The Real Virtuality And Virtual Reality

This paper mainly concentrates on Baudrillard's thought of Simulation.As we know, the problem of "reality" and "virtuality" is from long on and is an old philosophical question, but in Baudrillard's thought, the pair of categories have some new meanings with the development of science and technology and modernity.Based on the research of Baudrillard's thought, I try to analyze the development of his "objects", try to find out the social foundation of this evolution. Also, through this research, I want to describe the picture of hyper-reality of our society, and find out the intrinsic motivation of it as well."Sign" is the starting point of Baudrillard's thought. In his early thought,Baudrillard's main focus is upon consumerism, and how different objects are consumed in different ways. He wants to find the significance of the sign.At this time Baudrillard's political outlook was loosely associated with Marxism, but he differed from Marx in one significant way. For Baudrillard, it was consumption, rather than production, which was the main drive in capitalist society. Then, after the book of "the mirror of production", he gives up the study of "object",and turns to the research of symbolic exchange, which is the basic principle of his philosophy. In the book "symbolic exchange and death",he at last presents a Marxist counter, and produces his own original philosophy. At this period, he describes a state of "hyperreality". This is not to say that the world becomes unreal, otherwise, it is realer than reality.Reality in this sense, "dies out." Also, Baudrillard proposes some core concepts like implosion, simulation, simulacrum and so on. In this age, the image obscures and threatens to displace the real.Later, after 1980's,Baudrillard develops the "Fatal strategy", he turns to "fatal-object", and analyzes how the objects overcome the man. The simulacrum precedes the original and the distinction between reality and representation breaks down. There is only the simulacrum. Baudrillard argued that the excess of signs and of meaning in late 20th century, society had caused an effacement of reality paradoxically In this paper, I analyze Baudrillard's thought from the point of historical development of philosophy, esp. postmodern philosophy. Under the background of rapid development of the technology, I focus on his great significance of the critical analysis of our contemporary society. I also take big interest in his great influences of our reality world.This paper studies Baudrillard's thought of hyper-reality thoroughly. Baudrillard's thought of philosophy is the rising process the of double-helix of DNA. Between these two spirals, one embodies in the process of " objects ", this course shows the development of Baudrillard's thought in different times. Another spiral mainly through symbolic exchange of the gift, which reflects the the relationship between different people,and between people and the real things. The struggle between the two spirals has formed the rise of the double helix between " sign" and "symbol". In Baudrillard's work the symbolic realm is seen as quite distinct from that of signs and significations. Signs can be exchanged like commodities; symbols, on the other hand, operate quite differently:they are exchanged, like gifts, sometimes violently as a form of potlatch.In the last place, I also point out the defects of Baudrillard's thought. Although he brilliantly reflects negative effects of the development of high-tech, and deeply portrays the results of domination of signs, also deeply describes an alienate state and slavery position of contemporary people, he cannot solve these problem only from the "signs". So, I give a criticism on Baudrillard's pessimism technology determinism, and pose my view of coming back to human beings themselves.