Jean Baudrillard is a French postmodern philosopher. One of his most notable works , "Simulacra and Simulation" was required reading for the actors in the first Matrix film. A Simulacra is a copy of something that is no longer capable of referencing the objective reality that it is attempting to simulate.

A copy without an original.

The book itself is cameo'ed in the opening scenes of the Matrix , where Neo uses it as a hollowed out "safe" for his illicit software , prior to his introduction to the Matrix.