My capstone grows from a rupture in how I understood the world. I didn’t begin with a theory about design, ecology, or the metaverse—only a quiet dissatisfaction with the curated, human-centered reality I had been taught to accept. As I read AI theory and began recognizing machine intelligence in forms that defied linear, Western notions of rationality, I realized how narrow my frame of reference had been. If I could acknowledge AI as a legitimate intelligence, why couldn’t I extend that same recognition to the living ecologies that predate us? This reframed the human-centered narrative as not a universal truth, but a recent cultural artifact—one that shapes how we design systems, measure progress, and determine whose agency “counts.”

This realization led me to my capstone direction: exploring how metaverse design can either reinforce or rupture this narrative. In digital worlds, nature exists only when coded, seasons only when scheduled, and animals only when they serve the user—making the metaverse one of the purest exports of Western control. My research asks how we might design virtual ecosystems that reintroduce unpredictability, autonomy, and more-than-human ways of relating. How can digital worlds honor cosmologies that see nature as intelligent and self-directed rather than decorative? Where is the line between constraints that invite reflection and those that threaten player autonomy? Ultimately, my capstone investigates how metaverse design might help us practice a different relationship with the living world—not by escaping reality, but by learning how to enter it again.