borges (and baudrillard) on facebook

baudrillard has a really interesting reading of a fascinating little story by borges called, on exactitude in science. in it, an empire decided to make a map so precise and detailed, it was as large as the empire itself. as the “real empire” evolved over time, so too did the map evolve accordingly. 

but then something interesting happened: the original empire crumbled to the ground, and all that was left was the map. well, according to baudrillard, this is because the people actually lived on the map – not the original empire – and the empire ultimately crumpled from disuse.

in other words, according to baudrillard, the people lived in a simulation of reality. this simulation was at first an exact 1-to-1 replica of an actual empire, but soon, the actual empire was gone and all that was left was the simulation. the representation no longer reflected the truth because the truth had died. it was no longer even possible to tear away all the layers of representation to find the real empire, because the simulation had replaced the real thing.