Why we build what we build, and how we approach it
Understanding begins with feeling. Not with explanation. Not with statistics. But with the visceral experience of inhabiting another reality—even for a moment.
Gothic Grandma builds technologies for perspective-taking through embodied simulation. We create living worlds where anyone can experience what it's like to be someone—or something—else. Not through imagination alone, but through authentic biological, psychological, and environmental constraints that make perspective-taking inevitable.
A reader navigating a day as an older adult with limited mobility doesn't just read about how infrastructure shapes autonomy—they feel the exhaustion of stairs without elevators, the anxiety of inaccessible transit, the dignity lost when buildings weren't built for their body. The simulation doesn't tell them how to feel. The constraints create the experience. The understanding emerges.
This is the power of embodied emergence at population scale—grounded in decades of scientific research across biology, psychology, and environmental design. Whether experienced as entertainment, education, healthcare training, or research, the mechanism remains the same: authentic constraints create authentic understanding.
We envision a world where experiencing diverse realities drives empathy, reduces bias, and expands what's possible—not through persuasion, but through being.
Ever wonder what it's like to be...?
Let's find out.
Empathy fatigue is real. Misinformation spreads faster than understanding. The science has advanced—but remains locked in academic journals.
We make that science viscerally available. Not through lectures, but through lived experience.
MUSE sits at an intersection: where scientific modeling meets creative experience. MUSE is just as much about subjective experience as it is grounded reality.
We're not replacing novels. Novels offer curated authorial vision. MUSE offers emergent biological simulation. Different experiences. Different values. Complementary, not competitive.
We're creating a new medium—simulated embodied experience—where users explore lived experience through authentic emergence.
Entertainment is the primary medium through which MUSE reaches scale. The same mechanisms that make stories compelling—agency, consequence, embodiment—are what make perspective-taking inevitable. From this foundation, the platform extends naturally into education, healthcare, and research. The evidence is hard to ignore.
Immersive interactive narratives where psychological authenticity creates unprecedented engagement and emotional depth.
Empathy-driven literacy, history, and social studies experiences that make perspective-taking a natural outcome of participation.
Patient perspective simulations for providers, building empathic understanding of chronic illness, disability, aging, and mental health.
Experimental platforms for studying perspective-taking, social cognition, and behavior—plus population-level studies in epidemiology, anthropology, social sciences, and policy analysis.
If you believe in building understanding through experience, we want to connect. Reach out to explore how we might work together.
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