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Hyperreality
seeker1@MAPLE.CIRCA.UFL.EDU
Wed, 8 Dec 1993 18:59:10 EST
Danny,
Confronting technological change - a la Alvin Toffler's Future Shock -
is difficult enough for a society, and that has been studied by plenty of
anthropologists and sociologists. That is not the problem I am talking about.
Hyperreality is a different animal.
The "new technologies of representation," and this list is certainly one,
create a unique problem - the separation of the real and the irreal, and
image from reality.
Do you know whether or not I'm an AI? Can you know? Did I really send you
this message or did I have an automailer compose a response? How do you know
I'm not really Dan Foss writing under another name? Maybe Seeker1 is
actually a conglomeration of several individuals.
I won't answer, for now, whether any of the above facts are true. But
your response is probably based on the premise that you are responding to
another person on the other "end" of this mailing list.
I am not surprised that anthropologists don't seem to give a crap for
epistemology. At least the physicists seem to care a minute bit about it
more than us.This is what hyperreality is all about. If you don't get it,
you don't get it.
Seeker1
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