For More Detail, Previously: Simulacra Levels and Their Interactions, Unifying the Simulacra Definitions, The Four Children of the Seder as the Simulacra Levels.
This reminds me of nextleveling people in MTG, which I think is not an accident. The difference between doing something intrinsically powerful, exploiting the meta and exploiting exploitative strategies. This is relevant if your goal is to win.
Then it reminds of Wittgenstein's language games. You have to figure out which game your interlocutor is playing to figure out what they actually mean. This is relevant if your goal is to understand.
Finally, it reminds me of a cycle (or, more accurately, a spiral) in literature production (and art production in general). Writers progress through the cycle when they get tired of whatever came before: Naturalistic anecdote, myth-making, critical-realist literature and postmodern (recursive) literature. This is relevant if your goal is to create.
As always, weird things happen when you skip levels.
> As always, weird things happen when you skip levels.
GRRM is a master at giving you first some level 2, then some level 4, followed by some level 3, just using different environments and PoVs. Level 1 then can be anything (e.g., what is the real meaning of "all men must die")
Within this context, since everyone talking at every level all agree that they are trying to be persuasive ("I wish the listener would agree with my statements") I think a good aim is to convince everyone to push (or tack on) the criteria of level 1 (relevance to/dependence on objective fact) upwards through the levels, even if they're not consciously aware of what they're doing.
Because if there really is a lion (or a pandemic) then that fact has importance to the listener, even we are all cool post-truth talkers. There IS still an objective criteria to be assessed in "level 2-4" stuff of "pandemic claims", which is "it's actually good that I'm trying to persuade people of this, because if I get power, I will do effective thing X to counter the objective problem from level 1." The challenge is to demand that criteria (and its dependence on objective fact) be there no matter what kind of claim is being made (since ambiguity about levels is part of the appeal), as a condition of "I agree with what you're saying" so that speakers feel it necessary to provide it.
Level 2 is definitely Frankfurt's conception of bullshit. Level 3 aligns with Norman Dixon's idea of bullshit (security theater, hygiene theater, military drill, etc.) where the signifier appears to be a Level 1 proposition but the siginified is actually in-group allegience or obedience.
"Over time and in the absence of existential physical danger, overall conditions tend to pass through the four generations. Each level tends to ‘wins in a fight’ against the previous one. Thus the overall ‘simulacra level’ will trend higher over time. We go from truth, to distortion and manipulation, to symbolism and association and social games, to non-logical word associations, going with vibes and implicitly conspiring against other strategies."
This is a nice explanation of the abstract concept of decadence. And in a world where nukes have obviated the threat of other people and the Industrial/Agricultural Revolutions the threat of starvation, has unfortunate implications.
I wrote a post about this phenomenon in the military. "Playing the game" well leads to social rewards but it gets people killed. You can bullshit your boss, but you can't bullshit physics. More if you're curious: https://thepowderhorn.substack.com/p/bullets-beans-and-bullshit?sd=pf
This post has redeemed Baudrillard somewhat in my eyes. I still think much of Simulacra and Simulacrum was bullshit in the finest tradition of French postmodernism, but the levels of simulacra has explanatory power. Thanks for this, I really enjoyed reading it.
Reminds me of symbolic AI, propositional logic, belief calculus. The 4 levels kinda map to reasoning about the following propositions:
* P(f): fact f is true
* P_B(a, f): actor a believes fact f
* P_A(a, g, f): actor a aligns with a group g, because they publicly talk about f
* P_C(a, g, m): actor a aligns with group g because they communicate message m that follows discussion practices that are the norm in g
Each communication modifies all 4 propositions in the belief set of both sender and receiver of a message. Depending on which Level is emphasized (because the sender/receiver sends/interprets it accordingly), senders/receivers come to different beliefs, and send different messages for the same facts.
This reminds me of nextleveling people in MTG, which I think is not an accident. The difference between doing something intrinsically powerful, exploiting the meta and exploiting exploitative strategies. This is relevant if your goal is to win.
Then it reminds of Wittgenstein's language games. You have to figure out which game your interlocutor is playing to figure out what they actually mean. This is relevant if your goal is to understand.
Finally, it reminds me of a cycle (or, more accurately, a spiral) in literature production (and art production in general). Writers progress through the cycle when they get tired of whatever came before: Naturalistic anecdote, myth-making, critical-realist literature and postmodern (recursive) literature. This is relevant if your goal is to create.
As always, weird things happen when you skip levels.
> As always, weird things happen when you skip levels.
GRRM is a master at giving you first some level 2, then some level 4, followed by some level 3, just using different environments and PoVs. Level 1 then can be anything (e.g., what is the real meaning of "all men must die")
Within this context, since everyone talking at every level all agree that they are trying to be persuasive ("I wish the listener would agree with my statements") I think a good aim is to convince everyone to push (or tack on) the criteria of level 1 (relevance to/dependence on objective fact) upwards through the levels, even if they're not consciously aware of what they're doing.
Because if there really is a lion (or a pandemic) then that fact has importance to the listener, even we are all cool post-truth talkers. There IS still an objective criteria to be assessed in "level 2-4" stuff of "pandemic claims", which is "it's actually good that I'm trying to persuade people of this, because if I get power, I will do effective thing X to counter the objective problem from level 1." The challenge is to demand that criteria (and its dependence on objective fact) be there no matter what kind of claim is being made (since ambiguity about levels is part of the appeal), as a condition of "I agree with what you're saying" so that speakers feel it necessary to provide it.
> What makes level 2 distinct from level 1 is not whether the statement is true, but whether or not you care whether it is true.
Also known as "bullshit", from "On Bullshit". This is precisely Frankfurt's definition of bullshit.
Level 2 is definitely Frankfurt's conception of bullshit. Level 3 aligns with Norman Dixon's idea of bullshit (security theater, hygiene theater, military drill, etc.) where the signifier appears to be a Level 1 proposition but the siginified is actually in-group allegience or obedience.
If it's so hard to understand, why do we think those 4 levels are a coherent concept?
"Over time and in the absence of existential physical danger, overall conditions tend to pass through the four generations. Each level tends to ‘wins in a fight’ against the previous one. Thus the overall ‘simulacra level’ will trend higher over time. We go from truth, to distortion and manipulation, to symbolism and association and social games, to non-logical word associations, going with vibes and implicitly conspiring against other strategies."
This is a nice explanation of the abstract concept of decadence. And in a world where nukes have obviated the threat of other people and the Industrial/Agricultural Revolutions the threat of starvation, has unfortunate implications.
I wrote a post about this phenomenon in the military. "Playing the game" well leads to social rewards but it gets people killed. You can bullshit your boss, but you can't bullshit physics. More if you're curious: https://thepowderhorn.substack.com/p/bullets-beans-and-bullshit?sd=pf
Attempted translation to financial instruments:
Level one: betting markets.
Level two: stock in real public companies
Level three: crypto tokens associated to a project
Level four: shitcoins without a specific cultural association?
This post has redeemed Baudrillard somewhat in my eyes. I still think much of Simulacra and Simulacrum was bullshit in the finest tradition of French postmodernism, but the levels of simulacra has explanatory power. Thanks for this, I really enjoyed reading it.
Reminds me of symbolic AI, propositional logic, belief calculus. The 4 levels kinda map to reasoning about the following propositions:
* P(f): fact f is true
* P_B(a, f): actor a believes fact f
* P_A(a, g, f): actor a aligns with a group g, because they publicly talk about f
* P_C(a, g, m): actor a aligns with group g because they communicate message m that follows discussion practices that are the norm in g
Each communication modifies all 4 propositions in the belief set of both sender and receiver of a message. Depending on which Level is emphasized (because the sender/receiver sends/interprets it accordingly), senders/receivers come to different beliefs, and send different messages for the same facts.