This Chosen Life: On Simulated History & Living Another's Life | Essay by The Narrator, Susurrus Archive
There is a theory that I subscribe to, which posits that, thanks to the growth of AI and quantum computing, soon we will have the ability not only to peer into the past, but to live it.
Take George Washington as an example—did you know he meticulously and prolifically documented his life? Over 20,000 letters, countless journals, financial records, and presidential papers–archived from his teenage years until his death. Thanks to his obsession, today we have a more complete view of George Washington’s life than nearly any other historical figure.
Now, combine this with the pure, assaulting, and unrelenting wave of technological advancement which is, at this present moment, breaking on the horizon.
Already, AI can mimic voice, create stories, and extrapolate–fill in the missing links. AI’s ability to build on probability and fact to reconstruct with chilling accuracy already surpasses what many of us believed possible only a few years ago.
What happens as this technology advances?
Historical data—letters, soil samples, DNA—all become raw input. AI models learn to fill in what has been lost, from environments to events to emotions. The unlimited power of quantum computing handles the unending branches of possibility.
Immersive simulations, the final strand of this web, allow you to live this past. Not as a display, or as a game or a movie–but in true, living memory.
You are George Washington. You open your eyes, blurry, to his mother’s face. You think his thoughts and burn with his emotions. You feel his body one day give way, and pass.
You wake, as if from a dream.
Perhaps George Washington is not your preference. So, you opt to live as Julius Caesar instead, to feel the edge of every blade plunged into his body. Your body. You are Cleopatra, inspecting your reflection in the shine of an emerald from your glorious mines. You are your own great-great-grandfather, your brow sweating, heart full of some wild bravery, carving out a better life for your family.
You admired them, and so you became them. To study, or to understand, or simply because you were bored. To hold off on your own truth death by achieving this sort of immortality. The rinse and repeat understanding of countless other lives. If not for the limits of the human mind, couldn’t this path turn you into some sort of God?
I do not see this as a theory, I see this as an inevitable eventuality. What I do consider theory–and in many ways, a comforting and inspiring one–is the question that asks, what if we are already there?
Picture this—you are not who you believe yourself to be. Look at your hands, they are not your own. Your voice has never been your voice. You, at this present moment, are living through a simulation of another’s life. A scrapbook of memories, curated, composed, and painted through the vast network of AI abilities and quantum technologies.
Floating in the ether, somewhere, is the real you. Plugged in, or relaxed in a headset, or hypnotized, or some other variety of immersion. You watch through the eyes of another.
Consciousness, beamed into code.
Accept this possibility, then ask yourself, why did the you who truly exists, somewhere, choose this life to relive? This life must be a special one. Influential, inspiring, seemingly unattainable. Why else would someone choose to relive it? To peer into the innermost depths of a mind and be cut by every emotion ever cycled through it? To witness your horrors and triumphs. To live through your inevitable death?
Why would they choose this?
This is an idea that I find comforting when I feel myself struggling to move my body in the direction that I know I am supposed to travel. When my signals seem so faint, when I lose myself in the ideas of who I am supposed to be, and who I might never become.
It serves as a reminder that just maybe, this life has already been lived—and that it was spectacular. All my hardships have already been conquered, and all my roads, paved by destiny, led to somewhere remarkable.
The idea urges me to journal more deeply and far more often. For, if we have not already achieved this, we certainly will, and I wish the viewers of my life to indulge in it with extreme accuracy.
Let me begin now. I write this essay from the couch, with my cat lounging across my lap, breathing softly on my forearm. I can hear the springtime birds chirping through the closed window. The blanket over me is burnt red, and I have braided its fringe edge many times over. My socks are mismatched, and my hair is pulled up, as it often is.
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