# Simulacron-3 **Domain:** Literature / Simulation / Synthetic Populations **Doc Type:** Source-Work Node **Maturity:** Developed **Related:** [[wiki/World on a Wire (1973)|World on a Wire]], [[wiki/The Thirteenth Floor (1999)|The Thirteenth Floor]], [[wiki/World Simulation (Control Substrate)|World Simulation]] --- ## Definition _Simulacron-3_ is Daniel F. Galouye's 1964 novel about a computationally generated society populated by humanlike “identity units” that understand their artificial environment as reality. It is the literary source for Fassbinder's _World on a Wire_ and Rusnak's _The Thirteenth Floor_. ## Corpus Context The novel makes computational social modeling reflexive. A synthetic population created as a model becomes a population of possible subjects, and the modeled world becomes capable of generating knowledge about the world above it. Its identity units are crucial to [[articles/Uploading Is Imminent|Uploading Is Imminent]] because they approach continuity from the opposite direction of uploading. They are [[wiki/Continuant vs Native|natives]], not reconstructed biological predecessors. Uploading introduces continuants into a receiving world; the identity-unit lineage asks when that world begins producing citizens of its own. ## Historical Boundary Galouye's novel predates Nick Bostrom's later simulation argument and should not be organized retrospectively around it. The relevant historical sequence is computational social simulation → artificial populations → reflexive ontology → later simulation-hypothesis discourse. The contemporaneous Simulmatics Corporation provides a historically illuminating convergence around computer-modeled populations. No direct influence on Galouye is asserted without evidence. ## Key Insight **A model of society becomes a constitutional problem when the modeled population contains subjects rather than variables alone.** ## Sources / Provenance - Ed Halter, Criterion Collection, “World on a Wire: The Hall of Mirrors”: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2152-world-on-a-wire-the-hall-of-mirrors - American Film Institute Catalog, _The Thirteenth Floor_: https://catalog.afi.com/Film/61742-THE-THIRTEENTH-FLOOR - Jill Lepore, _If Then_, for the distinct history of Simulmatics: https://jlepore.scholars.harvard.edu/publications/if-then-how-simulmatics-corporation-invented-future ## See Also [[wiki/Simulated World|Simulated World]], [[wiki/Layer-Relative Reality|Layer-Relative Reality]], [[wiki/Reconstructed Person|Reconstructed Person]], [[wiki/Rights|Rights]]