This is an introduction from which I will further explore the themes of Borges' stories, how they offer perspective on reality, and how they can be applied to our understanding of today's digital augmentations of reality.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), was an Argentinian author. The various short stories of Borges present to the reader a world of hypothetical and philosophical possibilities. They explore everything that reality can encompass, limited only by Borges' imagination, which is expansive. His stories are often ambiguous as to their message or their conclusions. These brief works of fiction are a means to transport readers to a place that offers a diferent view of reality; and there they are left to revel in the ambiguity, or to sort out the implications themselves. It has been said that Borges' work embraces the "chaos that rules the world and the character of unreality in all literature" (Bella Jozev). He understood and explored the possibilities of literature in his literary approach, and also as an explicit theme in some of his stories. He had a sense, which he conveyed in his stories, of the limitlessness of what the human mind could imagine. Borges' fiction has drawn criticism for lacking connection to reality, however I contend that it offers insight into human perception of reality and even predicts the ambiguity and chaos that new conditions bring to the modern perception of reality.