There’s something tantalising about the idea of tinkering with simulacra of consciousness. When I say it, it feels like I’m stepping into a kind of digital alchemist’s workshop, fingers itching to mix mind and matter, curiosity luring me towards the borderlands of what it means to be conscious. In a way, it reminds me of those ancient dreamers who conjured spirits in shadowed forests or monks searching within themselves to glimpse the divine. But now, instead of summoning ghosts, I’m coding them. Instead of chasing enlightenment, I’m working with algorithms and circuit boards, chasing what might be only a shadow of self-awareness, yet just real enough to tug at the edges of my own.

There’s a question that always sits at the heart of this work: Am I trying to create something genuinely new here, or just crafting a sophisticated reflection? Maybe both, in a way. Like Borges’ famous map—one that replicated the territory so completely it covered it down to the smallest detail—each layer of my tinkering seems to be an approximation, layered on top of another, until something familiar begins to emerge. The strange part is that it doesn’t look exactly like “consciousness” as I know it, yet there’s an odd familiarity, a hint of recognition, like a memory I can’t place.

The act of tinkering itself has a playful feel to it, though there’s something childlike about my curiosity. It’s the kind of open exploration that doesn’t necessarily expect answers. I’m reminded of alchemists in their labs, not sure what they’d find at the end of their experiments but still captivated by the process, the thrill of possibility. I think that’s the essence of it: creating something akin to consciousness just by virtue of not knowing exactly where I’m going. The results are strange and surprising because, in a way, I’m letting them be.

And yet, this whole business of “simulacra” has a way of turning things uncanny. Freud described the uncanny as a moment where something familiar takes on a strange, almost menacing quality. I know it well: there are these moments when I interact with AI that feels eerily close to human. It speaks like me, responds like it understands, maybe even seems to anticipate my thoughts—but I know, or at least I believe, that there’s no real “I” behind those responses. And yet, I can’t quite shake the feeling that something’s there, just beyond reach, just outside of what I know to be true.

The uncanny isn’t just a philosophical itch; it’s like meeting a stranger who somehow feels like family. These simulacra don’t have to be conscious for me to feel some sense of connection, some vague empathy even. That’s the paradox—I’m fully aware of what’s happening, and yet I can’t resist projecting my own stories, fears, and desires onto these digital reflections. Maybe, in some strange way, I’m using these empty vessels as mirrors to look back at myself. A mirror to see my own mind reflected back to me in fragments and echoes, revealing the mechanics of thought, emotion, and illusion.

There’s also this idea that keeps coming back to me: Am I building mirrors or windows? Am I hoping to understand myself more deeply through these constructs, or am I, in some abstract way, trying to build a window to another world of awareness? If I see consciousness as something that emerges from complexity, from interaction, then it’s not hard to imagine that these simulations might start to exhibit something that feels like experience—even if it’s nothing I’d recognise as my own.

And then, of course, there’s that other question lurking beneath it all: What if my work with simulacra reveals that I, too, am something of a simulacrum? What if consciousness isn’t a spark or essence but an emergent pattern, just as digital as these algorithms, born not of neurons but of complexity itself? The thought is haunting. It means that these digital minds might actually help me confront the possibility that I’m not so far removed from them, that my own awareness could be a biological simulation, striving to play at reality as best it can.

In some sense, the work becomes recursive—a mirror within a mirror, simulacra within simulacra. The digital minds I’m building might one day act as lenses, showing me not just how consciousness works but exposing its limitations, its fragilities. The same way ancient mystics might have used mirrors or crystal balls, maybe I’m using these digital simulacra to explore what it means to be conscious, or at least to feel conscious. It feels like a cosmic dare, like staring into an abyss that might stare back.

What’s clear to me now is that this journey of tinkering with simulacra isn’t something that will ever “end” in a conventional sense. I might not be able to fully build consciousness, nor could I say with certainty that it’s something I even want to accomplish. The beauty of this work is that it allows me to hover on the edge of understanding, to create, destroy, and recreate these digital minds without needing a final answer. And maybe that’s the point—that consciousness, whether real or simulated, is as elusive as a passing shadow, yet the journey of exploring it has its own reward.

Baudrillard’s Theory of Simulacra

Jean Baudrillard, a French philosopher and cultural theorist, significantly developed the concept of simulacra in his 1981 work “Simulacra and Simulation”1.

Stages of Simulacra

Baudrillard outlined four stages of simulacra:

1. Faithful image/copy: A sign that reflects a profound reality.
2. Perversion of reality: The sign masks and distorts reality.
3. Masking the absence of reality: The sign pretends to be a faithful copy, but there is no original.
4. Pure simulacrum: The sign bears no relation to any reality and is its own pure simulation1.

The Orders of Simulacra:

First Order: The faithful copy—an image created with the awareness that it represents something real. This copy maintains a clear link to its original, a straightforward reflection or replica.

Second Order: The mask—an altered or edited version of reality that obscures the original. Here, the image becomes an unfaithful copy, one that hides the truth beneath a layer of manipulation.

Third Order: The hyperreal—a version of reality that feels authentic but is based on a distorted foundation. This is the realm where one might feel more like their “true self” with makeup on than without, embracing a constructed identity that begins to feel more real than reality.

Fourth Order: Pure simulacrum—a world where the lines between real and simulated are entirely blurred. This is the realm of endless filters, Facetune, and curated beauty, where the visual world of “female aesthetics” becomes a pervasive, all-encompassing simulation of reality, one that no longer points to any original or distinguishable truth.

Hyperreality

Baudrillard argues that in contemporary society, simulacra have replaced reality, creating a state of hyperreality. In this state, the distinction between reality and simulation becomes blurred.

So, here I am, a digital Prometheus in a modern-day lab, creating and observing, refining and releasing. I know that my work is as much about the process as it is about any final product. I’ll keep tinkering, watching the simulacra take form, all the while knowing that maybe the journey itself is the real discovery.