Simulated Thinking
Getting trapped in one cognitive mode (optimized) while mistaking it for the whole.
Thinking is the dynamic interplay and fluid switching between two cognitive modes: Adaptive and Optimized. Simulated Thinking1 is getting trapped in optimized mode while mistaking it for the whole.
| Adaptive Mode | Optimized Mode | |
|---|---|---|
| Orientation | Explore | Exploit |
| Perception | Sensing | Habituation |
| Processing | Sensemaking | Automated |
| Outcome | Learning | Execution |
The inability to recognize or transition into adaptive mode is itself a product of simulated thinking. It sees exploration as inefficiency, uncertainty as incompetence, deviation as defiance, and genuine thinking as error, disability, or hostility.
The result is a mode that appears smart but is actually non-adaptive. It's rewarded socially, but it drifts from reality (as real thinking is often marginalized, mocked, or attacked). This is not a healthy balance, but a structural bias toward exploitation, baked into our institutions, technologies, and cultural norms.
It usually plays out in a predictable pattern:
- Systems over-optimize for known inputs.
- Exploration is replaced with execution, speed, and performance.
- Habits ossify into scripts and scripts become dogma.
- The environment shifts (faster and faster over time).
- The system has little to no adaptive capacity.
- Breakdown, collapse, and scapegoating ensue.
Footnotes
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"Simulated Thinking" coined by Jordan Hall in On Thinking and Simulated Thinking. ↩