Simulated Bodies, Simulated Worlds

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Simulated Bodies, Simulated Worlds
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Becoming One . . . With the Net

• Both Kusanagi Neo become something more than
  what they were. A kind of evolution? Limitless
  possibilities suggested.
• Kusanagi merges with Puppet Master, dies, and
  is reborn in child's body. (Quotes from the
  Bible Corinthians)
• Neo the One. Christian symbolism, prophecies,
  signs cast as savior, sacrifices himself (for
  another), dies, and is reborn.
• Rebirth transcending human?

3
The Human Self Technology

• Kusanagi's merger with Puppet-Master said to
  overcome the limitations of "me," of the self.
• No longer human? Or evolution of human? Merger
  with technological. A hybrid or dispersed
  identity, no longer singular?
• In contrast, Neo's rebirth/transcendence seems to
  result in an even more powerful Human Self or
  Individual (the One). Superhuman?
• Here, the power of (human) One/Self to control
  technological, simulated world (and simulated,
  technological life-forms) is re-established.

4
Transcending "Reality"

• But transcendence of the human/self in Ghost and
  Matrix also suggests a transcendence of
  "reality."
• The question that The Matrix poses "What is the
  Matrix?" is also a question about "what is real?"
  and about how we know what's real as opposed to
  what appears to be real.
• The Matrix draws on long history of questioning
  reality and perception.

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Seeing Beyond "Reality"

• I Corinthians, 11-12 When I was a child, I
  spake as a child, I understood as a child, I
  thought as a child but when I became a man, I
  put away childish things. For now we see through
  a glass, darkly but then face to face now I
  know in part but then shall I know even as also
  I am known.
• Cf. Plato's Allegory of the Cave (obvious source
  for The Matrix), where prisoners see only shadows
  which they take for reality.
• Plato calls these shadow-images "simulacra" or
  simulations.
• In each case, the appearance (simulation?) of
  reality is deceptive or partial. A greater
  knowledge or truth is presumed to exist beyond
  what we perceive.

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The Matrix and "Reality"
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What is the Matrix?

• A dream-world (as in Alice in Wonderland)? A
  kind of virtual reality? A simulated reality?
• A false "reality" or delusion, which hides the
  "real" reality behind it
• the destroyed Earth that Morpheus calls "the
  desert of the real."
• "the desert of the real" is a phrase from
  Baudrillard, but he uses it differently the
  emptying out of the real, wh/ is replaced by
  simulation.
• The Matrix, however, maintains that there a real
  reality behind the illusion of the Matrix.

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What is the Matrix?

• But how are we to interpret what this film
  suggests about our own sense of reality?
• Buddhist idea There is no spoon.

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What is the Matrix?

• Buddhist idea that the world is illusory. As in
  Ghost, suggests our belief in reality limits
  us.
• Neo is the One who is able to see differently.
  Sees through the simulated virtual reality (to
  the real codes beneath). Like a hacker or
  programmer?
• No longer bound by the appearance of reality that
  others accept, he does not die when killed in
  the matrix.
• Also indicated by taking the red pill as
  opposed to the blue pill of accepting "reality
  (world of the Matrix).

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What is Simulation?

• Baudrillard's ideas, however, suggest a different
  reading of The Matrix.
• And Baudrillard's book Simulacra and Simulation
  appears in it.
• Of course, in the film, the book is hollowed out
  just as Baudrillard says reality has been.
• The book is itself a simulation of a book.

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What is Simulation?

• For Plato, things in the real world were mere
  simulacra--copies/shadows of true, Ideal Forms.
• Images were therefore copies of copies.
• For Baudrillard, however, simulation is (or
  becomes) more than just a copy or substitute.
• What is simulation for Baudrillard?
• For B, simulation linked to reproductions/copies
  made possible by technology photos, film,
  media, computers digital images.
• Simulations come to precede--and replace--the
  original.

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What is Simulation?

• In technologized, postmodern world
• No longer an original or reality to copy.
• There is only copying there is only simulation
  copies of copies that no longer refer to an
  original, or reality.
• What Baudrillard calls hyperreal which doesnt
  mean more real, but a replacement of the real
  by simulacra.

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What is Our Matrix?

• Baudrillard argues that The Matrix misunderstands
  his ideas, particularly their socio-political
  aspects.
• It leads us to believe that our own reality is
  real, rather than simulated.
• But, as in the Matrix, the reality we perceive as
  real is based on our acceptance of it.
• Formed through the various attitudes, beliefs
  (the ideology?) that we have been told are true.
• Thus, we are just like the people who believe
  that the matrix is real.

14
What is Disneyland?

• Consider Baudrillards Disneyland ex. here
• Baudrillard Disneyland is presented as
  imaginary in order to make us believe that the
  rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and
  the America surrounding it are no longer real . .
  .
• Disneyland a simulated, fantasy world that
  allows us to believe that the real world is
  real (not simulated or ideological).
• I.e., the belief that our world is real is itself
  an (ideological?) illusion an effect of
  simulation.

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What is The Matrix?

• Consider similarities between Disneyland the
  movie The Matrix.
• As Clover notes, when we see The Matrix as a
  fantasy, a simulation, a movie, it allows us to
  believe that our world is real.
• We think we know what Reality is-- because we
  can point to something that isn't real.
• But Baudrillard suggests that our real world is
  just as simulated or hyperreal as any theme park
  or movie.
• We are already in the matrix (of ideology), but
  for Baudrillard there is no real world outside or
  beyond it. No Zion.

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I Am Legend (2007)
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I Am Legend (2007)

• I Am Legend based on a famous sci-fi/horror book
  of same title, which very much focuses on issues
  of what is human and what is not.
• But movie differs from the book from previous
  movies based on the book The Last Man on Earth
  (1964) and The Omega Man (1971).
• And the differences are revealing.
• The readings for next week will explain some
  differences.
• Well also look at ending of The Last Man on
  Earth alternate ending of I Am Legend.