Back in the 1980’s Jean Baudrillard wrote a philosophical treatise called Simulation and Simulacra. The document spoke on the idea that we no longer are existing in any semblance of a reality and have replaced all that is real with the symbols of real things. At the time I read the work I was drawn to the concept of cyberspace and the matrix. I was just getting started writing for shadowrun and the concept of a society that had all but abandoned reality for a false realm built from simulacra fascinated me. A few years after that discovery I started playing a game called EVE online. I played it only briefly but discovered in that short timeframe that I myself was sacrificing reality for the realm of 1’s and 0’s. It wasn’t too long after that happened that I started to suspect we ourselves were living in a simulation and that humanity itself was simulacra designed perhaps to mimic some long dead race or worse, just for giggles.
This feeling is buoyed by images like this:
and more impressive ones on the site thispersondoesnotexist.com.
I am left thinking that we are getting closer to mimicking life on a mainframe and eventually simulating it.
Some Thoughts:
- I thought about writing an analysis on the growing argument of the school to prison pipeline, but I was not at all engaged by the argument. I think that is an issue for the argument. It is hard to get your point out there if that point sounds like something we already know and something we all feel powerless to impact.
- This is different from Simulation Theory, because that argument suggests that we will one day be able to know and unravel the mystery of what we are.