I agree that “each stage follows in a systematic way” doesn’t quite work, and to further illuminate that I’d like to describe the specific systematic progression that I personally inferred before deciding that it doesn’t seem to match how the levels are actually being used in discussion:
(Since I don’t think this matches current usage, I’m going to deliberately change terminology and say “steps” instead of “levels” in a weak attempt to prevent conflation.)
A. To ascend from an odd step to an even step, the speaker’s motive changes, but their communicative intent remains the same.
B. To ascend from an even step to an odd step, the speaker’s motive remains the same, but their intent is now to communicate that motive.
At step 1, when I say ”There’s a tiger across the river” I want you to believe There is a tiger across the river because There IS a tiger across the river (or so I think)
At step 2, when I say ”There’s a tiger across the river” I want you to believe There is a tiger across the river because I don’t want anyone to cross the river
At step 3, when I say ”There’s a tiger across the river” I want you to believe I don’t want anyone to cross the river because I don’t want anyone to cross the river
At step 4, when I say ”There’s a tiger across the river” I want you to believe I don’t want anyone to cross the river because I want to ally myself with the vermilion political party
At step 5, when I say ”There’s a tiger across the river” I want you to believe I want to ally myself with the vermilion political party because I want to ally myself with the vermilion political party
At step 6, when I say ”There’s a tiger across the river” I want you to believe I want to ally myself with the vermilion political party because I want vermilion party votes to help me become mayor
At step 7, when I say ”There’s a tiger across the river” I want you to believe I want vermilion party votes to help me become mayor because I want vermilion party votes to help me become mayor
At step 8, when I say ”There’s a tiger across the river” I want you to believe I want vermilion party votes to help me become mayor because I’m trying to split the vermilion’s party vote so their other candidate doesn’t win
etc.
I don’t think there’s any strict upper bound to how many steps you can get out of this progression, but the practical depth is limited for the following reason:
Notice that there might be many possible motivations that could be introduced at an even step. In step 2 above, I used “I don’t want anyone to cross the river”, but I could have used “I want to organize a tiger hunting party” or “I want to promote the development of anti-tiger weaponry” or “I want us to acknowledge that our attempt to avoid tigers is failing and we should try to reach an accommodation with them instead”.
A successful step-3 communication can only occur if there is a single step-2 motive that is so common or so obvious (in context) that it can be safely inferred by the listener. (Otherwise, I might want you to understand that I don’t want anyone to cross the river, but you might mistakenly think I want to organize a tiger hunting party.)
Also note that all of the odd steps might be called “honest” in the sense that you want the listener to believe an accurate thing (you are trying to make their map look like your map), but only step 1 is truthful in the sense that it accurately describes object-level reality. All of the even steps are dishonest.
I’m not sure this model is particularly helpful, except that perhaps it illuminates a difference between “honesty” and “truthfulness”.
I think current simulacra discussions are sort-of collapsing all of steps 3+ into “simulacra level 3”, and then “simulacra level 4″ is sort-of like step infinity, except I don’t think the relation between simulacra levels and the model I described above is actually that clean. I would welcome further attempts to concisely differentiate them.
I agree that “each stage follows in a systematic way” doesn’t quite work, and to further illuminate that I’d like to describe the specific systematic progression that I personally inferred before deciding that it doesn’t seem to match how the levels are actually being used in discussion:
(Since I don’t think this matches current usage, I’m going to deliberately change terminology and say “steps” instead of “levels” in a weak attempt to prevent conflation.)
A. To ascend from an odd step to an even step, the speaker’s motive changes, but their communicative intent remains the same.
B. To ascend from an even step to an odd step, the speaker’s motive remains the same, but their intent is now to communicate that motive.
At step 1, when I say
”There’s a tiger across the river”
I want you to believe
There is a tiger across the river
because
There IS a tiger across the river (or so I think)
At step 2, when I say
”There’s a tiger across the river”
I want you to believe
There is a tiger across the river
because
I don’t want anyone to cross the river
At step 3, when I say
”There’s a tiger across the river”
I want you to believe
I don’t want anyone to cross the river
because
I don’t want anyone to cross the river
At step 4, when I say
”There’s a tiger across the river”
I want you to believe
I don’t want anyone to cross the river
because
I want to ally myself with the vermilion political party
At step 5, when I say
”There’s a tiger across the river”
I want you to believe
I want to ally myself with the vermilion political party
because
I want to ally myself with the vermilion political party
At step 6, when I say
”There’s a tiger across the river”
I want you to believe
I want to ally myself with the vermilion political party
because
I want vermilion party votes to help me become mayor
At step 7, when I say
”There’s a tiger across the river”
I want you to believe
I want vermilion party votes to help me become mayor
because
I want vermilion party votes to help me become mayor
At step 8, when I say
”There’s a tiger across the river”
I want you to believe
I want vermilion party votes to help me become mayor
because
I’m trying to split the vermilion’s party vote so their other candidate doesn’t win
etc.
I don’t think there’s any strict upper bound to how many steps you can get out of this progression, but the practical depth is limited for the following reason:
Notice that there might be many possible motivations that could be introduced at an even step. In step 2 above, I used “I don’t want anyone to cross the river”, but I could have used “I want to organize a tiger hunting party” or “I want to promote the development of anti-tiger weaponry” or “I want us to acknowledge that our attempt to avoid tigers is failing and we should try to reach an accommodation with them instead”.
A successful step-3 communication can only occur if there is a single step-2 motive that is so common or so obvious (in context) that it can be safely inferred by the listener. (Otherwise, I might want you to understand that I don’t want anyone to cross the river, but you might mistakenly think I want to organize a tiger hunting party.)
Also note that all of the odd steps might be called “honest” in the sense that you want the listener to believe an accurate thing (you are trying to make their map look like your map), but only step 1 is truthful in the sense that it accurately describes object-level reality. All of the even steps are dishonest.
I’m not sure this model is particularly helpful, except that perhaps it illuminates a difference between “honesty” and “truthfulness”.
I think current simulacra discussions are sort-of collapsing all of steps 3+ into “simulacra level 3”, and then “simulacra level 4″ is sort-of like step infinity, except I don’t think the relation between simulacra levels and the model I described above is actually that clean. I would welcome further attempts to concisely differentiate them.