Published on February 3, 2025 2:30 PM GMT
Required knowledge: Simulacrum Levels.
There is a distinct degree of confusion around simulacrum level 4, where the original definition (or related ones) seems to have been replaced with a new concept that is related to 3 in the same way 2 is related to 1. In this new form, the true nature of simulacrum level 4 is obscured, because it would actually belong to a higher level. These potential levels will be discussed, as will an even lower level than the usual lowest.
Existing levels
Level 1
This is probably the simplest to explain. Level 1 is about truth and factual accuracy, trying to create an accurate map of reality. But it still creates a map, rather than being the territory.
Level 2
Level 2 is not a level with significant controversy as to the meaning. It is the level of lies. Or, more generally, it is the level in which statements are treated as tracking truth (like on level 1), but level 2 actors use this to act on people's maps of the world and factual beliefs. Some of the level 2 "lies" can be true (as can all higher levels), but they are not told because they are true, but because they will be believed.
As such, level 2 is parasitic on the level 1 structure. As with other parasites, it still relies on that structure's general acceptance, and so is in the same tier as level 1. This I will refer to as the factual tier, as statements are treated as reflecting factual beliefs.
With the lion analogy, yes, the level 2 meaning of "There's a lion across the river" is "I don't want to go across the river", but it is important that it is interpreted as "There is an actual lion across the actual river that will actually eat you".
Level 3
Level 3 is also generally accepted as the tribal/social level, where the facts no longer matter, but it is important to send accurate signals of your views. Whether the statement is true or false is irrelevant, and the literal meaning is no longer parsed, but the symbolic meaning is expected to be genuine. The tier this works on is the political tier, that of slogans and support for a side.
Original
The original meaning of level 3 is rather different. Going to the pseudo-source text (this is actually a Wikipedia description, rather than Baudrillard himself - there's a certain irony in that our concept of simulacra is so much a simulacrum of the original):
The third stage masks the absence of a profound reality, where the sign pretends to be a faithful copy, but it is a copy with no original. Signs and images claim to represent something real, but no representation is taking place and arbitrary images are merely suggested as things which they have no relationship to. Baudrillard calls this the "order of sorcery", a regime of semantic algebra where all human meaning is conjured artificially to appear as a reference to the (increasingly) hermetic truth.
This is not our level 3 of signalling and tribes. In many ways, this resembles our level 4. Our level 3 is not a copy with no original, although it has become detached from facts in the same way.
Level 4
Now we come to the split in level 4. While the original level 3 is mostly forgotten, the original level 4 is not, and clashes with the new level 4. I have the weakest understanding of this level, perhaps because it is two different things weakly connected and with some handwaving used to paper over the cracks.
Original
The original meaning of level 4 is as follows:
The fourth stage is pure simulacrum, in which the simulacrum has no relationship to any reality whatsoever. Here, signs merely reflect other signs and any claim to reality on the part of images or signs is only of the order of other such claims. This is a regime of total equivalency, where cultural products need no longer even pretend to be real in a naïve sense, because the experiences of consumers' lives are so predominantly artificial that even claims to reality are expected to be phrased in artificial, "hyperreal" terms. Any naïve pretension to reality as such is perceived as bereft of critical self-awareness, and thus as oversentimental.
Ignoring the latter half (because it is not relevant to my purposes here), this is the level at which meaning is entirely drained from the symbols. There is a certain non-well-founded quality here, in the mathematical sense (or at least using that as a metaphor). Symbols refer only to symbols, with no access to anything below that level. Everything is infinitely high.
While I do not intend to make this a political piece, one example that comes to mind is the definition of "woman" as "anyone who identifies as a woman". This is very distinctly a level 4 claim, with the definition looping back on itself. Using the mathematical metaphor of non-well-founded sets, this would be a Quine atom.
I see this as part of the recursive tier, and as the level of suggestively-named LISP tokens.
New
In contrast to the original meaning's infinite recursion, the new meaning is simply treating the level 3 political structure as an object to be manipulated. Joining and leaving groups, supporting and opposing positions, not to truly align with a tribe, but to pretend to align with them in order to reach a certain goal or get a good reputation (reputation being everything at this level).
As such, it resembles level 2, but acting on the political tier rather than the factual tier.
Odds and Evens
So far, the focus has been on the vertical tier, but there is a distinct difference between odd and even levels.
Odd levels are in some sense honest. Perhaps not factually honest, but honest in their own way. Level 3 might make literally false statements, but it does not pretend to be in a different group, and that's what matters to the political tier. I will use the term expressive here, although this term will fail later.
Even levels are more about manipulation. Level 2 manipulates people's level 1 beliefs, the new level 4 manipulates people's level 3 beliefs. As such, these are the manipulative levels.
As such, we can form a grid, which resembles the common 2x2 grid model of simulacra levels.
| Expressive | Manipulative | |
|---|---|---|
| Recursive | Old 4 | |
| Political | 3 | New 4 |
| Factual | 1 | 2 |
Old 4 and new 4 are separated (because I see them as fundamentally different things), and old 4 is in both columns because the distinction is not made.
As a slight sidenote, the number of vertical tiers here reflects the limit of three layers of abstraction. The recursive tier is "infinitely" abstracted, but sits just above the political tier because third-order abstractions are functionally infinitely high.
The factual tier is the first order, the political tier the second order, and the recursive tier the third order.
But what about the zeroth order?
New levels
These are the outer levels to which the title refers.
Here, I will begin with a diagram.
| Expressive | Manipulative | |
|---|---|---|
| Recursive | 5 | 6 |
| Political | 3 | 4 |
| Factual | 1 | 2 |
| Asymbolic | -1 | 0 |
The old level 4 is split into new levels 5 and 6 (although I am not entirely sure the distinction exists), and the asymbolic tier is added.
Level 0
This level is not my creation, but is outside of the standard four.
As it is described in A Crisper Explanation of Simulacrum Levels:
For Level 0 agents, there are no symbols, no models, and no communication, only actions aimed at directly introducing changes upon the physical world.
And in Unifying the Simulacra Definitions:
That’s where you don’t say there is a lion across the river in Lion-0, you simply don’t cross the river because you don’t want to get eaten by a lion. You are also in Symbolic-0, because you don’t have a symbol at all.
As such, this is the zeroth-order abstraction. There is no abstraction here at all, just basic reality. Unlike level 1, which Baudrillard describes as "the reflection of a profound reality", at this level, there is no reflection. It just is. As such, this is the asymbolic tier.
But zero is even, and so this is a level of manipulation and action. You don't cross the river (which isn't quite an action, but is of the same form). You do make the changes. You are an agent.
What do you get when you aren't?
Level -1
This level is asymbolic and expressive. Now, as expression requires symbols, the name "expressive" does not exactly work here. There are no symbols and no actions. There is just existence. It is reality without interpretation or action. I would describe it as a level of pure observation, but even that might be level 0.
No wonder this isn't generally discussed! There's barely anything there.
Level 5
There is little to go on for levels this high, so I am not entirely sure that both levels 5 and 6 actually exist. However, I will attempt to discuss them.
Level 5 is expressive and recursive. The world is composed of symbols that only refer to other symbols, but the structure of these references is honestly discussed, rather than being manipulated.
While this is a very high level in terms of social situations and society, and as such is often presumed to be maximally false, I see mathematics as a fundamentally level 5 activity. In the same way that some things are naturally coordination games at level 3, some things are naturally abstract at level 5.
For a non-mathematical example, let's go back to "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman". While this is often expressed as a level 3 slogan or a level 6 attempt to change the structure, it is in fact a level 5 statement, if expressed by someone who genuinely believes it.
Level 6
Here, we have attempts to alter and act on people's level 5 structures. This is probably the closest to Baudrillard's level 4, given its somewhat manipulative nature, and is the highest level that exists (being the manipulative form of the third order of abstraction).
Actual reality fell away long ago, and the only things that can be acted on are structures of symbolic representation. Some forms of advertising by association live here, although many of them have to have some focus lower down in order to sell the illusion. It is important that X is believed to be a Y, without anyone knowing or caring what X and Y actually are.
Discuss
