In the end, the race to achieve cyber-immortality converged with nuclear annihilation. We lived and died forever.
"Jean Baudrillard (/ˌboʊdriːˈɑːr/; French: [ʒɑ̃ bodʁijaʁ]; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as his formulation of concepts such as simulation and hyperreality. He wrote about [many] diverse subjects . . . Among his best known works [is] Simulacra and Simulation (1981). His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism." (Wikipedia)I presented this essay to my Beginning Theory class. The following Youtube video preceded the reading of the essay. The video includes images from Peter Barry's book Beginning Theory (2009). By showing the video, I hoped to achieve a quick coverage of the concepts from the book; I attempted to tie video clips from The Matrix to the book and to the meaning of the word simulacrum. I was standing at a podium to the right of the screen at the time the video played.
Central to the theory of Baudrillard in Simulacra and Simulation (first published in 1981) is the term simulacrum: the singular form of simulacra. The word simulacrum becomes a kind of container sign for the inclusion of signs that have particular qualities of realness. Signs in the real have signifiers that represent real things such as flowers. Simulacra of the third order appear to represent the real through simulation but do not signify it. According to the author, the social stratum becomes increasingly hyperreal in complexity and artificiality as simulacra continually diminish the depth of meaning by overwhelming it with a plethora of representative simulations (2). To complicate things further, the word simulacrum has an attribute of numinosity built into its meaning since simulacra may be signs, images, or systems of models that simulate reality; and, as postulated by the author, “God himself [may] be simulated . . . reduced to the signs that constitute faith . . . a gigantic simulacrum” (5-6). Thus, difficulty in defining what the word simulacrum means is due to the way that Baudrillard uses the word as a monad--an elemental oneness--that collapses the real into an endless expansion of simulations of the real (monad).
Before going further into the complexities that underlie the meaning of the word simulacrum, the following example should help concretize what the author means by a simulacrum. The dollar as a fiat currency represents a simulacrum that is in a constant process of simulation. It ceaselessly simulates a real-world truth as an exchange of value, but the dollar does not have intrinsic value; its deepest truth is “In God We Trust.” The derived dollar's real-world value comes from exchanges with other fiat currencies. Dollars created as instruments of debt enter into existence as an electronic entry during the creation of debt obligations such as loans. Therefore, the dollar represents a simulacrum that simulates an underlying truth which does not exist. Financialization is sorcery of simulation at the highest level, and it threatens to destroy the social stratum through collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, naked short sales, rehypothecation and so on. In a sense, the financial industry is the glittering facade of a simulacrum; a hyperreal representation perpetuated through simulation.
The author’s reference to a system of signs that attests to God as "a gigantic simulacrum" positions Baudrillard to subvert grand narratives through postulates that question the meaning of reality and by his definition of the simulacrum as true. The epigraph to Simulacra and Simulation, which is a synopsis by Baudrillard of the “Book of Ecclesiastes,” affirms the vanity of idealizing so called truth. It states that “[t]he simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth---it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true. --Ecclesiastes” (1). The religious tone of his epigraph imbues itself into the meaning of the word simulacrum which is “true” while the grand narrative of the Bible as the actual word of God--the Truth—is negated by the words “it is the truth which conceals that there is none.” The epigraph suggests that the author considers The Bible and other religious doctrines--ideologies--as forms of second order simulacra (6).
Baudrillard’s attribution of the epigraph to “Ecclesiastes” seems to relate to the way his theory of simulacra and simulation parallels the phrase from “Ecclesiastes” that says “[a]ll is vanity” (English Standard Version, Ecc. 1.9). Many signs within modern social systems represent simulated versions of reality. These simulations are simulacra that conceal an absence of referential to the real. They save the reality principle at the cost of truth (13). Attempts to prove the truth in such a reality is vanity, and yet the “simulacrum is true” (1). To me, this statement indicates an attribute of representation inherent in a sign regardless of whether or not it references some reality is what is true. The idea that the simulacrum is true bears out whenever people make decisions based on representations of simulations that lack referential to the real. The simulacra become as actual as the real--the true.
In its more distilled definition, according to the O.E.D., simulacrum comes from the Latin adjective simulāre which means to make like, or to simulate, and is defined as “[s]omething having merely the form or appearance of a certain thing, without possessing its substance or proper qualities” (simulacrum). Accordingly, a photograph is a simulacrum. Baudrillard builds upon these definitions through a transgression into the realm of the gods where a sign’s reference to the depth of meaning ends. He introduces four phases of the image by using the subjunctive clause would be when he says “These would be the successive phases of the image” (6). Thus, his definitions of the phases of the image are expressions that are not known to be true within reality. Perhaps they would be true in the case that reality is a gigantic simulacrum. The “four phases of the image” are:
1 It is the reflection of a basic reality.
2 It masks and perverts a basic reality.
3 It masks the absence of a basic reality.
4 It bears no relation to any reality whatever; it is its own pure simulacrum. (6)
Analogies to the way the phases of the image represent things follow. First, a photograph of a flower reflects the underlying reality of a flower. Second, a photo-shopped picture represents the image with embellishments that mask and pervert the basic reality of the object photographed. Third, a virtual reality 3D Tilt-Brush painting of a flower signifies that it is real. It masks the absence of reality by way of a simulated representation. Lastly, to use an image from Barry, a “completely abstract painting” such as a solid colored mood painting by Mark Rothko bears no relation to any reality (85).
Baudrillard notes concern about the third phase of the image and simulation that is a third order simulacrum (6). Simulation without a signifier “is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality” (Baudrillard 1). The author goes on to say that “simulation is of the third order, beyond true and false, beyond equivalences, beyond rational distinctions upon which the whole of the social and power depend“ (Baudrillard 21). The example of the financial industry that I’ve offered authenticates Baudrillard’s concern. Banks have become too big to fail and their executives too big to jail. Although many examples in Simulacra and Simulation demonstrate how simulations negatively impact society, Baudrillard’s concern does not imply that third order simulacrum are destructive in and of themselves. His concern is more of a call to respond according to the nature of simulacra.
Baudrillard’s exploration into the nature of the simulacrum reverberates through the writings of other postmodernists that have built upon his theory. Nick Bostrom’s augment within his paper “Are You Living In a Computer Simulation?” makes three propositions about humans reaching a “posthuman” stage. He then concludes that “[i]t follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false unless we are currently living in a simulation.” In response to Bostrom’s argument Elon Musk, earlier this year said that “there is less than a billion to one chance that we are living in a base simulation.” In other words, there is less than a one in a billion chance that we are not living in a gigantic simulacrum.
Attempting to conclude the points I’ve covered in summary, to bring clarity to the term simulacrum, leaves me at a loss. My only response is, “The simulacrum is true.” Call it God if you like.
Works Cited
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Critical Theory. Manchester University Press, 2009.
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. The University of Michigan Press, 1994.
Bostrom, Nick. Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?. 2003, simulation-argument.com. Accessed 14 November 2016.
English Standard Version. BibleGateway.com, www.biblegateway.com/passage/? search=Ecclesiastes+1&version=ESV.
"monad, n. and adj." OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2016. Accessed 14 November 2016.
Musk, Elon. “Is life a video game? | Elon Musk | Code Conference 2016.” YouTube, uploaded by Recode, 14 November 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KK_kzrJPS8.
"simulacrum, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2016. Accessed 14 November 2016.
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