Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
Relationships are coevolutionary loops (2023) (henrikkarlsson.xyz)
160 points by walterbell on July 23, 2024 | hide | past | favorite | 112 comments


This is so important and underrated in life.

> "This is what I infer when I see someone who is comfortable in their unique strangeness, too. There probably exists someone who enabled that evolution of personality. A parent, a friend group, a spouse. It is rare for people to come into themselves if no one is excited and curious about their core, their potential. We need someone who gives us space to unfold."


After a divorce, I met my soulmate. We're both weird and silly together, and together we discovered that we're both people with autism.

We've stopped masking around each other, and we both support each other's growth in self understanding.

The passage quoted in the parent comment really resonated with us both. We both know we're incredibly lucky and privileged to have found each other.


Same, I have approached more than a 10000 women to find her. In the grand scheme of things, fearing rejection is silly. Every time rejection was painful, never fully got over it, but the journey was fun nonetheless and in the end so worth it


Around what age did you divorce, and what age did you meet this person?


Married at 25, divorced at 35, met my new wife about 6 months later.


Thats quick! Lucky you :)


heh, thank you!

We actually got married on the 10th anniversary of our first date :)

We had known of each other online for a couple of years, but hadn't interacted much. She was going through a nasty divorce, so I offered some support. We'd known that we were somewhat alike just by being on the same site, so we had a baseline of common views to start from.


This is a very powerful concept, but people don't trust in it as much as they used to, because our culture has become hostile to it.

Sexual promiscuity is counter to it. This level of fine detail requires a culture of commiting to a specific individual rather than a quantifiable generic gain.

School is counter to it. It wants to shoehorn people into a specific definition of achievement.

Internet is counter to it. The internet creates a top 5% winner takes all format of personal value to others.

Government is hostile to it. If you fail to reproduce, they'll replace you more than twice over anyway with immigrants from cultures which aren't as broken.

It's unfortunate people have become so hostile to each other, almost reducing society to a me (predator) vs others (prey) situation.


Having lived in Germany for about 10 years (I'm Australian) I found their attitudes to most things more mature than ether Australia or what is portrayed in American media. Europeans always seem to step back, try to find a compromise and ideally mutual benefit. Asian cultures have also quite different again. I found the refreshing thing about 'Spirited Away', the animation, is the character arc for the "adversarial" characters which was they are like that because of pain, lets understand them, and then help them thought it and grow together. Whereas in American content it predominantly seems to be they are just "bad" so if they beat us just get a bigger gun and that will solve that/all problems. Always zero-sum games with shallow looks into who people are any why they are like that. Its almost like the dog-eat-dog spirit of the wild west is still prevalent somehow...? You see this played out in American politics too. No attempts at compromise or understanding, opposition must be annihilated, no middle ground.


Yep, narcissism 101, any conflict is to be remedied by increasing force on the other side until they're defeated.


>It's unfortunate people have become so hostile to each other, almost reducing society to a me (predator) vs others (prey) situation.

This stems from the same increasing winner takes all format that it is not only predating the internet but many other environments as well. Inequality is another factor in the equation. When you don't have a social net, it's a winner takes all/ everyone against everyone/last man standing situation..

It is sad. But I wonder if this is the average human, in its sedentary way of living as it has been for the last 14k years approx, situation. And what we've lived the last 60~ years was just an anomaly product of the huge and numerous industrial revolution benefits and advancements.


You're right about the Internet. But being promiscuous and not having children is what I want for myself, at least for this year


[EDIT: might be relevant to AI safety

https://eschwitz.substack.com/p/strange-intelligence-strange...

> It might even, sometimes, strike us as remarkably, foolishly wrong. ]

DOUBLE THIS! From time to time, some person I've just met would either assume I have no friends, OR wildly popular. Although both untrue, I never try to correct them, though it does kinda tickle me in a weird way.

The truth is what you just said above (though it's more like a quasicommunity than a friend group -- the difference, I surmise, being that a quasicommunity still has potential for coevolution).

I'm also guessing that if you integrate the opinions of strangers, it converges towards a correct label of strangeness.


The inverse seems true. I'm someone that was essentially socially isolated until college and neglected broadly the entire time. I am hyper aware of what I need to do to blend in. I hate being acknowledged or praised and I really do not like attention. Essentially, I feel zero security in myself and have no idea who "I" am.


Humans are very good at pretending we are more than just biological machines acting according to genetically imposed network structure refined by lifetime history of training inputs.


Nerds are good at pretending they understand everything by way of reductionist metaphors.


I prefer mimicry of understanding attempts to defensive aggression against anything new and "threatening". One has the chance to develop into actually understanding, given time


I don’t even know what you are talking about.

Both of our comments are equally aggressive since I mimicked the delivery.

> to defensive aggression against anything new and "threatening".

What’s new. You can take this back to Cartesian Dualism (or further) where animals where just “machines”. Same thing: oh we have these levers that we’ve made and understand, huh I guess rabbits and storks work the same because why not?


He's above us because he could reduce human life beneath his sophisticated sentence. Maybe nerd is a type of narcissism.


Do you feel attacked? Nobody is above anyone. Seems like that's your defensiveness reading something between the lines which isn't implied.


Could just say "yeah what I said was nerdy" and call it a day.


You expect the person whom you just called an arrogant narcissist to agree with you? Good luck with that.


Fair point haha


They don't pretend they understand everything though, just as we do not "understand" everything about LLMs even though we know they run on electronic computer systems; some properties are simply emergent via structure, and the same properties can emerge via biological computers too, but again, to notice that fact does not mean we "pretend to understand."


All of the assumptions (and the metaphor) contained in that response of yours seems to contradict the statement itself.

By using “just” you’ve already asserted that there is nothing more of relative importance to figure out—it’s done, figured out.


These days "just" is a huge red flag for me. It's saying "my thinking stops here, yours should too".


Yes, by using "just," it is a thought terminating word. However, again, I do believe we have it figured out, based on how we understand the rest of the universe to be physically-based as well. It is, in my experience, human arrogance that leads us to believe that we are somehow more than physical structures. It makes people feel uneasy to believe that so they invent something to solve that cognitive dissonance.


The relevant comparison isn’t to people who think we are “more than physical structures”. It is to people who are a bit humbled by the complexity of the world and how when you seem to learn something new about it, ten more questions pop up. Which must be a forced attitude that some scientists have.

Contrast that with the arrogance of creating a neural network in your garage and thinking to yourself: “well I guess as a side-effect of this all of existence makes sense now.”


None of that relates to what I said though. Physicalists do continue to do research of the natural world, in fact, that is actually what drives them more toward physicalism! I think you are arguing a strawman, since no one said anything about being arrogant.


> None of that relates to what I said though. Physicalists do continue to do research of the natural world,

If they do research and this viewpoint works for them then who am I to judge.

I’m more used to this viewpoint being presented when someone who doesn’t work in some area expresses some opinion (hot take) on it. That could be a physicist expressing an opinion on cognitive science e.g. (whatever cognitive science is about).

> Physicalists do continue to do research of the natural world, in fact, that is actually what drives them more toward physicalism!

I don’t understand what physicalism is supposed to be about[1] beyond explicitly denying God-of-the-gaps.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsLOVYTLt90

> I think you are arguing a strawman, since no one said anything about being arrogant.

Just like no one identified themselves as being arrogant because they believe that they are more than physical structures. Or even claimed that they believe that they are more than physical structures. (The reductionists will often barge in an identify anyone who disagrees with their opinion as someone who believes in the supra-physical, based on nothing.)


> I’m more used to this viewpoint being presented when someone who doesn’t work in some area expresses some opinion (hot take) on it. That could be a physicist expressing an opinion on cognitive science e.g. (whatever cognitive science is about).

Seems like your comments are responding to a point in your head without anyone expressing such points. No one here is like the physicist in your example, so I am not even sure against whom you are arguing here.


> Seems like your comments are responding to a point in your head without anyone expressing such points.

Again I urge the reductionists[1] to look in the mirror.

> No one here is like the physicist in your example, so I am not even sure against whom you are arguing here.

Unless the original poster is a relevant expert like a biologist[2] the point stands.

You already agreed that it is thought-terminating—and justifiably so. I don’t get why you are still here.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41054500

[2] Or could range all the way to a psychologist because it’s a pretty broad topic.


No, they don't need to be a biologist to understand the current situation of physicalism versus dualism. Physicalism is extremely well established in the literature as compared to dualism, of which there is barely if any evidence. You are looking for a philosopher of the mind, not actually a biologist, who can speak on these issues, as biologists and indeed scientists in general are not philosophers, while the debate is philosophical in nature.


This physicalism/dualism obsession is besides the point.


No? It is exactly what is being argued in this thread. If you have a different point to make, I'm not sure why you engaged in this specific thread, as there are many others that talk about the specifics of the article itself.


If you assert so. I have no interest in this supposed physicalism/dualism split since that’s a dead debate, at least as far this forum is concerned.[1] My pet-peeve was about the part about having understood everything, supposedly.[2]

And if the point is so narrow as to be about Free Will then I don’t know why people are being coy and talking about input-output machines, washing machines and whatever. Just say that Free Will is not real. Then you get 70% less pushback.

[1] No one here is going to argue for Cartesian Dualism. So the only way that it will come up as a supposedly “live” belief is if someone else accuses them of being a crypto-cartesian because of whatever reasons…

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41055373


Well, it looks like you are in the wrong output then. That is not what most people here believe.


Sure some people believe that, but there’s still an interesting and worthwhile path of inquiry along the lines of: “it’s remarkable how such fundamentally simple systems can generate such profoundly complex and varied structures.”

The discovery of evolution in nature, for example, could be seen (and was seen by Darwin as) an increase in the wonder and awe we can find in the world.


See my other comment, I don't deny that. By "figured it out," I mean that the general principle of physicalism versus dualism seems empirically established based on all of the tests we've done in cognitive biology. That is not to say that the general theory cannot be improved via further research.


You have superb skills in leveraging often hard to spot ambiguity the English language offers, I think you would excel in sales of most any product, truth included.


Thanks, indeed I do do sales, for SaaS specifically, my own as well as for others.


Got it, yeah I think we're in the same boat here. It's clearly physical, and yet that ought to be the beginning, not the end of inquiry.

Dualism is probably one of the most intellectually destructive ideas we've managed to come up with.


Yes, and I really think it stems from religious biases, of wanting to think ourselves as being a soul inhabiting a body instead of being the body in itself. There's a reason why Descartes was one of the prime motivators of dualism.


> biological computers

Using that as a metaphor is telling in itself, as we're far from being (just) "biological computers".


> as we're far from being (just) "biological computers".

What part is? Or rather, how can you show that we are not? Note that I use "computer" in the general sense, that which computes, by taking in input and emitting output.


Start with the work of Heinz von Foerster and his Biological Computer Laboratory, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_Computer_Laboratory

> The focus of research at BCL was systems theory and specifically the area of self-organizing systems, bionics, and bio-inspired computing; that is, analyzing, formalizing, and implementing biological processes using computers. BCL was inspired by the ideas of Warren McCulloch and the Macy Conferences, as well as many other thinkers in the field of cybernetics.

1969 zine from BCL students, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34825918

2003 essay collection, "Understanding Understanding", http://www.alice.id.tue.nl/references/foerster-2003.pdf

  In the late 1940s a group of people had begun meeting every year in New York under the auspices of the Josiah Macy Foundation to discuss “circular causal and feedback mechanisms” .. The group included Norbert Wiener, who had coined the term “cybernetics”; Claude Shannon, the inventor of information theory; Warren McCullough, one of the leading neuropsychiatrists—he called himself an “experimental epistemologist”; Gregory Bateson, the philosopher and anthropologist; his wife Margaret Mead, the anthropologist who made Samoa famous; John von Neuman, one of the people who started the computer revolution..


This seems the opposite of what I'm asking. I am not asking how biological processes can be modeled by silicon based computers, I am asking in the general sense how one cannot say that biological machines compute just as silicon based computers do.


In that vein you can also ask lots of similar things, as in, why we're not refrigerators, or washing machines, or any other inanimate objects which carry out some mechanical-related stuff.

Trying to come up with a compelling reason for why we're not "biological computers" (and this "trying" in itself is half-giving away of one's point in this types of discussions) would involve long discussions going all the way back to the French Enlightenment and the likes of La Mettrie, not sure any online discussion would get to the end of it.


Sure, those all compute as well, hence are computers and therefore fall within my question. Just because one is only familiar with silicon based computers does not mean that that which takes in input and emits output by other means is not itself a sort of computer. That is in fact part of my question, as, why biological systems are not given the same scrutiny.

This is part of why I don't see any compelling evidence why we are not biological computers, much as it pains people to admit so.


You can say it (and if you use language persuasively, and repeat it often enough, you can even cause it to appear to be true [1], the effects of which can usually be seen in any thread like this), but you cannot say it soundly (known to be necessarily conclusive):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_and_sufficiency

Plus, there are identifiable differences (disproving the "just as"): LLM's can reliably acknowledge epistemic unsoundness in their prior claims without aversion and rhetoric.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect


Your links do not support your conclusions (actually, I don't believe there are any in your comment). Yes, while you can repeat something often enough for it to appear true, it may not actually be true; this is a vacuous statement that does not need to be stated. My comment about LLMs are generally analogistic, they are not meant to be taken concretely on current implementations.

You have not actually answered my question however, your comment is a deflection of what I'm asking, so I will ask again, why are biological beings not considered computational? They do the same thing a general computer can do. And again, by "computer," I do not necessarily mean silicon-based, Von Neumann architecture computers.


> Your links do not support your conclusions (actually, I don't believe there are any in your comment).

1. What a strange comment.

2. They do support my answer to your question: "how one cannot say that biological machines compute "just as"(!) silicon based computers do"

> Yes, while you can repeat something often enough for it to appear true, it may not actually be true; this is a vacuous statement that does not need to be stated

It is directly related to your question, and the underlying phenomenon: human belief (more popularly known as: truth, the reality, etc).

> You have not actually answered my question however, your comment is a deflection of what I'm asking, so I will ask again, why are biological beings not considered computational?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41056319

"I am asking in the general sense how one cannot say that biological machines compute just as silicon based computers do."

That is the question I answered.

As for "Why are biological beings not considered computational?"

Well, consciousness (which implements "considering") is not understood, so it is unknown. But as my last link above describes, instances of can be made to function certain ways simply by good story telling. So in this case, maybe some chunk of the whole have heard that they are not computational.

> They do the same thing a general computer can do.

The ambiguity and misinformative of English (as we (or at least I) see here) is why I linked to Set Theory. Do you see the relevance?


> This seems

If you're going to casually dismiss twenty years of funded research on the topic you asked about, then this is a self-regulating thread.

https://constructivist.info/riegler/pub/riegler05foerster.ht...

> Artificial neural networks were one of the “hot” topics at the BCL. They combine engineering.. and empirical science.. As early as in 1960, the BCL developed a neural network prototype called “Numa-Rete,” which could count objects irrespective of their shape and size.

https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=12098476

  The reductionist eventually comes to know everything about nothing (by way of distinction) - the wholist eventually comes to know nothing about everything (by way of generalization).


> If you're going to casually dismiss twenty years of funded research on the topic you asked about, then this is a self-regulating thread.

Again you misunderstand what I am asking for. There is no use in me asking for the color blue and you talking about the color red, then when I say, I am asking about blue, you tell me that there has been 20 years of research on red. That may be true but that is not what I am asking about.


This is an HN thread about co-evolutionary feedback loops. You can start a new thread on your topic of interest.

Multiple, independent responses to your "question" have said almost the same thing. Good luck finding different answers.

If you want to move the conversation forward in your new thread, you can offer evidence of a positive claim, instead of asking others to provide evidence of a negative claim.


And your 18th century equivalent would have said the same using a mechanical metaphor using gears and sprockets.

Chances are you are both equally wrong.


What makes you believe it is wrong? Can you construct an argument which does not require the existence of a supernatural "divine"?

If you presuppose such things exist, of course we reach different conclusions.


No. I just don't think using the current hot technology as a metaphor for human behavior is as smart of an idea as some think it is. In fact I think it displays the opposite of what is necessary to reach actual artificial intelligence.


You are arguing different points. Just because we use different metaphors over time does not mean the core analogy does not hold. Mainly, systems that intake input and emit output, whether they be in the form of silicon based computers, steam powered machines, etc, seem quite similar to biological machines that also take in input and emit output. Unless you can show that there is some outside process between the intaking of input and emitting of output, physicalism is the most definite and empirically supported conclusion; when I remove part of someone's brain, I can predict with high accuracy how they will behave.


> You are arguing different points. Just because we use different metaphors over time does not mean the core analogy does not hold. Mainly, systems that intake input and emit output, whether they be in the form of silicon based computers, steam powered machines, etc, seem quite similar to biological machines that also take in input and emit output.

And what part of that do people like to pretend is not the case (see OP)? That we have senses and that we act on sense information?

If input-output is the only message here then it’s a boring and obvious one.


> If input-output is the only message here then it’s a boring and obvious one.

Not really. Most people do not even believe this to be the case, hence my comments. They are thoroughly convinced that they are not machines like stated above whatsoever.


See, now we are getting to the interesting core of the whole thing, a core argument which was masked by a somewhat trendy metaphor.

Which is precisely why I dislike them.

The core argument is one about the non-existence of free will and one many people reject as you were right to point out. The reasons vary from personal discomfort with the idea of not being in control, over religious ideas of souls, to basically falling for the illusion and defending it.

The more interesting question about determinism is in which way it is deterministic? Like the movement of the planets? Like the weather? Or like brownian motion? Probably a mix of all of those, but what mix?

And if everything is an input and output and any slight variation throws of the long term development of the system, there would be no way to test that theory with two separate human entities and no way to make accurate predictions on long time scales, which makes the whole point kinda moot.


> The more interesting question about determinism is in which way it is deterministic? Like the movement of the planets? Like the weather? Or like brownian motion? Probably a mix of all of those, but what mix?

Yes, as I stated, if you follow philosophers of the mind, they cover all of these aspects and more. It is hard for me to go in depth without rehashing their arguments so I will invite you to study them.

> there would be no way to test that theory with two separate human entities and no way to make accurate predictions on long time scales, which makes the whole point kinda moot.

Just because this is the case does not make it untrue. There are lots of things we cannot fully test with certainty (in the Locke epistemology sense) that we nevertheless assume to be true. This may or may not be one of these cases, but it does not make it "moot."


The terms used to describe the modern technology are derived from early neuroscience going back to the late 19th century. Our understanding of how biological neural networks operate lead to this conclusion. Not the other way around.


A fact which hopefully most people are aware of. I did not question that.


In a reductive way we're just that, the actual human part of it comes from the many loops this machine runs on to create emerging behaviour.

You could be even more reductive and just say we are chemical machines, or an agglomeration of molecules. Or that even the whole Universe is just a soup of vibrating energy. They aren't untrue but the reduction to such statements don't capture what emerges from.


That's too reductionist to be an useful model. Humans are extremely complex systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system . You're describing them more like a complicated system.


You could believe that, and it might even be true, but it's no way to live your life.


One does not imply the other. Just because they say the above does not mean they actually live their life like that.


I'm not sure deflationary statements like this are "beliefs", rather defence mechanisms to truncate further difficult thought.

The article has some extraordinary demands; radical openness, reflective practice, co-evolution, mentalisation... all things you'd associate with high emotional intelligence and hard inner work.

Some people just aren't up to that. Maybe we need to be able to say "that's okay". Humanists need not feel threatened by reductionists any more than reductionists need feel upset there is a bigger world "outside the test-tube".

Perhaps we should focus more on why some life-stances expressed by others feel uncomfortable for us.


Actually it's quite the opposite, I've seen people who cannot accept that they are biological machines start inventing new and novel reasons for their existence, such as beliefs and religions, even though empirically physicalism is the logical conclusion. This really has nothing to do with the article though, it could've been about any topic regarding humans and their beliefs and we would've likely still had a comment like the grandparent.


The discourse marker “actually” seems to signal a counter-argument, but your reply does not counter that speculation/claim; that people in the other camp—there are of course two camps, we’re good dualists after all—act with deflection using religion or whatever says nothing about what the motivations for the other camp are. They could both have twisted motivations.

Of course the downvoted comment is just speculation about people’s inner life and motivation. Just like the claim that it might

> [pain] people to admit

to your viewpoint is. Or “I really think it stems from religious biases”.


It's not a counter argument, it is a perspective from the other position while offering evidence towards the main argument that one should examine where they are getting their beliefs from.


I think it is interesting that you are imposing a value judgment on the humanist spiritual belief being better than the "reductionist" one through your adjective usage. It is perfectly possible to live well and enjoy life knowing that you are fundamentally not different than any other object in nature. No higher divinity required.


Could we not say that if science is exploration a scientist is kinda honour-bound to investigate everything that "is the case" [0], every corner of life, and incorporate that into his/her model of whatever they're working on?

What makes life enjoyable for me is exploring it so I've not found a dichotomy between a "humanist spiritual belief" and a "reductionist one". That's a smouldering flame war that started half a millennium back between Copernicus, Galileo and the church. May I suggest a cool read is "The Two Cultures." by C. P. Snow [1]. Snow thinks, as I do, that this artificial split holds humanity back. Albert Einstein is also a great study to get into this groove.

If I am objecting to anything (not sure if I am really) it is the strident certainty with which some who have explored part of the territory declare that there is nothing more to see. That applies to either side. Maybe there's stuff that would make the material facts of physics and biology that much more wonderful and enjoyable to behold.

[0] "The world is all that is the case" - Wittgenstein

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures


Agreed, as a staunch physicalist [0]. As well, I don't think people need anyone else to grow into their own, unless they've been socially (or perhaps even physically) repressed. None of the people I know who are eccentric have really been molded that way by others per se, it was an inherent personality that came out because of precisely the opposite, they simply didn't give a shit what anyone else thought.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism


> it was an inherent personality that came out because of precisely the opposite, they simply didn't give a shit what anyone else thought.

A possible missing step here. While maybe true for some, many of (the few) eccentric types I know grew up bullied or ostracized in some small ways and after repeated failings to "fit in" or please others expectations said f-this and embraced themselves. It still came about from others, but in a not so pleasant way


Hence

> unless they've been socially (or perhaps even physically) repressed


I took repressed to mean a far greater extent than typical school yard bullying I meant to convey


Repression comes in many levels. It does not mean to be psychologically beat down until one is a shell of a person (and indeed, even typical schoolyard bullying can create such an effect in certain individuals).


You might have existential imposter syndrome.


Your illusion of higher purpose is part of the very same evolutionary loop ;)


The evolutionary illusion of a loop is part of the very same higher purpose :P


This is why much of the advice online pundits give on how to "get a woman" is so misguided — because it usually is advice on "in which Bretzel do I need to twist myself in order to make woman like me".

The issue with that advice is, that once you found a woman that likes that Bretzel, you can't know whether she liked the Bretzel or the person behind the Bretzel. Even better if she twisted herself into a Bretzel to make you like her. Good luck with that then.

The only good relationship advice I can give is to be honest to yourself, train to listen and empathize and put yourself into situations where you get to know people in situations where they don't have to twist themselves into Bretzels


> "in which Bretzel do I need to twist myself in order to make woman like me"

Much of it is even worse than that - it's oriented towards people who want to get a woman in order to impress other men. The Andrew Tate school. The woman in this is a trophy. Unsurprisingly women are wise to this and want nothing to do with it.

Once you see that, suddenly the contradiction of a womanizer who hates women makes sense.


These were the crucial bits for me:

> "Sundays are for listing everything that went wrong during the week on the blackboard we painted on the wall of my study, so we can figure out what needs to change."

and

> "I liked to think about our life as a piece of software. We had our routines and our principles, this was the code. We ran the code by living it. The list on the blackboard was the bug log, a record of the ways our routines broke down in contact with reality. We kept going through the code until our life did what we wanted it to do, more or less."

Love the idea of bug log/dev cycle as a metaphor to use for improving relationships.


My ex and I used to do this. Every month we'd plan out the next few months from dates/appointments, incorporating things we had to do, and things we wanted to do.

And every month, we'd sift through the previous month, bump ahead tasks that were missed, discuss tasks that had been bumped repeatedly, and - most importantly - reflect on the last month's achievements together.

As an aside, we would also every year make a printed photo album, sifting through all the photos we'd made that year.

It was sometimes tough and gruelling work, but it really brought us together, and my eyes are wet just thinking of how we really grew together.


not to pry into Your privacy too much, but reading this kinda makes me wonder how come You're now exes. Without it the comment reads lie a piece of evidence for this iterative approach working out fairly well.


I wonder too sometimes, there was a strong love between us. I thought that would be enough, but somehow it wasn't for me.

Reading the article really helped highlight some failings:

>The type of person I’m assuming we’re looking for here is 1) someone that you will find fascinating to talk to after you’ve talked for 20,000 hours, 2) you feel comfortable with them talking through the hardest and most painful decisions you will face in your life, and 3) the conversation is wildly generative for both of you, in that it brings you out, helps you become.

With my Ex, we were great at (2), but (1) and (3) were lacking and we'd resort to friends and colleagues to get that feedback.


There’s nothing more boring than someone who explains everything according to their passion-hobby or work.

- Programmer: my life is a program

- Marathoner: you know, life is like a great long race...


You know, writing a recursive descent parser is very much like making love to a beautiful woman... [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Toni


Not introspecting at all might be more boring.

Besides, I enjoy a good metaphor like a pitbull enjoys mauling


> Not introspecting at all might be more boring.

Because that’s the relevant takeaway.


As both a programmer and a marathoner my life is a program in which I'm constantly either in or preparing for a great long race. I wish this was a joke.


I wish that too.


Works as long as you don't think too deeply about why exactly you're doing that.


as is with most thing


Thanks to globalization people have more choice in the environments they live in and change environments with much more ease than in the past. While talking about relationships the focus naturally goes to individuals, it should be recognized that growth in relationships on top of ever changing environments gets much more tricky.

Transport, Communication, Finance, Info networks have all changed drastically from the past.

And the sociologists have been pointing that out for a long time now. Check out

Zygmunt Bauman's Liquid Modernity.

Beck's Normal Chaos of Love

Works of Judith Stacey

Its a complex ever changing world out there. Coevolution requires a bit of stablity in the environments. Focus should not just be on what individuals are doing for each other but on how they shape the environment around them in ways that makes such things more possible.


I think globalization is on average a good thing (and probably the only way we survive long-term, but that's another discussion) - but indeed, we have lost some things in the transition, namely stable communities. For a long time, these were provided by our family, our local community, a church, etc. Now, we have much more freedom in our choices of communities (i.e., one might leave an abusive family) which is generally a good thing, but without replacing those communities, it's difficult to grow as a person. Not to mention the myriad other social problems that arise from this - a lack of community to care for the elderly, generations who don't know how to develop real relationships, and the loneliness that comes from that, etc...


I like the co-evolution framing but the listing of faults on the whiteboard reminded me of https://xkcd.com/523/


I think if you have enough problems to list them on a weekly basis, your relationship is probably in trouble

I feel like healthy relationships don't have a rate of a problem or more per week


Exactly. I started writing a list to give to my partner and as soon as the pen hit the paper I went "Shit. If I have to do this, it's already over."

Relationships do require some amount of work. But if you have to make a white board and "write a program" like someone above referenced, that ain't it. We all have different tolerances but if you're writing software to keep your relationship together, you need to reflect on why it's necessary in the first place.


> I feel like healthy relationships don't have a rate of a problem or more per week

Problems are much quicker and easier to resolve when they’re fresh and small than after you let them simmer into deep resentment.

“Hey when you left that empty can on the coffee table on Friday, it made me feel like you don’t care about our shared space”

vs

“You always leave shit everywhere and I’m sick and tired of looking at your mess”


Bringing up issues is fine

If you have so many issues you need to bring them up on a weekly basis? Less fine.

Yes, relationships require work, communication and maintenance but issues coming up that frequently would be a sure sign that something is dysfunctional imo

Edit: And similarly, like another commenter pointed out, treating it like a weekly task that needs to be done does seem like it would invite nit picking. Deliberately seeking out problems just to have something to talk about at the weekly retrospective

There are a lot of things that my wife does that I don't like, but unless I actually have a reason beyond "that is mildly annoying to me" I don't usually ask her to stop.

Part of relationships is also just learning to let the small things go.


Isn't the rate that is “trouble” up to the couple? I can imagine a really compat couple who trust one another bringing up a dozen small things, and each hearing them with humility. If they're both the sorta ppl who really want to “get” their partner, that could be them discovering the boundary between selves in higher and higher resolution

I dunno, lots of ppl in the thread seem to dislike the idea, but I don’t think theres a universal healthy/unhealthy line. It’s seemingly just a matter of taste and synchrony between partners :)


> I don’t think theres a universal healthy/unhealthy line. It’s seemingly just a matter of taste and synchrony between partners

I don't think there's a universal line but I also don't think that this is necessarily "up to the couple"

A lot of couples are miserable together. There are abusive relationships where the person being abused will try and convince everyone around them (including themselves) that everything is fine. Some couples have frequent screaming matches in public. I think it's reasonable for people on the outside to call that unhealthy behavior regardless of how normal the couple thinks it is

The same goes for this. I'm not saying that I think there is absolutely no way this sort of scheduled "weekly retro" can work. I don't think it sounds very healthy though.


I like how the xkcd seems to frame it: seeking out problems to list can cause insignificant problems to seem significant. It's how "writer's mind" can be a problem in deepening a meditation practice.


Curious: What does "writer's mind" mean with respect to deepening meditation practice?


The mind of someone who is seeking things to write about, thus setting up new forms of craving and ego-gratification, misunderstanding transient experiences and insights to be significant milestones or fitting them into concepts that are constrained by one's ability to express them in language.


This was such a fun read! A sweet blend of poetry, anecdote, and Relational Ontology. Or maybe even Dialogical Philosophy?!

The themes, such as "Two truths approach each other. One comes from inside, the other from outside" remind me greatly of other great reads:

- Martin Buber's "I-Thou" relationship emphasizes genuine, reciprocal interactions, where the self becomes fully realized through mutual presence and connection with the other. See: I and Thou (1923)

- Hegel's concept of recognition (Anerkennung) highlights that self-consciousness and identity are developed through a dialectical process of mutual acknowledgment between self and other. See: Phenomenology of Spirit (1807)

Leaving this here for those interested in these concepts


I'm sorry, but wtf? Doesn't coevolution imply two different species? Is coevolution an allegory to help understand relationship dynamics? We are butterflies trying to tongue the pollen out of the long lily stem of our partners?


Beautiful.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: