This is not a coincidence because nothing is ever a coincidence. This makes the four children, and in particular the fourth child, make sense. I believe this is the primary original intent of the story. This hypothesis and the analysis that follows could be me doing what Scott Alexander often did and cherry picking to find entertaining and potentially enlightening connections that were clearly never intended.
#Simulacra 2 who did it how to
The child who does not know how to ask represents level 4. They want to know what the Seder symbolizes. They want to know what the Seder can get them. The four children are the four simulacra levels. I bring the story that I now believe was originally intended. When I was googling for details of what the sons say, the first hit was a reversed-order story of the children as stages of psychological development, with a fifth stage beyond the four listed. Reversing the order of development is reasonably common, as is an implied fifth child. We can be great because we stand on the shoulders of giants. In this story, we first learn how to ask, then we are simple, then we are instrumental, then we seek to fully understand, and then finally in a fifth stage we can transcend. To make sense of the story of the children and to tie it to the themes I wanted to focus on, I told a reversed story and substituted in generations of rationalists and truth seekers. Why this narrative of decline and fall, of wisdom as something that can only decay? At the time, the story of the four children did not make sense to me. Many attempts have been made to interpret it.Ī while back I wrote the first rationalist seder (later versions can be found here). The story is profoundly weird and does not, on its face, make much sense. The Jewish Seder tells us of four generations of children: The wise child, the wicked child, the simple child, and the one who does not know how to ask. The metaphor here will be that of the four children from Jewish Passover Seder. Thus, it is good and right to continue exploring them partly via story and metaphor. Simulacra levels are complex, counter-intuitive and difficult to understand. Previously: Unifying the Simulacra Definitions, Simulacra Levels and their Interactions, On Negative Feedback and Simulacra