Semiotics?

Umberto Eco's "Travels in Hyperreality"

Two issues are raised. The first is the meaning of super real reproductions and man's reaction (or acceptance) of the falsehood. By implication, the second is the man's need to recall the past, and to survive within an environment that can only be described as nostalgia.

Perhaps the issues are only relevant in conjunction with the hyperreal, or possibly this is a topic of far-reaching implications. Man's attachment to the past is constant. Memories bear man's experience, and in turn his existence. To have meaning in one's existence, one must have his identity (drenched in experience). Experience does not limit itself to just the hyperreal but also the abstract, as long as memories and recognition are stimulated.

What the article focuses on is the idea of an image. Or rather, experiences that are attempted to be reproduced through provocative and super real images of what no longer exists. What then is the relevance of the experience (or meaning) of what is not real?

If all the Big Macs are not the same, then are they all different? Does this translate into that two apples that look the same can never be the same? Then to what extent can any two things ever be abstracted and become the same? The implication here is the notion of abstracting what we see and what we know to an extent of comprehension, so the information can then be logically processed.

Here I will step back to my classical argument that "1 + 1 = 2" cannot be true, especially if no two things can ever be the same. Mathematics is an abstraction of reality, hence to use it to define and predict reality is inherently a flawed approach.

No two Big Macs can be the same, no two apples can be the same, and no two bricks can be the same. Nevertheless, human perception does not allow the high complexity of infinite individualities, and hence human perception must abstract what is otherwise not identical enable to rationalize the relationships between the "two".