Cyborgology

Comments

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  replqwtil 5:57 pm on April 18, 2011 | # | Reply

  Thanks for posting this! A really interesting talk, and my first exposure to George Ritzer. Very pleasant.

  I thought I would just express another view of Baudrillard’s work here, and how it relates to the dualism discussed in the question period. The way I have seen Baudrillard presented in my academic work so far has not been with all 3 levels of simulation existing simultaneously, but rather a historical progression within society from one level to the next. Thus the reason the internet exists in the third order of simulation, in the hyperreal, is because society itself is in the process of totally transferring itself into that level, away from the commodity law which so structured our systems before.

  As for the concept of dualism, from my reading and work with Baudrillard I would argue that it isn’t that the world here is real, and the digital world is fake. The third order moves past distinctions like real and fake. Everything then is simply simulacra, a copy without an original. The online world is possible because our ‘real’ world is digital now as well. Rather than arguing that the online is real, because the material world is real, I would say that the online is ‘fake’ the same way the material world is ‘fake’. In that they are both digital spaces constituted exclusively of simulacra.

  Anyway, I just felt the need to prosume this material, and try and add my own interpretation to what I felt was a really good talk. Thanks again for the post!

• Reflections on Theorizing the Web « PJ Rey's Sociology Blog Feed 7:25 pm on April 19, 2011 | # | Reply

  [...] was packed with as many as five concurrent panels in early sessions. The plenary sessions by George Ritzer and Saskia Sassen as well as danah boyd‘s keynote drew audiences of over 150 [...]

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  Ismail Nooraddini 2:26 am on May 4, 2011 | # | Reply

  Despite your argument that were moving past the distinction between real and fake into a total copied reality, im going to take it a step further and argue the distinction is irrelevant. Functionalism posits the mind works in a three stage process. There is the sensory input (i.e. taste, sight, touch, hearing, and smell), the mental state resulting from the input (pain, anguish, euphoria, excitement, etc), and the resulting behavioural outputs (flinching, smiling, laughing, etc). Now, as long as the sensory inputs are stimulating, triggering a mental state, how that mental statement is stimulated is insignificant. “I think therefore i am,” all i know is that i am real because i am aware of myself thinking. The mental state is the real, the sensory input could be artificial, synthetic, etc but it does not matter. The inability to tell the difference between reality and fantasy dissipates as long as your mental states interpret it through sensual stimulation. If i go to Disney World, Las Vegas, etc. and i am excited, it doesnt matter that these environments are “simulated,” i am experiencing them as a reality, therefore it is reality and not fantasy.

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    replqwtil 9:47 am on May 4, 2011 | # | Reply

    Reminds me of Husserl’s phenomenological description of consciousness in many ways. Things ‘outside’ the self are not evident but rather are appearances interpreted through an internal state (system of meanings) which imparts a logic and object-ification of the sense-input. Therefore any difference between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ is actually in the system of meaning, and not in the raw data being taken in.

    I think that what we describe as the Implosion is precisely what you’re saying here: that there is no longer any meaningful difference between the fake and the real. It’s all real, which is the same as saying that it’s all fake. Everything is Simulacra because there is no longer any grounding in reality. As you say, our concept of reality is created internally, but from whence comes this system meaning? To me it seems that it comes from the system of value within which we are inculcated. Without any internal standard of reality, it is the system which must constantly strive to be ‘real’ by creating areas we can collectively designate as ‘false’.

    Disneyland and Las Vegas are as real as any other part of our society, which is to say just as false. They are all equally constructed. It is not so much these areas which are ‘simulated’, although they are part of simulations, it is us. Consciousness can be described as a vast simulation under the dominant order of value.

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      Ismail Nooraddini 12:19 pm on May 4, 2011 | # | Reply

      Haha. Exactly. Our consciousness is not a unitary force, but an aggregate of processes. Being awake, attentive, and aware. In being aware, shapes, and symobols are involved in, which form language, providing meaning. If our consciousness is a social by-product, and society is a mere simulacrum, then it would follow our minds are a mere simulacrum. If we are an extention of our minds, therefore we are simulacrums as well.

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      Ismail Nooraddini 12:38 pm on May 4, 2011 | # | Reply

      Wait… I just applied a longwinded argument leading me back to your point…

      “Thus the reason the internet exists in the third order of simulation, in the hyperreal, is because society itself is in the process of totally transferring itself into that level, away from the commodity law which so structured our systems before[...]The third order moves past distinctions like real and fake [...] I would say that the online is ‘fake’ the same way the material world is ‘fake’”

      But i still find it difficult to understand authenticity… as that requires a source, and a source is always fluctuating and shifting as it exists in the past, present, and future which are all subjective concepts. Its almost as if the narrative constitutes the source, which triggers the ‘real’ and ‘fake’ distinctions, thus making simulacrum disparaties. This has a faint similarity to language, post-modernism and Derrida…

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  Ismail Nooraddini 12:41 pm on May 4, 2011 | # | Reply

  My head hurts