
Ideology Is the Original Augmented Reality - isserson
http://mitp.nautil.us/feature/271/ideology-is-the-original-augmented-reality
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elvinyung
My theory here is really sloppy, but in this topic I think there are two
concepts worth examining:

* Baudrillard's ideas on the _hyperreality_ , which is basically a simulation that doesn't actually relate to any underlying reality. He argued that a lot of the signs and symbols in our postmodern society have become hyperreal, purely manufactured artifacts.

* Deleuze's concept of _virtuality_ which he defines as something isn't actual, but is nevertheless real.

Is a virtual reality any less real than physicality? If sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic, then sufficiently advanced
artificial reality might be indistinguishable from reality.

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l33tbro
Virtuality is arguably only less real in terms of its very dependence on the
Real, in that you cannot you have virtual worlds without the physical worlds
that generate and power them.

I think as we go along, a lot of Baudrilliard's ideas that seemed radical in
the 1980s are becoming inert, as they are so ingrained in our everyday
experience (eg, hyper-reality, the simulacra, etc). At least in this iteration
of the technology. Moving into mass-scale mixed reality environments will be
an entirely different proposition.

~~~
elvinyung
I think this is true for a lot of poststructuralist thought, the most popular
which have generally been subsumed into the cultural consciousness (e.g.
Deleuze's rhizome becomes what we know as the distributed network). But I
think it's still useful to draw upon those concepts to codify what we live and
breathe.

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mattbierner
I found this article worthless, pretentiously worthless at that (WMDs?
Really?). Stories augment the human experience of reality, as do social
constructs, as does language, but I am too dumb to understand why that's news.
What is the point he is trying to argue? That there are seven AR Pikachus
dancing in the head of every philosopher?

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brian-armstrong
Sounds like this might be your first Slavoj Zizek article.

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darkerside
I think the truth is simpler. Ideology and games both present people with an
escape from their lives. Life terrible? Play some WoW, and you'll at least be
guaranteed slow and steady progress instead of an ongoing backwards slide into
poverty. Ideology (particular racist ideologies, as the article and to focus
on) offers a similar alternative game to play. Failing at life? Start
competing against a minority team that's even worse off, either economically
or physically.

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ilaksh
Very interesting but I don't think AR is a perfect analogy because as far as I
can tell there does not seem to be any such thing as an unbiased non-
ideological human viewpoint (overlayed onto). _Everyone_ has a set of
foundational nodes in their cognitive perceptual framework (an ideology) that
are a core aspect of any view they have of the world. This is a pretty
fundamental problem for politics.

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bilbo0s
I think you're talking about _humans_ , whereas the article was talking about
reality.

Amount of CO2 in the air. Number of Rohingya killed. Amount of crude in
Cantarell at this moment. Etc etc etc ad infinitum.

What are the answers to those questions? What are the physical implications?
(ie-what will the Earth physically do with all the CO2? There is definitely an
answer to that question which is non-ideological and unbiased, and,
unfortunately, only really known for certain by Mother Nature.) All such
questions, in fact, have answers that are, very much, non-ideological, and
unbiased. Unfortunately, they are not really perceptible by humans without
help. Sometimes our science can help, sometimes our knowledge of psychology
can help, etc. But that's where our ideologies will come in. Only human
perception of these very physical states, and their implications, are
ideological. Because the ideology is augmenting the base reality with
something we can understand. Something comfortable and intuitive for us.

Sorry for rambling. I think someone else might be able to explain it better.
But it's my best shot at explaining why I think AR is a pretty good analogy
for ideology.

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teddyh
It looks to me that this is basically the same concept as what Scott Adams
calls “filters” on reality.

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valarauca1
Understanding how modern philosophy understands ideology is important. I
bemoan hearing american-liberals discuss how people don't, " _share common
truth_ " anymore. In reality this is a decoupling of the DNC, and RNC's
ideology. They are no longer one and the same, so what is considered " _true_
" by either has changed, irreparably.

The problem is most Americans politics had a unified ideological understanding
of the world for nearly 3 centuries (at least if we count the WASP america).
This division is new, and America's distaste of any post 1850's western
continental philosophy (as it was mostly dominated by Marxists) means they
lack the vocabulary to discuss these concepts, or understand their long tail
implications.

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bilbo0s
> _I bemoan hearing american-liberals discuss how people don 't..._

I think the point is that "bemoaning" that is an ideology in itself. So your
own reality is "augmented" with a belief set that is, likely, not terribly
representative of reality. You've simply filled in the gaps in everyday
experiences with something that you can, at once, understand, _and_ is
comfortable to you.

~~~
valarauca1
I bemoan the ideology of others, and you bemoan mine. Perchance we’ve more in
common then you would think.

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bilbo0s
Actually, I don't bemoan your ideology. (In fact I suspect I hold the exact
same ideology.) I'm just pointing out that we are ideologues. And like all
ideologues, our ideology allows us to coexist comfortably with the actual
reality we live in. Even though it's highly unlikely that the underlying
reality is consistent with our ideology.

This would be true of _ALL_ ideologues. That's my point. In my opinion, nearly
every human on Earth, is likely an ideologue. And this model, or analogy, of
AR as ideology, is a pretty good representation of that state of affairs.

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nategri
/extremely nautil.us voice

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danharaj
Zizek!? Time for some memes.

~~~
fallingfrog
That whole article was really straightforward for zizek, I love hearing him
talk because he's never boring but his train of thought veers all over the
place when he speaks live.

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yesenadam
Maybe _religion_ is the original augmented reality. Interesting way to think
about it, anyway.

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valarauca1
religion is a facet, or component of ideology.

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drb91
I would not describe the defining parts of buddhism as ideological so much as
philosophical and sensuous. I’m not sure a good definition of religion exists.
You’re being hugey reductive.

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true_religion
Sure it's not a western religion but it's a religion.

If you remove all the cosmology and mysticism from Buddhism, you are left with
something other than the original practice.

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buboard
How to be a philosopher in the past 20 years: Scan technology magazine
headlines - pick up the latest buzzwords, add some aristotle, hume , st.
augustine and baudrillard. Mix well

To save you even more work:

"The internet of things is fundamental to free will"

"The unexamined life of Self driving cars"

"How seq2seq networks are marxist"

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eponeponepon
Sadly, I would still read and think on all three of those articles.

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buboard
You can think without headlines.

