Information and Meaning: An Inverse Relationship

With word processing technology, it is extremely easy to reproduce information. Copy and Paste: what godsends. Before the computer age, it took hours and days and weeks to reproduce text. Now, the same process is accomplished in seconds with just a few keystrokes. When books were rewritten by hand or even reprinted, there was some variation between the original and the copies. It always seemed like there was "nothing like the real thing." When text is reproduced on the computer, on the other hand, you can't even tell what is the real thing anymore. Now, "when an object is exactly like another, it is not exactly like it, it is a bit more exact" (Baudrillard 107).

Baudrillard is concerned about this facility of duplicating information, since "what is lost in the work that is serially reproduced is its aura, its singular quality of the here and now" (Baudrillard 99). With this notion of an 'aura', Baudrillard is referring to the uniqueness of real objects that have no attached simulacra to diminish their worth.

the new info = simulation, instead of communication

With duplication, the meaning of information decreases. "Any modality of meaning can thus be destroyed simply by logically being elevated to the nth power" (Baudrillard 108).

In this world where everything is simulated and duplicated, the only thing that does not have a double is the universe. The universe contains all the dualities and duplications in existence.

So if the universe did exist in double, then everything in the universe would be in quadruple!

real object: 1
+ simulated object: 1
= 2

objects in real universe: 2 (1 real, 1 simulated)
if universe is duplicated:
all the objects are duplicated
so: objects in real universe (2) + objects in simulated universe (2) = 4

Information and Meaning: An Inverse Relationship

With word processing technology, it is extremely easy to reproduce information. Copy and Paste: what godsends. Before the computer age, it took hours and days and weeks to reproduce text. Now, the same process is accomplished in seconds with just a few keystrokes. When books were rewritten by hand or even reprinted, there was some variation between the original and the copies. It always seemed like there was "nothing like the real thing." When text is reproduced on the computer, on the other hand, you can't even tell what is the real thing anymore. Now, "when an object is exactly like another, it is not exactly like it, it is a bit more exact" (Baudrillard 107).

Baudrillard is concerned about this facility of duplicating information, since "what is lost in the work that is serially reproduced is its aura, its singular quality of the here and now" (Baudrillard 99). With this notion of an 'aura', Baudrillard is referring to the uniqueness of real objects that have no attached simulacra to diminish their worth.

the new info = simulation, instead of communication

With duplication, the meaning of information decreases. "Any modality of meaning can thus be destroyed simply by logically being elevated to the nth power" (Baudrillard 108).

In this world where everything is simulated and duplicated, the only thing that does not have a double is the universe. The universe contains all the dualities and duplications in existence.

So if the universe did exist in double, then everything in the universe would be in quadruple!

real object: 1
+ simulated object: 1
= 2

objects in real universe: 2 (1 real, 1 simulated)
if universe is duplicated:
all the objects are duplicated
so: objects in real universe (2) + objects in simulated universe (2) = 4

Why Mobius? | Postmodernity | Simulation versus Reality | Three Stages of Simulation | Information and Meaning | Role of Technology | History, War, and Control | Links | Sources

Erica J. Seidel