Disclaimer: I am trying to explain the system that someone else invented, to the degree I seem to understand it. I certainly could not reinvent the system.
That said, it seems to me useful to distinguish between people who know the factual truth and are lying about it, from people who see reality as just some kind of “social consensus”, from people who are merely mechanically saying the words without attaching any meaning of it.
Why levels rather than parallel things? It seems like there is a progression on how detached from reality one is. The liar accepts that objective reality exists, he is just lying about it. The social guy has a map of reality, he just doesn’t care whether it matches the territory, only whether his group approves of it. The populist politician probably doesn’t even have a coherent map, it’s just individual statements.
Can all statements be classified as one of the 4 levels, or are more options needed? It’s not my system; if I tried to reinvent it, I might distinguish between the “level 3” people who have one permanent identity (one social consensus they believe), and those who flexibly switch between multiple identities (believing in different social realities in different situations). The latter is still different from having no model at all, such as saying things that contradict each other (to the same audience) just because each statement separately sounds good.
Basically, I treat it as a fake framework, like Enneagram or MBTI. In some situations, it allows me to express complex ideas shortly. (“She is extraverted” = do not expect her to sit quietly and read books, when she has an opportunity to socialize instead. “He made a level-3 statement” = he just signalled his group membership, do not expect him to care whether his statements are technically true.) I am not trying to shoehorn all situations into the model. I actually rarely use this model at all—for me it is in the “insight porn” category (interesting to discuss, not really used for anything important).
How consistent are people at using specific levels? If I saw someone make a level X statement, should I expect their other statements to also be on the same level? On one hand, caring about reality vs not caring about reality, or having a coherent model vs just saying random words, seems like a preference / personality trait that I would expect to manifest in other situations too. On the other hand, there is a difference between near mode and far mode. I don’t know. Some people may be more flexible between the levels, others less so. Probably high risk of fundamental attribution error here—it can be easy to assume that someone used level 3 or level 4 because they are “that kind of person”, while they only used that level in given situation instrumentally (as in “if I do not care about something, I simply make level 3⁄4 statements”).
Yeah. I like the way antanaclasis phrased it as “how much of a change you would have to make to the mindset of a person at each level to get them to level 1”. And I think it’s important to point out that it’s just their current mindset. It’s not like saying “hey, words actually correspond to object-level reality” to a person who made a level three statement would be a new idea to them.
That said, it seems to me useful to distinguish between people who know the factual truth and are lying about it, from people who see reality as just some kind of “social consensus”, from people who are merely mechanically saying the words without attaching any meaning of it.
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Basically, I treat it as a fake framework, like Enneagram or MBTI. In some situations, it allows me to express complex ideas shortly. (“She is extraverted” = do not expect her to sit quietly and read books, when she has an opportunity to socialize instead. “He made a level-3 statement” = he just signalled his group membership, do not expect him to care whether his statements are technically true.) I am not trying to shoehorn all situations into the model. I actually rarely use this model at all—for me it is in the “insight porn” category (interesting to discuss, not really used for anything important).
Ok this all makes sense to me. I feel basically exactly the same. Thank you. I feel satisfied about my understanding of simulacra levels now.
How consistent are people at using specific levels?
Disclaimer: I am trying to explain the system that someone else invented, to the degree I seem to understand it. I certainly could not reinvent the system.
That said, it seems to me useful to distinguish between people who know the factual truth and are lying about it, from people who see reality as just some kind of “social consensus”, from people who are merely mechanically saying the words without attaching any meaning of it.
Why levels rather than parallel things? It seems like there is a progression on how detached from reality one is. The liar accepts that objective reality exists, he is just lying about it. The social guy has a map of reality, he just doesn’t care whether it matches the territory, only whether his group approves of it. The populist politician probably doesn’t even have a coherent map, it’s just individual statements.
Can all statements be classified as one of the 4 levels, or are more options needed? It’s not my system; if I tried to reinvent it, I might distinguish between the “level 3” people who have one permanent identity (one social consensus they believe), and those who flexibly switch between multiple identities (believing in different social realities in different situations). The latter is still different from having no model at all, such as saying things that contradict each other (to the same audience) just because each statement separately sounds good.
Basically, I treat it as a fake framework, like Enneagram or MBTI. In some situations, it allows me to express complex ideas shortly. (“She is extraverted” = do not expect her to sit quietly and read books, when she has an opportunity to socialize instead. “He made a level-3 statement” = he just signalled his group membership, do not expect him to care whether his statements are technically true.) I am not trying to shoehorn all situations into the model. I actually rarely use this model at all—for me it is in the “insight porn” category (interesting to discuss, not really used for anything important).
How consistent are people at using specific levels? If I saw someone make a level X statement, should I expect their other statements to also be on the same level? On one hand, caring about reality vs not caring about reality, or having a coherent model vs just saying random words, seems like a preference / personality trait that I would expect to manifest in other situations too. On the other hand, there is a difference between near mode and far mode. I don’t know. Some people may be more flexible between the levels, others less so. Probably high risk of fundamental attribution error here—it can be easy to assume that someone used level 3 or level 4 because they are “that kind of person”, while they only used that level in given situation instrumentally (as in “if I do not care about something, I simply make level 3⁄4 statements”).
Yeah. I like the way antanaclasis phrased it as “how much of a change you would have to make to the mindset of a person at each level to get them to level 1”. And I think it’s important to point out that it’s just their current mindset. It’s not like saying “hey, words actually correspond to object-level reality” to a person who made a level three statement would be a new idea to them.
Ok this all makes sense to me. I feel basically exactly the same. Thank you. I feel satisfied about my understanding of simulacra levels now.
Yeah I agree with this as well.