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"The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth—it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true."
— Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation
"You never disappoint me." Hagbard said. "If they ever hang you, you'll be arguing about whether the rope really exists until the last minute."
— Robert Shea and Robert Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy
When someone wants to really blow your mind, he will show you something. It can be an ordinary object or a piece of music or anything really, as long as he can see or hear it. And then they say, "This does not exist." With this mantra, the falsity of the world is stripped away and perhaps the hidden mask of reality is revealed. This is often an indicator of a Mind Screw. Compare and contrast Clap Your Hands If You Believe. See True Art Is Incomprehensible.
You are not seeing this page. There is no page. There are merely a series of HTTP messages sent as TCP segments twisted into a form resembling a page. Believe nothing.
Needless to say, incredibly easy to parody.
These are not Examples
Anime and Manga
- Washu does this to Tenchi concerning Sakuya Kumashiro near the end of Tenchi In Tokyo.
- In Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, the only reason Battler has anything remotely resembling a chance is that most of what we "see" is Beatrice's explanation of what happened. In the third arc in particular, she tried to distract him with shiny, epic magical fight scenes, but Virgilia pointed out that he could always deny that it reflected reality, since no objective evidence was left. And yes, it's confusing.
Art
Film
- The Matrix: "Do not try to bend the spoon; that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: There is no spoon. Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."
- Which was actually inspired by Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation, which you can see on Neo's shelf earlier.
- No you don't. You see a projection of a film of a computer simulation of Simulacra and Simulation on Neo's shelf. None of it exists!
- Technically, you see a projection of a film of a computer simulation of Simulacra and Simulation on Neo's computer simulation of a shelf, since the shelf isn't there either.
- Technically you see a film of a copy of Simulacra and Simulation in a movie studio somewhere. You only think it's a copy of the book on Neo's shelf because that's what the story tells us. Reality was different.
- Strictly speaking, you see a film of a prop that appears to be a computer simulation of a copy of Simulacra and Simulation in a movie studio that appears to be Neo's computer simulation of a shelf. The prop might actually be a copy of the book, but there's no way to know that.
- Wait, isn't it actually a projection of a film of (a prop that appears to be a computer simulation of a copy of Simulacra and Simulation, sitting on another prop that appears to be a computer simulation of Neo's shelf, in a movie studio that appears to be a computer simulation of Neo's apartment)? Or in case you're watching the
DVD version video display of the composite video/S-video/component video/whatever signal coming from the device decoding the MPEG-2 video decrypted from the VOB stream being read out of the UDF filesystem embedded in the byte stream encoded in the pattern of pits and lands pressed into the 12 cm plastic disc spinning past the 650 nm laser inside the aforementioned device... So Yeah.
- You're not seeing any projection of a film or a screen displaying a a prop that appears to be a computer simulation of a copy of ''Simulacra and Simulation'', sitting on another prop that appears to be a computer simulation of Neo's shelf, in a movie studio that appears to be a computer simulation of Neo's apartment. You are in fact reading a small section of a web page about said scene.
- Actually, unless we told you where to find the whatever of Simulacra and Simulation, it is very likely that you didn't see it at all, regardless of what method you actually used to perceive the piece of media we refer to as The Matrix. So there.
- Mulholland Drive: "No hay banda! There is no band. [...] And yet we hear a band." A subtle clue showing that the whole thing is Diane Selwyn's Dying Dream. Or is it?
- Also, it's also David Lynch genuinely slapping the audience, who by now is surely trying desperately to find the meaning in it all. In the end, nothing in the film really happens. Nothing in any non-documentary film really happens.
- A central theme of British Cult shocker The Last Horror Movie.
- "There is no monster."
 One of the worst films of all time tried (and failed) to have a Mind Screw ending: Monster A Go-Go was about an astronaut who crash landed and mutated into a giant monster and a scientist tries to save him. Except the end revealed that the astronaut actually landed safe someplace else and the monster - gasp! - wasn't real:
"As if a switch had been turned, as if an eye had been blinked, as if some phantom force in the universe had made a move eons beyond our comprehension, suddenly, there was no trail! There was no giant, no monster, no thing called 'Douglas' to be followed. There was nothing in the tunnel but the puzzled men of courage, who suddenly found themselves alone with shadows and darkness! With the telegram, one cloud lifts, and another descends. Astronaut Frank Douglas, rescued, alive, well, and of normal size, some eight thousand miles away in a lifeboat, with no memory of where he has been, or how he was separated from his capsule! Then who, or what, has landed here? Is it here yet? Or has the cosmic switch been pulled? Case in point: The line between science fiction and science fact is microscopically thin! You have witnessed the line being shaved even thinner! But is the menace with us? Or is the monster gone?"
- This was Joel and the Bots' response to it:
Joel: Oh, the joke's on us!
Crow: Boooooo!
Legend
- In one of the stories of the wise Japanese judge Ooka Tadasuke, is called The Case of the Stolen Smell where he heard the case of a paranoid innkeeper who accused a poor student of literally stealing the fumes of his cooking by eating when the innkeeper was cooking to flavor his dull food. Although his colleagues advised Ooka to throw the case out as ridiculous, he decided to hear the case. The judge resolved the matter by ordering the student to pass the money he had in one hand to his other and ruling that the price of the smell of food is the sound of money.
- A similar folk tale of Indian origin is resolved by Princess Learned In The Law holding the poor man's coin above the cook's outstretched hand and saying that the shadow of the coin is sufficient compensation.
Literature
- Older Than Television ... In Mark Twain's story The Mysterious Stranger, after the *ahem* friendly angel has wrought death, madness and devastation on the community, he tells the young boy/narrator that the boy is the only real thing in the universe, and that everything else - including the angel - is a figment of his imagination.
- In Dave Barry Hits Below The Beltway, Dave Barry wonders how lawyers become "people who refuse to make a simple, understandable statement about anything," and imagines a scene in law school, with a law professor holding up a spoon (possible Shout Out to The Matrix?), and turns on the electrodes attached to his students each time they say that it looks like a spoon. This is apparently the kind of response the professor wants to hear:
Student: In certain purely superficial respects, it may resemble what is sometimes called a spoon, depending of course on the definition of "spoon"; however, we intend to present expert testimony showing that there are a number of other plausible explanations, such that it cannot be determined beyond a reasonable doubt that this is a spoon, or, for that matter, not a spoon, per se, depending on who is paying us three hundred dollars an hour plus expenses. Nor have we established that, legally, that is your hand.
Law Professor: Correct. (He presses the button again anyway.)
- The novel Nineteen Eighty Four uses this trope endlessly and is one of the most basic functions of the party.
- Indeed, a relevant part of O'Brien's conversation with Winston revolves around whether the Party could, pragmatically speaking, change reality itself, with the torturer arguing that he could "float like a soap bubble" if he wanted to. After all, if Winston perceives (forcibly) such a thing, and it is on record, in what sense is it untrue? Also, it is never revealed whether Goldstein or Big Brother are real, but it is suggested that, sociologically speaking, for all intents and purposes, they are real.
"Does BIG BROTHER exist?"
"Of course he exists. The Party exists. BIG BROTHER is the embodiment of the Party."
"Does he exist in the same way as I exist?"
"You do not exist," said O'Brien.
Newspaper Comics
Real Life
- Also, "The map is not the territory."
- This troper's professor once illustrated this lesson by attempting to "sell" a chalk doodle of a house as if he were selling a real house. The key skeptical question to ask was where the house was.
- Someone actually succeeded at selling something similar. The Xbox 360 was in low supply at the time and some crafty hoaxers at eBay managed to sell pictures of the actual console by hiding "This auction is not for a Xbox 360 game system, but instead a picture of one" within a lot of specs and praise for the console.
- Another guy did the same thing selling pictures of a mobile phone.
- A Real Life theory that the universe as we know it is a three-dimensional hologram of an n-dimensional universe composed of nothing but information. We are the shadow cast by the true shape of the universe. Referenced heavily in Warren Ellis's Planetary.
- Various philosophers and religious scholars have debated this point throughout the ages. Plato's Allegory of the Cave and the principle of Maya in Hinduism both stress this point for instance.
- This most likely explains the lack of respect most laymen have for philosophers.
- A man in Florida parked his car illegally and was mailed a picture of his illegally parked car from the police who said he had to pay a $45 fine. The man responded by mailing the police a picture of $45. The police's response? Mailing him a picture of handcuffs.
- "This page has been intentionally left blank." LIARS!
Webcomics
Western Animation
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