[Vision2020] Who the heck is Schwaller, any way?

[Ted Moffett]

Joe et. al.

This Internet identity perhaps is an example of the fourth age (or phase) of
simulacra, as elucidated in "Simulacra and Simulations" by Baudrillard:

http://www.egs.edu/faculty/baudrillard/baudrillard-simulacra-and-simulations.html

"It bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure
simulacrum."
--------------------
In quoting Baudrillard, I don't mean to suggest there is not a real flesh
and blood person or persons posting under this "identity."  If I was
implying this, then perhaps this "identity" on Vision2020 might be a kind of
Turing test for an artificial intelligence software program to determine
it's success:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/

However, consider the possibility that the pose of this individual(s) under
a false identity (if this indeed is the case), might be a pretense which
allows this individual(s) to enforce the feeling that the identity they take
for real is "real," when in fact their identity contains simulations which
are no more real than those contained in the pose under a false identity on
Vision2020.

Projecting the unreality of an identity is part of what drives religious
prejudice: the denial of the "reality" of other differing religious (or
other) ideologies masks for the individual the phantastical content of their
own religion or ideology. The sense of the unreal is projected, alienated,
yet of course still remains as a causal factor in the psyche.  It becomes
critical to undermine or destroy the unreality in the competing religion or
ideology to the extent to which the individual feels threatened (usually
unconsciously) by the unreality contained in their firmly held religion or
ideology.

I view Baudrillard as more of a psychoanalyst of the modern psyche, than as
a technically oriented philosopher, and when he is viewed this way, his
analysis makes more "sense," at least to me. Read what Baudrillard wrote
about prisons and Disneyland in the excerpt below from "Simulacra and
Simulations:"

What a gem:

http://www.egs.edu/faculty/baudrillard/baudrillard-simulacra-and-simulations.html

Disneyland is there to conceal the fact that it is the "real" country, all
of "real" America, which is Disneyland (just as prisons are there to conceal
the fact that it is the social in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence,
which is carceral). 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, but of the order of the hyperreal
and of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of
reality (ideology), but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer
real, and thus of saving the reality principle.
-----------------
Ted Moffett

On 8/20/07, Joe Campbell <joekc at adelphia.net> wrote:
>
> Has anyone on Vision 2020 ever met Glenn Schwaller? If so, I'd like to
> know.
>
> I'll buy a few beers for the first person who can provide evidence that
> someone with this name actually exists and lives in this town.
>
> And if he doesn't exist, how frickin' strange would that be?
>
> Joe "The Philosopher" Campbell
>
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