Simulacra and Us

Jean Baudrillard wrote:

The absence of things from themselves, the fact that they do not take place though they appear to do so, the fact that everything withdraws behind its own appearance and is, therefore, never identical with itself, is the material illusion of the world, And, deep down, this remains the great riddle, the enigma which fills us with dread and from which we protect ourselves with the formal illusion of truth.

The harmonizing of the physical with the metaphysical is what is missing in contemporary thought.
I've called it with the more banal "compartmentalization", Orwell called it "DoubleThink"

Today the physical takes precedence, often in contradiction to the metaphysical...in what Nietzsche might have called a loss of spirit...or an Alexandrian Age.

To reassemble a consistent and harmonious world-view and only few even care to do so.


How the gene converts to a meme and is then converted back, in a self-referential loop, is this notion of Simulacrum and Simulations.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with Mr. Weng here.

I've never seen a copy replace an original. There is no such thing as an exact copy- ever. This is largely what's responsible for making our world so 'fake' in that it cannot compare or make comparisons in the way that it claims.

Technology has tried to replace metaphor, and it's just another dishonest, blander version. However, the way that it mimics is idolatrous in nature and so more deceptive and leading.

You are correct, sweetie, even a copy, a clone, is different from that which was copied or cloned, in a fluid reality....but you must pull back far enough to see what Bauddrillard means...perhaps.

You see, when the minds involved have been made simple or blind to details, unable to incorporate most perceptions, over a level of complexity, into their abstractions, their interpretation of the world follow suit and are dim and caricatures.
Caricatures can be copied to within a quality of sameness to trick an eye that has lost its perception of detail.

Like when you go far enough back to be unable to differentiate one person from another.

Technology offers these communal symbols and abstractions, which are totally detached from reality, and because technology is replicated using the same codes the simulations are so similar as to make their dissimilarities irrelevant and easily ignored.

now the simulated reality takes over.

This is why, precious, you see the same symbols all around you. These symbols, gestures, signs, are mass produced...they become part of the simulation.
Nothing mystical required.

Art, being a matter of sampling these days, imitates art, which imitates and references previous art in an endless cycle of recycling.
The same symbols, archaic or not, are repeatedly reused.

Umm obvs you missed what I said becuz it was that but better

Hate to break it to ya buttercup but follow the link [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] then skim down to where it says "similarity" [1.1.3.3.8.] and read.

I've been saying this shit for years.

Unfortunately you cannot connect how this self-referencing which culture does, particularly a culture of such sophisticated technological means, influences your delusions about the occult and the v-sign...or how it even produces those midnight extravaganzas an impressionable female mind, like yours, is prone to.

I totes just stole this avatar from another forum. It's rad.



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I relate it back to Dawkins and his memes.

I see a meme as being a continuation, an adaptation of the organic gene, into a super-organism.

This meme creates a shell, a skin, a membrane encompassing the emerging unity.
Technologies are the adaptation of genes to their mimetic host - they are assimilated, consumed, if you will.
The parts which are deemed useful are specialized and honed, the rest are discarded as excrement...like masculinity or the need for sexual distinctions based on natural specialized roles.

This process happens naturally, as it is a reaction to entropy. As entropy increases more and more complex ordered unities must evolve to meet the challenges.
I see social behavior as the first step, itself an admission of inadequacy, as the individual submits to the group because he cannot go on alone, just as the cell submits to the unity of the physical body because alone it is vulnerable.

This cocooning offers the advantage of synergy, but it also demands the cost of self-realization.
The organism stops evolving on its own, it even stops developing, but begins to stagnate, as only its specialized contributions to the super-organism are important and the rest of its attributes begin to atrophy.

Intelligence is a good example. Although information is everywhere the mind is trained to specialize in knowledge, and so learns and becomes aware only to function within the whole. It knows much about a very small part of existence, and in all other areas it is dumb and blind, relying on other specialists, experts, to do the thinking for it in those areas.
This is a form of dumbing-down.

This mimetic cocooning also has the effect of becoming self-referential.
The individual minds, quickly deteriorating, only reference the constructs that the super-organism produces as part of its maintenance and growth.
This is also called institutionalization.

The mind is enclosed within a framework of artifices, technologies, which keep the outside nature, as far away as possible. To provide this protection it demands loyalty, discipline to its premises, adherence to its rules, harmonization with its internal workings.

This is where simulation begins.

I do not believe in any teleological nature.
The organism or super-organism simply reacts to entropic decay, to temporarily, needing, at first, to only maintain itself in the flow.
If it later develops a consciousness, or the ability to project, this is done to offer itself a direction, making its growth, using whatever excess energies are at its disposal after self-maintenance is taken care of, more efficient and so more effective.

Human ideals are a case in point.
They are projections of a destination which will never be attained, but which provides a direction, a focus, an object/objective, a towards...towards for the will.
Will is the focus of these energies.

Ideals are always the consequence of particular conditions interacting with the mind or the group mind.
This ideal or ideals can then be adopted by the super-organism as necessary for its own survival and possible dominion.

To achieve this internal order the super-organism needs docile, complacent, feminine minds internally, so as to focus its masculine force outward. To expend energies to maintain internal order diminishes its Will's effectiveness when focused outwardly.
This is why as the system grows it promotes feminine traits internally while keeping the right for masculine attitudes for itself....this is why I've said that masculinity has been abstracted into an institution.

I've said this a long time ago but it's worth mentioning again...

I view it as humankind trying to eliminate everything but itself until a kind of self-consumption (which we are already experiencing)

I always said it would be a riot if in a number of years there is some kind of world-wide collapse and cannibalism runs rampant. Cuz like....when food runs out, and everyone's stuck in the city/suburbs....there's only one kind of edible organism around (after the cats and dogs that is).

Alucard Tepes wrote:

I've said this a long time ago but it's worth mentioning again...

I view it as humankind trying to eliminate everything but itself until a kind of self-consumption (which we are already experiencing)

I always said it would be a riot if in a number of years there is some kind of world-wide collapse and cannibalism runs rampant. Cuz like....when food runs out, and everyone's stuck in the city/suburbs....there's only one kind of edible organism around (after the cats and dogs that is).

Yep, just like in that film 'The Road'. It's the future... bleak but inevitable.