According to Jean Baudrillard, symbols and signs have replaced all reality and meaning, creating a human experience similar to reality.
Is it ever possible to avoid these simulacra and actually see reality?
W: William Taylor Y: Yaodong Jia
W: Sorry I am late for our meeting.
Y: What happened? Did you get caught up in a traffic jam?
W: Not really. It's just that I got lost following the misleading traffic signs on the side of the road.
Y: Oh how can they be misleading? They should be correct. I never got lost by them. Tell me about it.
W: Well today, I learned the hard way that not all signs with a large picture of book on them will lead you to library; instead, the signs led me to the bookstore.
Y: Oh really? I've never noticed that.
W: This isn’t even the first time that signs have misled me. These symbols, like the sign with the book on it, try to represent real people, places, and things, but in reality they are usually different.
Y: Like a simulation of real things?W: Exactly. For example there are signs everywhere without instructions. I don’t think that all of these sign designers can really translate what they want to say into pictures and signs. The signs themselves are not necessarily the real.
Y: Yes, signs are just symbols. But the same as the translation, even words may lie.
W: That's true. So sometimes I'd just like to rely on my own perception to identify the reality.
Y: Your own perception? So how do you think that you could find this library without any map?
W: Maybe I can search the route on internet?
Y: That's the same thing isn't it? You didn’t invent the internet and it is not your perception. The only way you could truly rely on your own is to just walk around, using your own senses to remember everything, rather than any other tools. But how could you do that if you even do not know where the library is?
W: Well.... I have no clue.
Y: Though sometimes they can be misleading, I don't think anyone can escape from internet, signs and symbols, escape from such culture of simulation and replacement of all reality. For example, there are lane lines on the road, and they just represent rigid barriers that no one should drive across these lines. They are really just paints, giving us a human experience of simulation of real limit, but nobody can drive without them.
W: But I’m pretty sure that not everyone in the whole world is bound by symbols like we /are.
Y: /Oh?
W: Have you ever heard of the Amish people?
Y: What people?
W: The Amish people. They are a very conservative group of Americans. I know that they live in various locations on the east coast, like upstate New York…=
Y: =Oh I have heard a bit of that.
W: And they base their whole lives on strict religious policies. They live pretty simple lives and they are reluctant to adopt the many conveniences of Modern technology.
Y: They live without any modern technology like internet right?
W: Yeah. Compared to us, I feel like they actually live more natural and more real lives. They never get misled by signs and symbols on their own land.
Y: So maybe a way to be free from signs is to be free from technology and advanced culture? Well... what do you think about this?
W: I think that’s right. Technology really plays a large role in simulating reality and creating simulacra.
Y: =Yeah. It is the technology that binds us to such inescapable simulation and to be ... Oh wait a minute. I find a problem here.
W: What’s the Problem?
Y: Well think about this: Aren't the Amish people themselves living in a simulacrum of the past?
W: What do you mean?Y: I mean that the lifestyle of Amish people itself is a kind of simulation. Amish people they do successfully escape from signs and internet, devils of modern world, but they fall into another trap of simulating the past.
W: I kind of agree with you there. They might be living in a simulation of the past because technology comes hand in hand with progress and the Amish are trying to avoid it entirely.
Y: Yeah but they failed. So even if we are free from science and technology, like Amish people, we are still not free. But, if so, what bind us to such simulation? Or maybe symbolization and simulation is just human nature?
W: I have no idea….So I guess that the argument can be made both ways. It’s safe to say that it's impossible to completely avoid these simulacra and truly see reality.=
Y: Yeah, to some degree. Nobody can avoid misleading. Anyway, this discussion is not our objective right?
W: Oh yeah I’ve almost forgot, have you received the e-mail from Harkey about the Realtalk assignment?
Y: Oh not yet. What's that?
