The confusing nature of $f(x) = x^{x^{x^{...}}}$

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A few months ago, I encountered the following problem: $$x^{x^{x^{...}}} = 2$$

The simple solution is as follows: $$x^{2} = 2 \Rightarrow x=\sqrt{2}$$.

I also discovered the following: $$x^{x^{x^{...}}} = 4 \Rightarrow x=\sqrt[4]{4} = \sqrt{2}$$

But $2 \neq 4$ and therefore this seems wrong.

On further research, I found that $\frac{1}{e} \leqslant x^{x^{x^{...}}} \leqslant e$ and thus the second case of the equation is invalid.
However, I was never really able to gauge why these bounds have been set and why one cannot set values for $x^{x^{x^{...}}} > e$.
Other than graphically, I have seen no proof for the same and would greatly appreciate any such proof or intuition that would help put things into perspective.

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The problem might be in how your formula is proved. If we let $a$ be the tower of x's then after raising x to the power of the LHS and RHS we get

$x^a=x^2$. The LHS is 2 so we get $2=x^2$.

In your second equation you most likely did $2^a=2^2$, but $2 \neq x$.