From: Mark Nunes <mnunes-AT-dekalb.dc.peachnet.edu> Subject: Some opening thoughts Date: Mon, 25 Sep 1995 15:24:15 -0400 (EDT) Here are some of my opening thoughts from the first 12 or so pages: ----- Space, dimensions, metaphysics: Baudrillard opens with his oft-quoted reference to Borges, the map, and the territory. What I was noticing on this reread is the metaphoricity of insides, arounds, outsides, etc. [The real] is no longer anything but operational. In fact, it is no longer really the real, because no imaginary *envelops* it anymore. It is a hyperreal, produced from a *radiating* synthesis of combinatory models in hyperspace without atmosphere. I find this envelops v. radiates interesting, particularly in the context of the reference earlier on the page to the end of metaphysics: "This imaginary of representation. . .disappears in the simulation whose operation is nuclear and genetic, no longer at all specular or discursive. It is all of metaphysics that is lost." With simulation, the above, beyond, and transcendent of metaphysics disappears in a hyperreal world of implosive origins, a "a radiating synthesis" that never escapes beyond its own surface. But not a depth, either (another transcendence: inside/behind, the hidden); rather, a superficial abyss. If we think of space as 3D, it is not too uncommon to think of a 4th dimension as permeating/enveloping space: a transcendent dimension. The "omnipresent fourth dimension" of simulacra is of a different order: not a hidden dimension, but a dimensionless dimension, the implosive origins of the nuclear, the genetic, and the digital. In how many dimensions does a quark "exist"? In what dimension do we archive this list? ----- Descartes. La carte. An interesting start, by the way: from maps and the real to discussion of Cartesian dualism. From the map/real we move to imaginary/real of the psychosomatic, who implodes the mind/body dualism. "Even military psychology draws back from Cartesian certainties and hesitates to make the distinction between true and false, between the "produced" and the authentic symptom." Remember Descartes by his furnace, asking "How do I know "the real" is real?" All else depends upon this assumption. The hyperreal is, then, specifically post-Cartesian (postmodern) in that it shorts out the basic assumptions of the "real"/false dualism. ------ Disneyland: Has Baudrillard ever written on the failure of Eurodisney? ------------------
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