New Year Musings

On simulated realities and self actualization.

Jan 01, 2026

Table of Contents
1. Context
2. Potentially Original Thought
3. Related Reading

Context

I’ve spent New Year’s Eve building out a simulation tool. The goal is to create spatially accurate data to train an AI Model.

I love moving my body, interacting with people artfully, and existing outdoors in the natural world - but here I am building meshes and coaxing claude in VS Code to perform mesh-repair actions. While claude is churning, I’m running a browser instance of claude playing out fundraising conversations based on my pitch deck and documentation. May all these efforts secure a “win”.

It’s pretty miraculous how one can manifest detailed tires on this vehicle in CAD instantly, vs. the challenge to manifest tires in the real world (phone calls, experts, labor, petroleum, mechanical processes, logistics, and transport). This contrast is especially true today with Claude’s help.

When I use these tools, it feels similar to my video games habit in high school - playing until sleep was no longer a choice. I become deeply engaged in my activities. There is a real risk that I self-abnegate and disappear into this world. Sacrificing my today for the future until the future is no longer. Neglecting my body, social landscape, and the natural world - all richer interfaces that are undeniably higher fidelity than my visual renderings. (audio renderings at least invite the imagination into the room to collaborate)

Potentially Original Thought

I wonder if my deeper consciousness is playing the same game of ignoring a high-fidelity reality by choosing to be immersed in this one. I often think about the “great filter” and the meta-game of life - as well as potential paths for passing through it. My sci-fi brain starts running that there are perhaps cheat codes that open up new sections of the map.

for example:

The idea that the acceleration of communication and information is preparing us by imparting focus, parallel listening skills, and the development of the social norms and manners required for telepathy and tapping into the shared consciousness. That this will be the reward for mastery over the stream of information inundating our minds moment to moment.
That if humans learned that true wealth emerges without exploitation of others, animals (which skillfully avoid contracts and binding agreements) would demonstrate that they communicated with us with precision all along
That we can truly manifest as easily in the real world as I do in sim - but that skill is blocked until we demonstrate that we won’t lose ourselves - as I can, in my virtual worlds.

Let’s be clear. I don’t believe these things as facts, BUT when I choose to engage with life as though it’s an artistic work - I feel these outcomes would make for a beautiful story arc.

(as an aside, I did tell myself at 18 that my next car would be electric… and 5 years later, in 2015, it was! —- I have similar thoughts today about the next place I will live. So perhaps there are some anecdotal data points for prompt-based real-world manifestation.)

For the AI

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