
Simulacra and Simulation - geospeck
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation
======
cmpxchg
I read the book in college decades ago. It's very famous and he predicted a
lot of stuff about media and culture that has become true in the modern era of
Internet / social media / YouTube e-celebs / etc.

However, his good ideas are cluttered up by the usual sloppy reasoning of
postmodernists. He also has an unfortunate obsession with weaving Marxist far-
left politics into everything, which is distracting. (Chomsky has the same
problem for me.)

The book did not change my life, but it is a notable work of late 20th century
philosophy.

~~~
mo1ok
I've been thinking lately about the "sloppy reasoning" problem of critical
theory. I used to really love critical theory when I was younger, but now that
I'm older I'm almost ready to dismiss it as entertaining crank writing at a
time when western civilization was exploring new boundries and slightly
adrift. It has more in common with artistic expression than critical
methodology. Still valuable, but should not be taken as seriously as it
currently is in academia - at least in my opinion.

I came to this opinion when I stayed at a friends' place recently who had a
massive collection of critical theory, and I had not read any crit in years. I
read a few of the books, and to my own surprise, my reaction was "what the
hell is this nonsense?" The ideas were certainly interesting, but had no real
provable basis, and just seemed to be the reasoned expression of one author's
individual sense of alienation - more like artistic expression than any real
solution to the dilemma of civilization or consciousness.

~~~
pron
> The ideas were certainly interesting, but had no real provable basis, and
> just seemed to be the reasoned expression of one author's individual sense
> of alienation - more like artistic expression than any real solution to the
> dilemma of civilization or consciousness.

Why do you think all ideas that need to be taken seriously should be provable,
provide solutions, or, indeed anything other than the author's own sense of
alienation? This isn't science and doesn't purport to be. Those are works of
literature, intended, like all literature, to give one an interesting
perspective on life and the world. Shakespeare is taken very seriously in
academia, and he provides nothing more than an artistic expression.

If anything, I think that the problem is that laypeople and academics speak
different languages, and laypeople misunderstand exactly _how_ academics view
this literature. In short, they _do not_ consider it to be in the same genre
as Newton's law and the same kind of applicability to physical reality.

~~~
msla
> Why do you think all ideas that need to be taken seriously should be
> provable, provide solutions, or, indeed anything other than the author's own
> sense of alienation?

Because they're part of the Social Sciences.

> This isn't science and doesn't purport to be.

Well, it certainly purports to be.

~~~
pron
> Because they're part of the Social Sciences.

Critical theory? No. It's more part of the humanities.

> Well, it certainly purports to be.

Absolutely not. Why do you think that? Even many actual social scholars
(historians, anthropologists) would object to being called scientists, or, at
least, would always emphasize that if you want to call what they do science,
it is not science in the same sense as chemistry.

~~~
msla
Them using the term "theory" while not doing any of the hard work of science
is equivocation.

~~~
pron
They're doing hard work, just not scientific work. It's not "better" or
"worse" than science; it's just something completely different. Science
doesn't have a monopoly on the word "theory". It's been in use long before
science (at least as we know it since the 17th century) existed.

~~~
msla
> They're doing hard work, just not scientific work. It's not "better" or
> "worse" than science; it's just something completely different.

It's amazing how much of this would apply to alchemy, or astrology, or
religion.

So the question becomes, why would anyone pay attention to it?

~~~
pron
Why would anyone pay attention to science? It all depends on what you want to
achieve and what your values are. The difference between alchemy and
literature is that alchemy purports to have the same goals as science -- at
which it fails -- while literature has completely other goals.

~~~
msla
I'm not talking about literature. I'm talking about critical theory, which is
not the same thing, and is a much later innovation.

Literature has proven itself useful. Critical theory has not.

(Also, I notice you didn't distinguish what makes critical theory different
from religion.)

~~~
pron
> I'm not talking about literature. I'm talking about critical theory, which
> is not the same thing, and is a much later innovation.

The two, as academic disciplines, have a lot in common (at least those parts
of critical theory that I think you're referring to).

> Literature has proven itself useful. Critical theory has not.

I'm not sure how you make that assertion.

> what makes critical theory different from religion.

The way I learned it back in grad school years ago, religion doesn't have a
precise definition but it is almost always required to have a normative
component (which critical theory lacks) as well as some transcendence over
ordinary existence (which critical theory also lacks). It is therefore
debatable whether belief in cryonics or AI singularity, or the Silicon Valley-
centered Rationality movement constitutes a religion (they are all normative
and transcendental), but I see no way how critical theory can even be
considered a religion any more than knitting could; I see no point of
similarity. And no, consideration of truths without scientific evidence is
neither necessary nor sufficient for being a religion. I consider Dostoevsky a
primary source of truth, yet Dostoevsky is not a religion. It's truth of a
different kind than scientific truth, but so is the truth of critical theory
(or, rather, those "mushy" parts of it, that I think you're alluding to). If
it resembles religion in any way is in its goal to interpret reality, rather
than examine it merely factually, but, of course, interpretation is nor a
sufficient condition for a religion, and probably not a necessary one, either.

~~~
msla
> It is therefore debatable whether belief in cryonics or AI singularity, or
> the Silicon Valley-centered Rationality movement constitutes a religion

If you think being rational is a religion, you've fallen prey to the "All
Sides Are Equal" bias, in that you can no longer tell that some philosophies
are straight-up more useful than others.

Or is Christian Scientist "No Blood Transfusions Ever" just as useful at
surviving major medical emergencies as the rational modern healthcare
philosophy?

> It's truth of a different kind than scientific truth, but so is the truth of
> critical theory

This "different kinds of truth" leads right off the cliff of being unable to
evaluate truth claims, and that is the royal road to being an anti-vaxxer, or
an AGW denier, or a believer in whatever other fashionable nonsense is in
vogue.

~~~
pron
> If you think being rational is a religion

Oh, no, I didn't mean that rationality is a religion. I was referring to a
movement, mostly based in Silicon Valley, that _calls_ itself "Rationality"
(and is only ostensibly about rationality; if you read their materials you'll
see), and might qualify as a religion.

> This "different kinds of truth" leads right off the cliff of being unable to
> evaluate truth claims

Absolutely not. Hamlet _really does kill himself_ , but that truth is not the
same kind of truth as Hitler killing himself. Call it different logical
theories (i.e. sets of axioms) or different simulations if you're more drawn
to a mathematical or computational description of different kinds of truth. Of
course, it is possible to _reduce_ all those truths to the same system, but
doing so is not very useful.

~~~
msla
> Hamlet really does kill himself, but that truth is not the same kind of
> truth as Hitler killing himself. Call it different logical theories (i.e.
> sets of axioms) or different simulations if you're more drawn to a
> mathematical or computational description of different kinds of truth.

Axioms give us truth, but truth is inaccessible to us in the real world.
Reality gives us probabilities, and our ideas about how the world works are
good or bad based on how well they allow us to predict the world.

So saying that "Hitler killed himself" is not a "Truth" in that definition of
the word, in that it does not follow from axioms, which means it can,
conceivably, be disproven. "Hitler killed himself" is, at best, a fact, and
facts are statistical in nature; of course, some probabilities are so close to
1 that denying them, or pretending they're uncertain, is insanity.

For more context on what I mean about facts being statistical, read this
review of "Surfing Uncertainty":

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-
unc...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/)

Hamlet's suicide is a fact about a fictional world, in that it's possible to
interpret the text such that it didn't happen, and interpretation shapes
meaning. Again, though, some interpretations have so little going for them,
textually and logically, that they're non-starters.

So both come down to the same thing, a three-part summary where some people
seem bound and determined to ignore, misinterpret, and outright lie about the
third part:

1\. Truth is only available to us from axiom systems, where it follows
inescapably, such that it is impossible to come to any other conclusion within
that system.

2\. Real life isn't an axiom system. Real life is perceived exclusively as a
statistical interpretation of incomplete and flawed sensory data. Compare this
to quantum mechanics and I walk you through a mathematical interpretation of
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle with reference to waves and linear
mechanics, I swear to God.

3\. However, and this is the part some people refuse to understand and I mean
screaming-match level refuse to get, just because we don't have absolute
certainty doesn't mean we don't know anything at all. All probabilities are
not 50/50, everything is not equally likely, and it is possible to know enough
about reality to predict what's likely to happen. That is what the brain does
on a moment-to-moment basis and most people live in the same reality as
everyone else, and the same reality as inanimate objects. Reality isn't purely
a figment of our collective imagination, it isn't purely a matter of opinion,
and there's no way to walk on thin air.

~~~
pron
1\. I don't understand what any of this has to do with what I said.

2\. Beware of learning philosophy from slatestarcodex. What he writes may
sound very smart and convincing to people who have not studied philosophy, but
Scott Alexander is often very, _very_ misleading and extraordinarily
simplistic. Much of what he brings up has been debated intensely among
philosophers, with more interesting insights than his. For example, the entire
exposition you laid out, with its distinction between deductive proof and
inductive/probabilistic extrapolation, had already been worked out, pretty
much in full, but the 17th century (see, e.g. Leibniz). We've learned a thing
or two since then. In general, Alexander (and, in fact, the Rationality
movement with which, I believe, he is associated) represent more or less the
state of philosophy in the 17th and 18th centuries. The choice of stopping at
the 18th century is, of course, one of the many ideological choices made by
the Rationality movement, so take with a huge grain of salt anything you read
by an author associated with that movement. Not that it's not true -- it's
just very inaccurate and so, misleading. As you brought up quantum mechanics,
the philosophy of the Rationalists, let's call them, amounts to Newtonian
mechanics. True, but inaccurate and misses (or, in their case, chooses to
ignore) some interesting and important phenomena. Of course, Newtonian
mechanics just sounds better to most people, as it fits with their
observations, and that is precisely what the Rationalists count on: that their
18th century philosophy would sound "common sensical" to their
philosophically-lay readers, while more modern philosophy would sound, like
qunatum mechanics, bizarre and foreign, and so likely to be discounted or even
ridiculed by their readers.

~~~
msla
1\. We're discussing the nature of truth, fact, and how we distinguish them.

2\. My philosophy has relatively little to do with Slate Star Codex, so
attacking him does nothing to disprove it.

------
sergiotapia
This is the book Neo has in his home:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6R94keJcHk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6R94keJcHk)

~~~
pseudorook
It also comes up through the Laughing Man in Ghost in the Shell. He cites
Baudrillard as an influence, and the plot closely follows the ideas the book.

P.S. I found this amusingly profane and ribald translation ("from English into
American") a while ago.
[http://continentcontinent.cc/index.php/continent/article/vie...](http://continentcontinent.cc/index.php/continent/article/view/91)

~~~
armitron
Excellent read.

------
Top19
I highly recommend Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death”. It’s a much
more accessible and quite frankly more entertaining (amusing?) than
Baudrillard’s work. It was written in the early 80’s but is so relevant it
could have been published two weeks ago.

~~~
AlexAffe
+1 for Postman. Is Simulacra adding something, or is it really basically the
same message?

~~~
qubex
It adds something, but the massage must be extracted from reams of throughly
baffling postmodern critical theory.

------
dcposch
Fun fact: in the opening scene in The Matrix, this is the book from which Neo
produces the hidden memory card.

The Wachowski brothers loved Baudrillard and he was part of their inspiration
for their story about a whole society trapped in simulation.

------
Tade0
For people completely unfamiliar with these concepts(at least the former) and
into cars Mr. Regular from Regular Car Reviews explains them beautifully(with
some added profanity):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA23qLvl79k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA23qLvl79k)

The Simulacra and Simulation part starts at about 4:10.

------
SkyMarshal
Also referenced in The Matrix:
[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=matrix+simulacr...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=matrix+simulacra)

------
makmanalp
I picked this book up years ago, and it was a terrible slog to get through.
The ideas were absolutely fascinating, but the writing is one of the /worst/
I've ever seen. I had to read and reread every single sentence to understand
what on earth it was talking about. And once decoded (through reading or
supplementary resources), the ideas were not as complex as the text.

~~~
BenGosub
I've been through this as well, but I think that while for example Focault and
co. use complex writing to hide their lack of ideas, if you can look past
Baudrillard's complexity he's unmatched visionary. Probably the best critic of
capitalism I've ever encountered.

~~~
wslh
> Probably the best critic of capitalism I've ever encountered.

Comparing to who else?

------
adamnemecek
This really touches on some themes that I've been thinking about. Bought the
book immediately.

~~~
vippy
I read it last year. It is a foundational tract in postmodernism; you WILL see
the world differently.

~~~
orthoganol
I believe everyone should give critical theory a fair shot. But I find the
majority of the thinkers to have pretty simple ideas that are heavily dressed
up and typically exhausting to get through, with little personal benefit,
except perhaps social cachet in certain communities. I personally think you're
better off grappling with the dead philosophers who critical theory seems to
be predominantly in conversation with, like Kant and Hegel. And then add in
Marx and Freud.

If you believe I am off base, I welcome suggestions of thinkers who are an
anti-pattern here.

~~~
GauntletWizard
I'm of the opinion that critical theory is a brain-trap. It seems deep, but
only because it's been dug so far, and in this analogy there's a much deeper
dive a ways off but once you've gotten into the hole that Critical Theory has
dug it's very hard to get out.

I don't think critical theory is particularly insightful, or internally
consistent except by which it's proponents fit it. It makes many predictions,
but most are true only through the lens of critical theory. Looking in from
outside, there's other explanations of all the predictions.

Much like Marx: it's an interesting, intriguing theory. But it breaks down at
some point, except that people already attached (and it's easy to see why it's
an attractive view of the world, simplifying things into a constant struggle
against the "oppressor"; the classic narrative) will do great contortions to
explain why it's still true, rather than going back to the drawing board.

Of course, you can level the same criticism of libretarian ideals, and they do
break down. I think libretarians have a more consistent view of why the break
down and where, but it's imperfect and I greatly await a more grand, unified
theory.

~~~
jhanschoo
As the other commenters: florid prose often hides a paucity of real critique.

------
hullsean
perhaps copies of 90's era Mondo 2000 will suddenly become collectors item. i
know i'm not parting with mine!

~~~
jccalhoun
RU Sirius has started posting old issues as well as new stuff at
[http://www.mondo2000.com/](http://www.mondo2000.com/)

