Simulacra and Simulation

October 13th, 2024

There is a surprising need for strength required to read this book. The book is quite short, but so densely packed with ideas that it felt like a ton of bricks in my lap. I know that most of the ideas presented by Jean Baudrillard in “Simulacra and Simulation” went over my head (but I will revisit them as soon as I regain the strength to do so), but what I absorbed are some of the most important ideas I was ever exposed to. What I will do with them — I don’t know, but I get the feeling like some very important gate in my head was opened and is just waiting for me to take a step inside and explore the world around me from a different perspective.

As I understand after reading more about this book, the ideas presented there were very important for some of the modern cultural events — mostly for the Matrix series by the Wachowski siblings. As a huge fan of the Matrix series, after reading this book, I think they got the main idea of Baudrillard wrong. Completely wrong at that. We are living in a simulation — that is for sure, but this is not a simulation created by some malevolent outside entity to enslave humankind. We ourselves are the creators and willing participants in the simulation that extends now into most aspects of our lives. And that is not a new thing at all. The first forays into a simulation were made by paleolithic humans who created the first figurines to represent some god or a natural spirit. When the first chants about and towards the communion with the first gods were sung, our simulation started. Then, after the invention of printing, when the replication of images became common, and then even more after the invention of photography and moving pictures and different mediums, and then after the internet became ubiquitous, simulation and simulacra replaced reality as we should know. Come to think of it — do I know what the reality really is? Or do I just go by images and symbols embedded in my mind?