Talk:Simulacra and Simulations

During the reading of Baudrillard, I kept thinking about social media and the representation of the self fitting into Baudrillard's depiction of reality and phantasm. Particularly, he says that there is a "murderous capacity of images; murders the real." I often think about this when browsing Instagram and seeing photos of others. Is this image really that person? Does this image destroy the true essence of that person? There has to be a disconnect between online representation and offline that I am trying to fit into Baudrillard's argument. One of the properties he says is that simulacrum bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum. Do you guys think that online representations of the self can be seen as simulations that Baudrillard illustrates?

Hi Hugh, I really liked your point, and I was as well thinking a lot of the online world when reading Baudrillard's text. I personally think that, to an extent, yes, online representations of the self can be seen as simulations that Baudrillard illustrates, due to the fact that one has virtually the capacity to construct an online image that has no relation whatsoever with reality, being thus a pure simulacrum. However, I do think that it is generally more common for online representations of self to have at least soem resemblance of reality, although we should ask whether that would be an 'objective' or 'subjective' reality, meaning whether the representation reflects the externally-validated and expected image of the self, or it is rather a liberating outlet for traits that an individual may not feel comfortable to expose in 'real' life, but finds the freedom to do online, especially if anonymously. For once, and suprisingly for my usual positions of technology, I admit that I do not think that the image necessarily destroys the true essence of the person, but the world of simulacra and virtual representation might, in specific circumstances, turn to be instead an empowering tool for the individual to explore and express that very essence more freely.

Dear Hugh and Emma,

I'd like to share some of my thoughts about Baudrillard with you. This question of the relationship between online representations in the form of images and the things and people offline they are representing and whether the one replaces the other is very stimulating. When I read Baudrillard, I get the impression that he is making overly simplified claims with the intent of being provocative and having a dramatic effect. For example, when he says that the Gulf War did not happen, he doesn't mean that nothing happened. Rather, he means that it didn't happen the way wars usually happen. It was all highly controlled. The war happened in a way that wasn't raw and unpredictable. It was a tightly managed operation that involved the illusion of resemblance to "war' as we used to know it. In this case, the predictability was a virtue of the fact that it wasn't really a competition. The defeated side did not stand a chance, and it wasn't even really defeated. I could go on about the details of the war that would help explicate the distinction between real and not-real war that Baudrillard was making, but suffice it for now to say that that's an example of how Baudrillard says thing without meaning them literally, but instead says vague statements while meaning a very intricate argument about representational signs and the the impact they have on both the reality outside of the signs themselves as well as on our interpretation of both.

So, having said all that as a warm up to how I want to proceed in talking about what I think is Baudrillard's position on social media, let's take the example of Snapchat: when a person uses the feature on the app that allows them to make adjustments to an image they have captured such as by adding antlers, I think what Baudrillard would say is going on is that the image on display gives the impression to the viewer that it is somehow more interesting, more spicy, more better, and thereby capturing people's attention and turning their attention, to some degree, away from the "original", the thing or person that they took a picture of in the first place. This idea that the representation takes on a hyper real status is similar to the phenomenon of TV. By hyper real we mean that the digital representation is in some ways imbued with greater detail. It is flashier. It is not only a precise-as-possible rendition of the original, it is 'better'. It is upgraded. It has a lot of details added to it. But this observation alone does not account for the representation's effect on the reality outside of itself. The existence of the "enhanced" digital version is not itself what constitutes the replacement of the original real. We need to go a few steps further for that in Baudrillard's story. Let's take the example of reality television. In reality TV, the people being filmed know that they are being filmed and they can even watch themselves on TV. By watching themselves on TV, they are engaging in a relationship with the TV's version of themselves. This "copy" version of themselves is not passive, however. By being watched, the TV exerts a causal influence on the star-viewers. The stars of the show can no longer experience their concurrent life without being able to witness their TV versions. Their TV versions affect their "real" life. Their "real" life, when it changes, eventually feeds into the representation rendered by the TV, which again feeds back into real life. Real life and TV in this case are in an intimate, on-going dialogue. The TV has taken on the position of a causal agent, thus making itself a force to be reckoned with. Only real things can do that. TV is a part of reality, but it exerts a considerable force in the process through which reality is shaped and undergoes change, which makes it a significant part of reality.

Does digitally adding antlers on your Snapchat picture affect the person whose picture was taken? Only if the image is so compelling by virtue of its meaning-embedded-within-meanings that the person whose picture was taken is so fascinated by the altered image that they decide to wear antlers in real life. And if the antlers are fake antlers, all the better for Baudrillard's argument. But what is meant by "fake"? Presumably, a first interpretation of that word in this context would assume we mean antlers that are made of materials put together to look like antlers, but which are themselves not actually antlers taken from a living animal. But if, hypothetically, we lived in a world where all animals were genetically modified via the power of genetic engineering, then it is precisely the meaning imbued in the design process involved in genetic engineering that accounts for the way in which a simulation bears causal impact on the original reality that it was meant to represent but is now shaping significantly. By simulation we mean the system of understanding through which we represent something like a genome. The genetic reality of a species exists in itself, but our relationship to it is one of managing a collection of data. This collection of data is then used to decide which adjustments to make to animals in a lab. When the genes of animals are altered, what can we say about the reality status of those animals? Are they real or are they a simulation? I would argue that they are a little bit of both. Presumably, we can't understand enough of reality to ever completely simulate it ourselves. We are like the blind people apprehending different parts of the elephant, not knowing the whole thing. In our infinite journey of discovery, there will always be something beyond our understanding and knowledge. So as much as we try to simulate things, we are really only ever simulation our understanding of the things we think we are simulating, and not actually simulating the whole thing. So our simulations are like islands of causal impact within reality, but reality can never be fully understood and therefore never fully simulated. These last few sentences probably go beyond the scope of Baudrillard's story, but Baudrillard helps us understand much of what constitutes our relationship to reality, signs, and the relationship between signs and reality.

Going back to the case of images on social media, another way that they can impact the reality they are representing is through the way the images affect people's perception of us. Their perception of us, inspired by the images they see, plays a looking-glass self role in shaping our own psychological self-image, which affects our behavior, which in turn may either serve to reify or to challenge previously held perceptions.

So, the effect that representations can have on reality varies by degrees. In a mild version, it could inspire me to dress a certain way for Halloween, for example if I decide to wear antlers and say I'm dressed up as a Snapchat image. Or it might affect the way I see myself based on the way others see me through my social media profiles. More dramatically, it could lead me to break up with someone I used to be close with if we are witnessing ourselves being filmed every day for a while and it becomes too much to handle. Even more dramatically, I could be a clone. If I was a clone I'd be a literal bridge between reality and simulation, thus collapsing the distinction. But of course, I would add and argue that there is always something in reality that escapes our understanding and remains to be discovered, thus rendering our attempts at simulation only ever partial representations of what they are representing. Yes, our simulations/representations of reality go on to affect that reality, but even that relationship and its full spectrum of effects will carry details that will elude our awareness. To bring forth the strongest kind of support for that argument, part of what makes a thing what it is is its causal profile, that is, the domino effect that it will have been an ancestral factor in. Each thing in the world is in part defined by its impact on its environment, which will go on to have future impacts on associated environments ad infinitum. By virtue of its embeddedness within infinity, each thing in the world is not fully definable in the present moment, and therefore not subject to our complete understanding. When we are faced with the mystery and are looking for guidance, Love is the answer.