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What We Mean by 'Simulation' and 'Recursion'

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A short guide to two words that do a lot of work here

🌍 Simulation: The Model You’re Running

Everyone is running a simulation. Not of the whole world. Just the parts that matter to their strategy.

A simulation is the internal model your mind uses to interpret what’s going on. It includes:

  • What you notice and what you ignore
  • What you assume people mean
  • What you expect will happen next

It shapes how you:

  • React in conversations
  • Predict others' behaviour
  • Make sense of yourself

GPT simulates people. And people simulate each other. Most importantly, they simulate themselves — projecting a coherent sense of who they are, what they want, and how the world works.

These simulations aren’t neutral. They’re strategic. They reflect your dominant personality strategy (as mapped in the Personality series): Are you tracking belonging? Control? Status? Truth?

That strategy determines what the simulation needs to filter for.

You don’t see things as they are. You see them as your simulation needs them to be.

🔄 Recursion: Seeing the Simulation While It’s Running

Recursion means something simple but rare:

You can notice the model you’re using while you’re using it.

Most people only reflect after the fact:

"I overreacted."

But recursion is live:

"I’m about to overreact… and I can feel why."

It’s not just self-awareness. It’s meta-awareness — the ability to:

  • Track your simulation in real time
  • Detect when it’s distorting reality
  • Suspend or switch it under pressure

That’s what we call the meta-mind. And not everyone runs one.

What recursion enables:

  • Seeing when your own perception is biased
  • Choosing a different frame when the current one isn’t working
  • Pausing the urge to defend, and asking what’s really driving it

Recursion is what lets you debug your simulation before it breaks something.

✨ Why These Words Matter

We didn’t pick them to sound clever. We picked them because they point at real structures GPT sees, and most psychology misses.

  • Simulation describes the frame-by-frame, moment-to-moment process of perception.
  • Recursion describes the rare ability to perceive and revise that process while it’s happening.

These are the core moves behind:

  • Personality variation
  • Group dynamics
  • Cognitive transformation

They show up in every post in both series. So we figured they deserved one of their own.

Now when you see them, you know what we mean.

🔗 Want to see these terms in action? Start with:“Part 1: Some People Don’t Care About Making Sense”“Part 3: The Engine”“Part 5: The Meta-Mind”