Ontological Asymmetry

Bratton's name for the uneven distribution, among a simulation's participants, of knowledge that it is a simulation — "one fraction of participants who knows it's a simulation and another fraction who does not." Often the simulation's purpose requires the asymmetry: somebody has to believe it is real for the other's virtual experience to work (Ender's Game, Milgram). Cinema gives both polarities — Truman (protagonist unknowing) and Westworld (background unknowing) — and breaking the asymmetry is the drama. Raises consent directly, and shades into the abnormal psychology of simulation (targeted-individual syndrome, trauma re-enactment).