A Simulated Reality
“For example: it would be interesting to see whether the repressive apparatus would not react more violently to a simulated hold up than to a real one? For a real hold up only upsets the order of things, the right of property, whereas a simulated hold up interferes with the very principle of reality. Transgression and violence are less serious, for they only contest the distribution of the real. Simulation is infinitely more dangerous since it always suggests, over and above its object, that law and order themselves might really be nothing more than a simulation.”
–Baudrillard
Often these days there are reports of simulations, whether they are for war plans, election results, or a new miracle drug. In the essay Simulacra and Simulations by Baudrillard, it is theorized that simulation is, in reality, impossible to achieve. Just as Descartes showed nothing can be completely original:
For, in truth, painters themselves, even when they study to represent sirens and satyrs by forms the most fantastic and extraordinary, cannot bestow upon them natures absolutely new, but can only make a certain medley of the members of different animals; or if they chance to imagine something so novel that nothing at all similar has ever been seen before, and such as is, therefore, purely fictitious and absolutely false, it is at least certain that the colors of which this is composed are real.”(Descartes)
In this case Baudrillard hypothesizes that once simulation is put into action it no longer is of itself a simulation, but rather will be plunged into the real. People feel a certain safety behind simulation because of its connotation to contain no lasting effects, but what is impossible to prove or discern is when a simulation transcends its original parameters to become an actual event. By forming this inseparable bond between simulation and reality the very base with which people perceive the nature of the world. This is a notion that is too much for the comprehension of most people because if a simulation is conducted and nothing is expected it can be preformed freely, but considering there is an innate and inevitable repercussion this impunity will be inevitably misinterpreted.
Mr. Cynic
There is a great novel called “Remainder” in which a guy tries to recreate his life through pure simulation. He buys an entire building, hires actors to do specific acts, etc. He then sees things happen in the city and re-create those act for act. Then he recreate the re-creations and so-on, etc. He basically takes Baudrillard and tries to appropriate him in a real setting (as opposed to the silliness of the matrix). You won’t have time to read it until this summer but VERY much your kind of thing.
Well I will have to put that on the list of “things I should read, but still cannot cut out the sleep I currently am getting…unfortunately”. That is quite an interesting premise because it can be looked at as simulation, but at the same time as soon as he has hired an actor it has transcended simulation because it has created a real world action to replicate reality. You know me too well, seems just like my kind of thing.