exclusively "theory-fiction," which is crafted to provoke and make enigmatic, belonging to the order of seduction (se-ducere, to lead astray), and not production (pro-ducere, to put forward). Baudrillard indeed succeeding in provoking many reactions from incredulity to outrage, but many readers are not able to follow him to his stated goal, which is the implosion of theory itself. By taking theory to its limit, he hopes to effect its own disappearance.
>>7792548
I'm this guy, thanks for your answers. I'll be doing a presentation on this and some other pomo stuff in a few weeks, so the responses are helpful
>>7796235
You should probably be aware of Baudrillard's highly ambivalent response to the term "postmodernism." He declined to describe himself as a postmodernist, but did not outright deny it, because he thought even this denial to be saying too much. Elsewhere, he argues that "postmodernism" is a meaningless term except perhaps in some fields like architecture. Generally, he represents that he is theorizing on the modern condition of things, not a "postmodern".
>>7793536
To read him as setting up a dichotomy between a simulated "reality" and an unsimulated "reality" is going down the wrong interpretative path. The division here is between the fixed, hierarchical order of symbolic exchange, and the mutable, arbitrary, closed-circuit of the order of semiotic exchange, or the sign. This becomes somewhat complicated when after 1990 he begins to theorize on the murder of the sign itself, replaced by the "perfect crime" of total virtuality, but nonetheless this is the context you should understand him in when he talks about simulation.
>>7796278
Fantastic point, thank you. The presentation takes place during a seminar called post- and the future of theory. I'm excited. Might try to bring in a simulacra of the class
>>7796287
I think the difficulty with this pedagogical tool is that, unless you can make a perfect 3-D computer graphics rendering of the classroom, your simulacrum will belong to the second order, which will compromise your discussion if you are trying elaborate on the third order of simulacra, the hyperreal order.
This may be too abstract for your audience to grasp without explanation, but one example of simulation that Baudrillard holds up as exceptional is the opinion poll, something which would be feasible for you to conduct. Here he addresses the referendum qua simulation: https://books.google.com/books?id=C3PluujWcgQC&pg=PA62
And here Pawlett gives some elaboration on Baudrillard's point: https://books.google.com/books?id=mhe87OZYJXIC&pg=PA80
The key idea here is that the poll or referendum exists beyond a dualism of real and unreal, and therefore belongs to the hyperreal.
>>7794849
the poster in question said nothing incorrect. as least not scientifically. who the fuck believes words can perform actual actions? that's the most retarded thing i've ever heard.
