Still, Austin’s dictum captures something crucial. We often don’t just want to know whether something is real; we want to know whether it’s real money or a real iPhone. If someone gives me an object that looks like a Rolex watch, the object is indisputably real. It’s a real thing, at least. What I’m interested in is whether it’s a real watch, and in particular whether it’s a real Rolex. We could put this by asking whether the watch is genuine—that is, is it a genuine watch? Is it a genuine Rolex? The same goes for life in a simulation.
