Paradox of Simulation

De Monchaux's closing claim: "the more powerful a model in shaping our reality, the more closed to view it, and its movements, seems to become." Traced as an architectural movement — the model retreats from the sunlit Panama lockhouse into bunkers, windowless SAGE interiors, the film frame, the black box, the phone — while its grip on what it models grows. The paradox is that this contravenes the model's original (Enlightenment-automaton) purpose of giving a more complete understanding of the whole. Distinct from the journal's Paradox of Intelligence. Caveat: the essay conflates physical, institutional, and intrinsic (learned-model) opacity; only the first two are argued historically.