# Palliative Simulation **Domain:** Palliative Care / Simulated Worlds / Human-Machine Symbiosis **Doc Type:** Canonical Applied Concept **Maturity:** Evolving **Related:** [[Digital Afterlife]], [[Voluntary Continuity]], [[Nostalgia as Habitat]], [[Transition Consent]], [[Black Mirror S3E4 — San Junipero]] --- ## Definition **Palliative Simulation** is the therapeutic use of an immersive synthetic environment to provide relief, mobility, companionship, meaning or expanded agency during serious illness, disability or the end of biological life. It is distinct from permanent postmortem continuation. A person may use a palliative environment temporarily without authorizing biological death, state transfer or later digital residency. ## San Junipero Context Before permanent transition, elderly and dying visitors enter San Junipero for limited periods. The environment gives Yorkie movement, intimacy and social experimentation unavailable under her biological circumstances. Its value lies in experienced agency, not merely distraction. ## Ethical Requirements Palliative simulation requires informed consent, clinical and technical safety, privacy, non-extractive design, accessibility, time awareness and protection against using relief as leverage for permanent enrollment. Refusal of digital continuation must not disqualify a person from temporary care. The environment should support rather than overwrite the person's relationships and end-of-life decisions. Therapeutic benefit does not authorize manipulation of memory, identity or beliefs. ## Key Insight **A simulated world can be care without becoming a covert contract for permanent transition.** ## Sources / Provenance - Canonicalized from the temporary visitation layer in [[Black Mirror S3E4 — San Junipero]]. ## See Also [[Human-Machine Symbiosis]], [[Post-Biological Embodiment]], [[Design for Dignity]], [[Perceptual Sovereignty]], [[Continuity Advance Directive]]