The Virtual Currency and the Imagined ‘Imagined Reality’ of Sapiens

(2020 Advanced English Writing1 - 학술적 글쓰기)

 

  Sapiens verge on the master of fiction. They are living in both objective reality and imagined reality, which Sapiens created for themselves. Money is also the production in the imagined reality of Sapiens. Bill and coin are existing substance, but money is not. Instead of exchanging products each people felt he or she was in need of, Sapiens created a nonexistent concept of money. They promised that the money will have the same worth as products used in exchanging. This is the way money shows us its fictionality.

  Then, what about ‘virtual money’? To explain about the virtual money itself first, virtual money—or virtual currency—is defined as a sort of unregulated digital currency valid only in electronic form. Bitcoin, well known to many of us in recent times regarding the investment problem, is one of representative examples of virtual money. It does not exist in the objective reality—one of dual realities Yuval Harari mentioned in his book ‘Sapiens’—but it is available as the payment of goods or services in the very objective reality. At this point, we feel something strange; virtual money is virtual version of money which is already the thing in imagined virtual reality. Doesn’t it seem to be something like chocolate-coated marshmallow dipped in melted chocolate? So, I’d like to define this as ‘imagined imagined reality’. What this virtual money shows us is that Sapiens created it, giving detailed shape of the concept of money which exists only in the imagined reality.

  This is interesting in the point that people created virtual concept over the man-made virtual concept, forgetting the fact that they’d already created that concept in imagined reality. Sapiens was already living in dual reality, and one of those realities is also developing to be the dual one.

  With this phenomenon, we can read the tea leaves in two different ways. First one is; a sort of ‘propagation’ of reality can be progressed even more, and in that way, the lives of Sapiens can be more complexed, whether in an effective way or a negative way. And it also seems that Sapiens is moving entirely from objective reality to imagined reality, regarding imagined reality as another objective reality. It is impossible, however, to alternate ‘entirely’ toward the imagined reality, as Sapiens’ flesh and bones are based on existing reality, such as land, water, air and so on. But it is clear that growing parts of Sapiens’ lives are made of fiction, and that the Sapiens is pioneering a new fiction based on the fiction from which the new one was originated. Based on this fact, the importance of adapting and utilizing the imagined reality will continue to increase as time goes by.

 

 

Works Cited 

Yuval Harari, “Sapiens.” 2015.

Jake Frankenfield, “What Is Virtual Currency,” Investopedia, 30 June. 2020, ww.investopedia.com/terms/v/virtual-currency.asp

Jean-Pierre Buntinx. “Is Bitcoin a Digital Currency or a Virtual Currency,” 19 July. 2015, news.bitcoin.com/is-bitcoin-a-digital-currency-or-a/