(As a way to improve my own writing skills, I thought I’d give feedback to a post with low engagement and found this. Sorry if this unsolicited, direct feedback is unwanted.)
The post is easy to read: it has a clean structure, gives clear examples, and puts itself in context of prior definitions of simulacrum levels. The idea and motivation are natural: you look for structures in the existing simulacrum levels, and find the “Odds and Evens” structure. It is then fairly natural to ask whether we can use these insights to extrapolate new simulacrum levels −1, 5 and 6. However, I would say the answer is negative. I do not immediately find the newly presented simulacrum levels to be crisp and useful concepts. This makes me question the overall usefulness of the post.
That said, if you happen upon a highly useful concept in the future, I’m confident in your skills to communicate it (which I mean as non-trivial praise, as I can’t say the same for myself).
I will start by saying that the odds and evens structure isn’t especially original. I’ve seen similar things discussed in previous posts and comments, mostly as a dimension of a 2x2 grid. As such, your review seems like the classic quote, falsely attributed to Samuel Johnson: “this is both original and good, but the original parts aren’t good and the good parts aren’t original”.
Of course, I disagree with that (if I thought the new levels weren’t useful, I wouldn’t have come up with them), and will try to explain why the original parts are good, or at least have some value.
To start with, level −1. This is pretty useless. I’m not sure it actually even exists, it’s just a natural consequence of the structure. Inasmuch as it does exist, it is incompatible with the existence of an agent. Perhaps the view of a camera would be level −1.
However, I see levels 5 and 6 as real, useful, and importantly not the same as levels 3 and 4.
Specifically, I see levels 5 and 6 as ungrounded. Levels 3 and 4 are not grounded in object-level reality, but are at least grounded in something, namely signalling and tribal affiliation. While “there’s a lion across the river” no longer means anything about actual lions, it still means something. It could not be replaced with “there’s a foobar across the bazquux”.
At the recursive tier, the words “lion” and “river” become irrelevant, and the system of references no longer roots itself in reality. Now this could presumably be considered “mask[ing] the absence of a basic reality”, but I’m not sure it even masks it. Reality is just absent. This is Baudrillard’s true level 4 of “pure simulacrum”.
Part of me wants to renumber the entire system, given that this is allegedly Baudrillard’s model. In this case, the political tier would all be level 3 and the recursive tier would all be level 4.
(As a way to improve my own writing skills, I thought I’d give feedback to a post with low engagement and found this. Sorry if this unsolicited, direct feedback is unwanted.)
The post is easy to read: it has a clean structure, gives clear examples, and puts itself in context of prior definitions of simulacrum levels. The idea and motivation are natural: you look for structures in the existing simulacrum levels, and find the “Odds and Evens” structure. It is then fairly natural to ask whether we can use these insights to extrapolate new simulacrum levels −1, 5 and 6. However, I would say the answer is negative. I do not immediately find the newly presented simulacrum levels to be crisp and useful concepts. This makes me question the overall usefulness of the post.
That said, if you happen upon a highly useful concept in the future, I’m confident in your skills to communicate it (which I mean as non-trivial praise, as I can’t say the same for myself).
Thanks for the review!
I will start by saying that the odds and evens structure isn’t especially original. I’ve seen similar things discussed in previous posts and comments, mostly as a dimension of a 2x2 grid. As such, your review seems like the classic quote, falsely attributed to Samuel Johnson: “this is both original and good, but the original parts aren’t good and the good parts aren’t original”.
Of course, I disagree with that (if I thought the new levels weren’t useful, I wouldn’t have come up with them), and will try to explain why the original parts are good, or at least have some value.
To start with, level −1. This is pretty useless. I’m not sure it actually even exists, it’s just a natural consequence of the structure. Inasmuch as it does exist, it is incompatible with the existence of an agent. Perhaps the view of a camera would be level −1.
However, I see levels 5 and 6 as real, useful, and importantly not the same as levels 3 and 4.
Specifically, I see levels 5 and 6 as ungrounded. Levels 3 and 4 are not grounded in object-level reality, but are at least grounded in something, namely signalling and tribal affiliation. While “there’s a lion across the river” no longer means anything about actual lions, it still means something. It could not be replaced with “there’s a foobar across the bazquux”.
At the recursive tier, the words “lion” and “river” become irrelevant, and the system of references no longer roots itself in reality. Now this could presumably be considered “mask[ing] the absence of a basic reality”, but I’m not sure it even masks it. Reality is just absent. This is Baudrillard’s true level 4 of “pure simulacrum”.
Part of me wants to renumber the entire system, given that this is allegedly Baudrillard’s model. In this case, the political tier would all be level 3 and the recursive tier would all be level 4.