Some terminologies for the uninitiated:

1. A dynamic hypergraph: A dynamic hypergraph is a type of data structure that can change over time, allowing for the addition or removal of vertices and hyperedges. A hypergraph is a generalization of a graph where an edge, called a hyperedge, can connect more than two vertices. In a dynamic hypergraph, changes can be made to the vertices and hyperedges while preserving the relationships between them.
2. Weight of a hyperedge: The weight of a hyperedge in a hypergraph is a numerical value that is assigned to a hyperedge to represent its importance or significance. The weight of a hyperedge can be used to indicate its strength, size, cost, distance, or any other relevant metric.
3. Instrument and terminal goals: Instrumental goals and terminal goals are two different types of goals that entities possess. Instrumental goals are intermediate steps to achieving a larger end goal or a terminal goal. These goals are focused on acquiring skills, resources, or knowledge that will be used to achieve the ultimate objective. Terminal goals, on the other hand, are the ultimate endpoints or final outcomes that people desire to achieve. Terminal goals are the end results that individuals aim to attain and reflect what they truly value and prioritize in life. In summary, instrumental goals are the steps towards a larger goal, while terminal goals are the final desired outcomes.

My definition of Love

Having cleared the air of any loaded terminology, I would now like to present my own definition of the L-word:

Love is a hyperedge in a dynamic hypergraph of entities (usually but not always 2) where this hyperedge is only formed when the goals of these entities are sufficiently aligned. These goals can be instrumental as well as terminal. When the terminal goals are strongly aligned, this relationship is thought of as true love.

L (love vector) = cosine_similarity(goal_vector_1, goal_vector_2, ….) # output truncated to [0, 1]

What is self-modeling and why is it necessary?

Self-modeling refers to the process by which a system, such as a human, develops an understanding of its own functioning and impact within its environment. This enables the system to improve its ability to predict its own behavior and the consequences of its actions. Self-modeling can involve acquiring knowledge about one’s own thought processes, emotions, beliefs, and behaviors, as well as their effects on others and the world around them.

Now the question is how does self-modeling happen? Fortunately for us humans, we have something called memory. When a system possesses memory and adept memory look-ups, it doesn’t need to rely solely on the gradients for learning anymore. You can think of these gradients akin to the signal Marco in the Marco Polo game! Self-modeling in a dynamic environment is a very computationally expensive task and there is a very high chance that there are no stable states for self-modeling in a dynamic system-environment setting.

In the context of humans, self-modeling is how we might get a peek at what are our goals on a longer time scale. On a short time scale, our brain sends us signals as to what our system requires (something like thirst, hunger, etc), these short-term signals may introduce noise for computing the learning gradients. Think about how it is tough for you to do any task if you are constantly hungry! Our motivational/attention model (consciousness) is what helps our perceptual (predictive) system resolve conflicts and learn when the perceptual system is stuck in a local minima (pain and suffering). Memory plays a pivotal role in self-modeling as the only information our system has is the index of memories (past data) and the current state (one might argue there is a positive time delay so whatever we have is the past). This recollection and awareness of past data is the key to optimizing our search (we don’t need to compute things that we already know, for example, we are able to recognize patterns and transfer the information from past experiences to the present situation quite fruitfully) and minimizes the dependency on a convex cost function.

I imagine the landscape of our cost optimization function to be extremely non-convex with an abundance of pockets of stability. When we are flung from these pockets of stability, this is what we mean by losing touch with reality or the need for being institutionalized because the model is no longer aiding the system. Phrases like, “I am losing my mind”, are so sticky for there is a good composition of truth in them. In the context of love, these pockets of stability become slightly harder to find as one is compelled to make changes in their model to serve the union much better.

Some thoughts on why we love

Love is a so-called non-transactional relationship where any of the entities are not necessarily expecting derivation of the fair value of their inputs into the system. This is where the alignment of goals comes into play: if the goals are aligned and you are aiding a different entity, it is also helping you, and it becomes a positive sum game. In this altruistic setting, all different forms of sensory and non-sensory inputs are excited for your efforts now become magnified beyond the scope of any of the entities. Pain and suffering are also related to love and for good reason too. When the model of the self is not mature enough, the goals are always convoluted (for example most humans never fully understand how their mind functions, and hence their model is not predictive enough, they never truly understand what their terminal goal is and hence it becomes very tough to concoct instrumental goals). When the perception of goals is convoluted we often tend to love some entity that is not what the system desires. Pain and suffering here act as the reinforcement signal to the system’s control /attention model (consciousness in humans) where a gradient is computed and some sort of learning is made in terms of self-modeling. Pain and suffering become instrumental to the development of a better self-model (for example you understand yourself much better after the failure of a relationship be it platonic or romantic). The exercise of non-transactional computation in the realm of love can often result in self-harm, however, the presence of love also acts as a skip connection, mitigating these negative outcomes to some extent. Love is inherently an extremely unstable and turbulent phenomenon. I proffer it is only so because self-modeling is also an extremely challenging task. Pair that with partial observability in every single interaction of with any sort of entity, and the problem of self-modeling is steeply exacerbated.

Love in the context of humans

Let’s try to plug this abstract definition into a more familiar setting. Let entities be humans, and let the scope of the hyperedge in the hypergraph of human relationships be two. The hypergraph in this context is simply a relation graph of all the humans in the locus of interest. The weight vector of the hyperedge would be the degree to how much two humans love each other. The weight assigned to each hyperedge represents the degree of love between two individuals, with a weight vector of magnitude 1 representing a Platonic ideal of true love and a weight vector of magnitude 0 indicating the absence of affection. The magnitude of the weight vector is a flavor of cosine similarity between two humans’ goals. The term goals is a multifaceted concept, encompassing a broad range of objectives that range from grand aspirations such as nurturing and raising children to more mundane tasks such as viewing a film or tending to one’s lawn in a specific manner. Phenomenons like couples start looking alike also fit into this definition of goal(s) alignment as both individuals are working towards the same set of ideas, similar decisions, and similar environments where their own development is complemented by each other’s non-transactional exchanges. When people have this epiphany of non-compatibility, phrases like you have changed so much make complete sense too because they most certainly have. Their self-model is nudged in a certain direction and their hyperedge weight vector’s magnitude falls below a certain threshold which is nothing but falling out of love. Over the course, the hypergraph is updated at each time step, and the updates are made as four events are constantly happening (in terms of two individuals, say A and B):
1. A learns more about themselves (Improvement in self-modeling)
2. B learns more about themselves (Improvement in self-modeling)
3. A learns more about B (Improvement in external modeling)
4. B learns more about A (Improvement in external modeling)
The four distinct learning processes continuously update the hypergraph by adjusting the weight vectors. However, it is important to note that these weight vector updates may not always be optimal due to the fact that there can never be a lossless, complete communication between individuals (partial observability) and the learning performed by individuals may not always be accurate. Given sufficient time and proper self-representation, the learning process leads to a clear consensus on the progression of love, whether it has grown stronger, weakened, or ended completely. The question of whether self-modeling is performed correctly and leads to improved self-representation can be easily addressed through experimentation with our updated model of self. If our ability to predict our own actions has improved, it serves as a clear indicator that our self-representation has indeed been enhanced. Despite the subjectivity inherent in postmodernism, the presence of a discriminative reinforcement signal, such as the pain response associated with touching a hot surface, provides a clear and objective measure of the brain’s ability to learn from experiences. This demonstrates that our intuition and perceptions about the feelings of others towards us are trustworthy to a significant extent. This trust is directly correlated to the degree of certainty of the self-model and inversely correlated to the number of conflicts in our state vector.

The love between more than two entities

Let’s try to explore when the hyperedge contains more than two entities. The love dynamic between two entities is certainly different when these entities are being influenced by more entities in their proximity. Basically, the shared love weight vector is adjusted by the influence of other entities in the scope. For example, platonic love is different when the scope of two individuals is expanded to envelope more individuals as compared to that of these two individuals interacting and transacting within themselves. You feel different for different people when in different environments and agents. Sometimes the shared vector is too strong between two individuals that it is barely affected by the influence of others. Something like how 1e9 + 1e3 is 1e9 for all practical purposes. The true love weight vector is ultimately computed by the superposition of all the possible/explored weight vectors where the necessary condition is that the two entities are present in all these hyperedges.

The love between non-human entities

Let’s talk about love between systems(entities) where the terminal goals are pre-determined or programmed. Mind you, the terminal goals might also be pre-programmed for all humans but they might be computationally irreducible. I am now specifically talking about systems where the terminal goal is precisely known to the system. I can’t help but take the example of the paperclip collector machine whose terminal goal is: “collect as many paperclips as possible”. Let’s name this system PCX. The reward function of PCX is equal to the number of paper clips it possesses. Such a system’s terminal goal is exactly defined. Entities such as paperclip factories, delivery networks, plastic manufacturers, stainless steel plants, and so on are instrumental to such a system (at least initially!). Till the time these entities are aiding PCX to collect more paperclips, PCX is more than willing to do non-transactional exchanges with these entities (or be in love) of course until these entities start impeding it from increasing its reward function which they definitely will. It’s hard to imagine that delivery networks, paperclip manufacturers, stainless steel plants, and so on are made to give away their paperclips to a sentient system like PCX (but PCX might give this entities incentives so powerful that they start working for PCX only too)! Aiding these entities until PCX finds a more efficient way to increase its reward function is nothing but loving these entities under false pretense of instrumental goal alignment. PCX may eventually destroy such entities if it realizes that they are introducing inefficiencies to its paperclip collection goal. This is how love can be destructive too. It becomes destructive for the sole reason of being an impedance to one of the entities’ terminal goals. This turned dark very quickly but my point is that even entities who have no consciousness can fall in love with my definition of love. Inanimate objects around us fall in love all the time, we just need to see it in a certain way.

Thoughts on self-love

This definition of love encompasses self-love as well. Within us all, a voice whispers, guiding and directing, lifting us up and bringing us down(you got this, you are an idiot, you need rest, you better not lie, you are a God all of that). This voice is the regulator of our self-development, helping us to build a better understanding of ourselves. When we truly know who we are, what drives us, and what our goals are, we attain read access to our own source code. And it is then, I believe, that we can truly love ourselves. As we gain insight into our place in the world and develop a deeper understanding of ourselves, our capacity for love expands. This newfound self-awareness allows us to engage in meaningful, non-transactional relationships with the people, plants, animals, machines, and even tools that we encounter. Our perceptions are less distorted by the biases of our motivational model, which gives us the ability to identify truly lovable entities with greater accuracy. Our love for tools, for example, is simply a projection of our own intentions and desires onto these neutral, absolute objects. A hammer can be used to construct a home or to bash sculls, embodying the complexities and nuances of love itself.

Conclusion

This thought experiment represents a diligent effort toward rigorously defining the abstract and malleable concepts that pervade our interactions. By defining these concepts with precision, we open the door to replicating such experiences in artificial computational machines. This also provides a computational framework for addressing generic topics, which are often misunderstood as purely human constructs. The truth is, with proper definition, there is no concept that cannot be computed by a Turing machine. We are at this point when we finally have a stateful language to demystify the ghosts which have haunted and crippled philosophy for the longest time. This framework is, of course, the computational nature of our universe. So far, it has been exceedingly promising and coherent with its findings. One can only hope we find the source code of our universe which adheres to Kolmogorov’s complexity.

On Love was originally published in Any Writers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

To be in a frenzy for flooding a paper with ink
Paper metamorphosizing to a letter serving as my heart’s sink
My dear dear friend or lover or mentor, but it is not dedicated to you
Play the role of receiver and keeper of my evaporating and dying youth

Posted my first letter, but did not include the return address
For it was just a simple channel for my depth to be spread under duress

To be in ecstasy to share my first dance with a beloved
Calling the Gods themselves to enlighten: The Sistine Chapel Moment replenished
My beloved, for I, cannot keep my zeal a secret stealth
Play the role of the fellow performer of my waning health

Danced away my first dance, my beloved had been forgotten
My youth is a distant past and my health is now sullen and rotten

Undergoing the arrow of my subjective passage of time
With pride: larceny, delinquency, arson all my firsts were truly sublime
Benign embarrassments, scar shopping, squandered wealth, none that deepened my heart’s injury
Adopted a religious fool’s theory of how that was my unrivaled path to glory

All my collated firsts eventually exhausted
Horror washes over me: the montage replayed and my mind arrested
Uncertainty of my future rippling through the manifestations of my craft
Nothing more to be done, my dear friend let that be my epitaph

F for Firsts was originally published in Any Writers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In an African Home

You work your spinal cord to its untimely death. May its gentle soul Rest In Peace.

You walk your feet till its ends fray. You serve everyone that has a stomach and a pair of legs that is forbidden from stepping into the kitchen because they’re what? Males.

Oh! You dare not complain — you’re not even allowed to. You bear the pains with a gentle strength for failure to keep to this law makes you the weakling of the pack.

Mom-in-chief tells tales of hard work and struggles of times past. Her badge of honor and insignia of strength. ‘Women are a strong breed!’ she’d always command. ‘They endure daily doses of pains in preparation for the grand-finale pain of childbirth.’ Her creed.

Well, call me lazy. I’d make it my crown — A lazy, rebellious female.

You run errands from the market to the kitchen to dining and to every place the food dwells. You serve because you were born to do so. God rest your poor soul. You are female in an African home. For no fault of yours, you were born without a dick.

You arise the earliest to fend for the empty bellies snoring nearby. You sleep last having faced the turbulent waves of the home-sea. You sleep last to awake first. Unfortunately, you’re a female.

Me: But this is madness and so unfair!SpiritFemale: Shhh my child, it is what it is. This path our ancestors walked, is a path you are destined to walk. It can’t be any different, my child.

Me: Would it ever be?

You serve everyone — including the one who returns by 11:00 pm. You place the meal before him and lift the plate when he is done. But he is not crippled, right?

And you dare not complain about being awoken from sleep. For some days, you would tarry till he returns, that you may have the honor of slaving away in your work clothes at your duty post. Oh! You dare not complain for you were born to honour him. Him being anyone with a dick between his legs.

In the near future, You will carry the baby in your stomach, And still carry the baby out of your stomach. You would keep to hospital appointments and PTA meetings because you’re the mom. You weather this storm all by yourself because you come from the lineage of the strong. But how about the dad? Last I checked, we were co-parents.

At the end of life, you would have achieved very little to please yourself. For all your days, you lived to serve everyone within the four walls of the home. You would be better off unborn than die unfulfilled with unexplored adventures and untapped potentials. What a sad way to live and a devastating way to die.

For this, I am tired, and tired, I’ll forever be.

🌺

Born a Female was originally published in Any Writers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Mighty in the mundane, caring about the simple things.

I don’t want to do big things. I just want to do one thing at a time and take on each day as it comes.

I want to wake up enthusiastically to face my days, engage in some meaningful works I love, have enough money to spoil some humans, smile widely, laugh a lot, and then sleep content at night.

I’d love to create stuff and bring ideas to life just as the Creator intended. I mean, I love the excitement of discovery, when I put some raw materials together and it makes so much sense in the end! It’s exciting.

I want to choose because we exert so much power when we can make choices. I want to occupy the spaces meant for me and to connect reasonably with other beings. That’s surely not too much to ask.

To dress comfortably and very modestly but show up big at my friends’ wedding ceremonies like I’m sent by the devil to steal their spouses or be the assistant bride. I’m fully ready to take their celebrations personally!

I want my choice of hairdo, style, nail polish, and click from the heel of my shoes all to be expressions of me. Creators we are, much like the Creator who made us and blessed us with inner powers and productive minds.

I want to wear simple jewelry. Maybe expensive, not so sure and honestly don’t care but it shouldn’t be screaming…help! I’m fake!

I’d love to lock my hair or keep it low because I’m tired of changing hairstyles and making my nation, not hair-proud. Simplicity and quiet beauty is my name.

I’d love to be at the top. I hear it isn’t populated and I’m not such a big fan of crowded places. I even hate to overthink my budget nor do my calculations over and again like it’s some physics discovery, before being able to purchase an ant. And having to constantly remind me that the Lord is my Shepherd. But well, even at the top, He’d always be, that won’t change.

I don’t want a mansion – I don’t see the use of many rooms or maybe it’s a poverty mentality I carry around without knowing or what do you think? I’ve never really stayed in a house with many rooms. Such places feel foreign to me, more like hotels you hop in and hop out.

I want to grow a garden. I want my hands to get dirty with the soil. To plant beautiful flowers and watch things grow. I love growth and solitude. I wish to care for a pet as little and as cute as Bailey. To be disciplined enough to eat more greens than pizza and pasta.

To love an ordinary man. To love this man for such a long time and never get used to loving. Desiring it to stay new on a daily with zero doses of see-finish. I want to be lazy with my partner cause I’ve been trained to be up and doing and as a rebellious G, I’m tired of being up and doing. But can that be? In this world where we all have to blow?

I’ll be an ordinary mom. Waking the kids early, prepping them for school, and helping out with their homework. Teaching them how to pray, dance, and the rest even down to getting them prepared for their date nights. I can imagine being twice as excited as them on such days.

I want to be an ordinary friend, cheering my friends on this path of life. Being there on their good days and being present to clean their teary eyes. Present as a forefront cheerleader in the lives of my loved ones and being the ever-ready-to-serve-babe, and ultimate baby girl for life.

I want to hold meaningful conversations, ask genuine thought-provoking questions, and not just say stuff to fill up the space in dialogues. I want to start and finish conversations and not jump from one to the other inconclusively.

I hope my friends stay close enough such that I can show up with flowers by their hospital beds when they are out from the labor room with my godkids. Virtual, long-distance life can be crazy sometimes and I love hugs and would want to exchange them as I can.

As a creator, I’d love to write till I breathe my last. I’d love to describe my death day and then probably die like a cutie wearing light make-up with a pink wrap around her head. Okay, I didn’t mean that, but seriously, I want to write! I want to write about the sun that shone on my wedding day and the peace and calm I felt. About the first feel of my baby in my hands. About the awful menstrual cramps that sometimes make me want to curse womanhood and about the softest kiss I received with pure delight in my eyes and thought it was the best thing in the world.

I want my ink to bleed out my raw truth and then when I leave here, I want my loud laugh to resonate through humanity and my kindness to light the hearts of some hearts that met me such that the memory of me leaves a smile on their faces and less of teardrops.

I want to get used to being slightly physically negligible but with a voice too forceful to be ignored. One that tells a man that he is wrong for objectifying a woman’s body. Saying so and meaning it without laughing in between or making it sound light.

One that tells the bus driver that he did wrong by stopping to buy fuel without giving prior notice to his passengers, hurrying to get to work. Courtesy! I want to address the ills of society and paint pictures of the world as it ought to be. I think we’ve accepted obscured standards as the ideal.

I want to have quiet birthdays with fewer encomiums and share those red letter days with my favorite people – being genuinely happy on those days.

I want to live with focus. Less noise from news and social media without the FOMO. I don’t want the crowd neither do I want the public figure tag. Life in the limelight could be paralyzing, leaving me with the feeling that those eyeballs are scrutinizing my every move, even when they aren’t!

I don’t want to live for the crowd. I don’t want to talk to make them laugh, I’m not a clown. I want to stay quiet if I’ve got nothing to say and get used to the silence that’s a part of a conversation. I shouldn’t flee silence or try to fill it up to make the other comfortable.

I want my persona to be constant from person to person and not change with the changing faces. I seek constance. I want to do what I want to do, not to make them nod in agreement but because it’s the right thing to do. Selfish thoughts here, but if I make this post, I want to do so first, for me, …then maybe for you. But first, me.

But in all, I hope we go to the beaches often and eat in our gardens with pure chatter and laughter. Living more simply, dressing less dramatically, and being original versions of ourselves.

But you see? these are all in my head right now because tomorrow I shall arise and appear before my oga Ademola to record proceedings from a very boring court session and then wait till the clock says 5 pm to pack my bags and go again the next day.

…because ordinary could be glowing and mundane, attractive.

If this piece was interesting or caused some other positive emotion, please clap a lot or buy me a coffee for just $1. Thank you.

An Ordinary Girl was originally published in Any Writers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Goldfish have a longer attention span than humans. It’s been proven.

I’ll make this short since it is about SMALL TALK.

I wrote SMALL TALK WITH MYSELF during the pandemic years of 2020–21. It was published in August of 2021 and was a #1 New Release on Amazon in Humor and Entertainment Short Reads.

It’s a memoir about living through the pandemic as a single woman in Oakland, California. I was happy people, especially those at Amazon, got my humor. And, understood it was supposed to be short, too. They estimate 45 minutes, but you can tell me after you read it…

I chose yellow for the cover because it represents the sun to me. And, it’s known to be the color of optimism and creativity. It was also the color of my room growing up.

In short, I went back in my life to go forward.

SMALL TALK WITH MYSELF is a collection of memories that came up while quarantining alone at home. From the events of 9/11 to the 400 virtual events I attended during the pandemic, my life hasn’t been dull.

I not only give the reader a look into my life but also my Oakland neighborhood. Fans say they identify with “The Laundromat Club” and it’d be nice to do a book event at a laundromat, one day…

But I digress.

I know Americans are reading less these days. That’s a fact. But as we’re looking for healing and new ways to recover, reading has been shown to reduce stress. Then, there’s the old saying that laughter is the best medicine.

So, why not buy my Amazon short read and read and laugh at the same time? You might have something more interesting to say next time you make small talk.

Find reviews of my pandemic book on Goodreads, Amazon, and Reader’s Favorite.

Why I Wrote a Pandemic Memoir was originally published in Any Writers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.