Discussing: Reciprocal Realization (On simplicity #4)
You’re invited to the next online discussion about simplicity on Thursday, 9th May 2024.
Next Thursday, 9th May 2024, we are going to discuss reciprocal realization, the topic of several posts on here (more about that below), but the main one for our discussion will be the fourth article in the On simplicity series:
As always, no need to be familiar with the whole series and no need to have attended previous online discussions. If you have thoughts and opinions after reading my take, please come and join us!
Demystifying reciprocal realization
In a discussion series about simplicity, “reciprocal realization” sticks out as a somewhat unwieldy and perhaps unnecessary complicated term. I have to admit that “reciprocal realization” is academic jargon that probably puts a lot of people off. Let’s disassemble it and see why it’s hard to find a simpler term that captures all the meaning without being more confusing.
Being mode
It first shows up in Mirror of the Self 08 • Existential modes. It’s essential to the Being mode, and characterized by John Vervaeke as a “relationship of mutual development, mutual realization” that leads to personal growth, ideally for both participants in that relationship.
Reciprocal realization means that you are engaged in a being need. You are not relating categorically (as you would in the having mode), treating everything as functional, results-oriented, merely transacting to achieve goals. This is deeper, this is unique; you are relating expressively to another being, open to integrate their responses.
This is special, this is tied to you, personally; you are creating a particular kind of meaning for your existence. You are trying to become something, and you are trying to afford them all of these things as well. You are partners. If it works out, you feel like you belong together. John’s example is a romantic relationship between two human beings. Another word for reciprocal realization, as he suggests, is love.
It’s mutual, it works both ways, it’s reciprocal. It’s about disclosing more about yourself, as they disclose more about themselves. You learn more about them, as they learn more about you.
It’s a kind of realization, in both meanings of the word — noticing and making real. Mutual adaptation. And it’s happening in a process that unfolds over time. A feedback loop towards better fit, adaptation, belonging.
That’s all encoded in these two words: reciprocal realization. It’s a technical term that — once you are familiar with it — reminds you of the three most important aspects of it: mutual adaptation in a feedback loop towards belonging.
Living process
In the same article, I make the connection to Christopher Alexander’s living process. Alexander, of course, talks about a relationship with a place, and in particular about our relationship as designers and builders with the place we change. How we respect the uniqueness of a place that is adapted to its environment and us, and how its adaptation — as we progressively discover and further shape it — makes it lovable, and makes us feel like we belong there.
The place respects us, through its adaptation. And we respect it in return, becoming more familiar with and — as architects or designers of that space — adapt it even further. Alexander’s living process, too, is a feedback process of mutual adaptation, of reciprocal realization. It seems obvious to me that John and Christopher talk about the exact same concept, even though they come from different backgrounds, use completely different words and completely different examples.
I return to this connection between Alexander and Vervaeke in the second part of my presentation Finding Meaning in The Nature of Order:
I’d say that we could re-interpret parts of the fundamental process that Alexander talks about as participating in a being-mode relationship with our environment, where we grow together through reciprocal realization, becoming more and more unique and meaningful to each other, such that we start to feel deep belonging.
We’re almost talking about making already…
Yes, we are. This is a kind of making that is deeply rooted in this relationship of wanting to grow together towards deep belonging, making something special, something unique, something lovable. This is quite different from making something for money, or for attention, or “for the algorithm”.
From tools to environments
I get a little more specific about how this may apply to software in From tools to evironments:
A good environment gives us agency. It empowers us to explore, discover, change, and shape it. It will support our agency, and the more agency we have in this place, the more comfortable we feel there, the more we feel that we belong here. As we discover its preferred ways of doing things, it will also graciously adapt to our preferred ways of doing things. But if we want to or not, even a good environment will have an impact on us. We are in a feedback loop of reciprocal realization with it, whether we are aware of it or not, and whether we want to be or not. We are in a fairly close being mode relationship with it.
The whole idea of that article can be summarized as: Tools represent function, in a transactional, replaceable, categorical, having mode kind of way. You adapt to them, you figure out how to use them, but that’s pretty much it. There is no mutual adaptation, no reciprocal realization. Your agency is limited to your skill, and to choosing another tool.
And if that sounds like a business opportunity to you, you understand most of the “success” behind app ecosystems. Those who pour their hearts into crafting lovable environments get lost in an avalanche of quickly fabricated rigid tools that primarily exist to capture your disposable income and attention. And that’s the situation before AI.
Environments carry at least a portion of livability, discoverability, adaptability, and potential belonging within them — all the ingredients for a feedback loop of mutual adaptation. And they work both ways, not just in the “if it doesn’t work for you pick a different tool” kind of way.
What happens if we mentally shift from thinking about tools to thinking about environments — from owning and using a replaceable product to living in and growing with a place that reciprocates our own development by adapting to us as we progressively realize its potential?
From building to generating
At the very end of To build or not to build I suggest personal knowledge management systems like digital gardens as one example for such an environment that ideally grows with us:
Another example for a generative process that feels closer to what we are after are modern note-taking approaches. When you curate your Zettelkasten or tend to your digital garden, you are continuously shaping a knowledge graph that grows and changes with you over time. That still doesn’t feel quite like sculpting clay, because you are still manipulating bits not atoms in a stereotypically analytical process. But at least you are living in your garden, not just formally describing one.
If we inhabit the environment we intend to change, we have the opportunity to engage in reciprocal realization with it — as we change the environment, it has the capability to change us. Hopefully, we grow together, each of us becoming better in (and through) the process.
Thinking of tools limits us to think about the results we want to achieve with them. Tools are productive. Environments can be both productive and generative. As we live in them, as we experiment, discover, play, new ideas emerge and lead us to new places. Places we haven’t been before. Places we weren’t necessarily planning to visit. But here we are, being inspired.
Development or growth in that sense is not a production process that aims for a particular result and structures everything else around that. Instead, it is a generative process that creates room for results to appear that we didn’t know how to aim for. They pop out of our process, eventually, they emerge from it. And these results may not always be what we were hoping for, but sometimes they turn out to be so much more than what we could’ve ever hoped for.
Reciprocal realization FTW! Let’s talk more about this next Thursday.
Mirror of the Self is a weekly newsletter series investigating the connection between creators and their creations, trying to understand the process of crafting beautiful objects, products, and art.
Using recent works of cognitive scientist John Vervaeke and design theorist Christopher Alexander, we embark on a journey to find out what enables us to create meaningful things that inspire awe and wonder in the people that know, use, and love them.
Series: Mirror of the Self • On simplicity… • Voices on software design
Presentations: Finding Meaning in The Nature of Order