No. 2 - "Simulations" p. 13-23 Reflection

Science, in its pursuit of investigating all of the world's things to convert them into knowledge, destroys sometimes not only the true objects it investigates but the reality which they lie(d) in. Things which were/are enclosed in an environment which ensures its preservation are destroyed when investigated by the science that seeks to preserve things. 

Unsealed lock on King Tut's tomb

If not preserved in their true form, then in knowledge. Knowledge is not a real thing, so we must convert it into symbols which seek to represent the things that were destroyed in seeking to create the knowledge of them to the science's standards. These representations are in fact not representations of the things themselves but of our knowledge of them, with the truest thing to the original being the story of its destruction by exhumation. 

(I think my biggest problem with Simulacra and Simulations is not the content or ideas but just the way it is written because I'm pretty sure it could be written in a much shorter, less hypersmart sounding way.)

Simulations and simulacras and science need things to be seen, so the existence of mummies and other extremely well preserved and hidden things are not the friends of science. Science is a vicious methodology that, as technology gets better and better, aims for a less invasive approach in hopes of preserving the real things, while creating a whole system of simulacras that feed knowledge of that represented thing through a simulation of reality.

So if we are able to create tools so sophisticated that scan all of the things science wants to investigate to every atom, then we can create a simulation of that reality which we can dig our paws into viciously without disturbing the true reality at all. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing at all, but it is kind of creepy to think about. Maybe we'll someday make The Matrix but as a giant sandbox of the universe that we can dig up and tear apart without touching the real thing. Then we'd get too stuck in that fun world and forget about the real one, but in a way we've already gotten there, just not as cohesively. 

In this sense science is just a method of extracting knowledge from reality that we can then reproduce in digestible forms for our simulacrum. Reality is no longer relevant to us, but the illusion that it is is necessary for us to keep functioning in our world of symbols and signs. I like signs that tell the cars not to hit me when I cross the road and that the road tells the cars to drive there, though I know that the road does not exist, I am simply getting from point A to point B (oh Lord if I say that then I have to say that that's a lie too - The most true thing is our birth and then our death, everything in between is waiting and pretending in a system we folded in on itself). 

Simulations is so hypermsmartly written it gives me a headache, but I "love" what it is talking about.