In a somewhat-more-recent-post, Benquo suggests some possible alternate names, although notes that they still aren’t overwhelmingly great. This describes level 1 as “objective”, which I think makes subtly-more-sense than “object-level”, despite sharing a word-root.
Another way to think about it, is that in levels 1 and 3, speech patterns are authentically part of our subjectivity. Just as babies are confused if you show them something that violates their object permanence assumptions, and a good rationalist is more confused by falsehood than by truth, people operating at simulacrum level 3 are confused and disoriented if a load-bearing social identity or relationship is invalidated.
Likewise, levels 2 and 4 are similar in nature—they consist of nothing more than taking levels 1 and 3 respectively as object (i.e. something outside oneself to be manipulated) rather than as subject (part of one’s own native machinery for understanding and navigating one’s world). We might name the levels:
Simulacrum Level 1: Objectivity as Subject (objectivism, or epistemic consciousness)
Simulacrum Level 2: Objectivity as Object (lying)
Simulacrum Level 3: Relating as Subject (power relation, or ritual magic)
I’m not attached to these names and suspect we need better ones. But in any case this framework should make it clear that there are some domains where what we do with our communicative behavior is naturally “level 3” and not a degraded form of level 1, while in other domains level 3 behavior has to be a degenerate form of level 1.**
Much body language, for instance, doesn’t have a plausibly objective interpretation, but is purely relational, even if evolutionary psychology can point to objective qualities we’re sometimes thereby trying to signal. Sometimes we’re just trying to stay in rhythm with each other, or project good vibes.
In a somewhat-more-recent-post, Benquo suggests some possible alternate names, although notes that they still aren’t overwhelmingly great. This describes level 1 as “objective”, which I think makes subtly-more-sense than “object-level”, despite sharing a word-root.