---
name: Knowing Someone
slug: knowing-someone
type: relational process
status: running
version: 3.1.4
released: unknown
maintainer: you (disputed)
dependencies:
  - time
  - attention
  - shared context
  - willingness to be surprised
license: Revocable
tags:
  - relationships
  - perception
  - intimacy
  - epistemology
  - ongoing
---

Knowing Someone

What it actually is

A continuously updating, permanently incomplete model of another person that you mistake for the person.

How it works

You begin with surface data: name, face, the way they laugh at their own jokes. The system bootstraps fast. Too fast. Within hours you have a working draft that feels authoritative. You file it under a name and stop collecting evidence as aggressively.

From there, knowing someone runs mostly in the background. Inputs arrive: a strange reaction at dinner, an opinion that doesn't match the folder, a phone call where they sound like someone you haven't met. The system either updates the model or quietly rejects the input as noise.

The model is yours. It lives in you. The person lives elsewhere.

Features

Pattern recognition: detects recurring behaviors and assigns them personality labels
Predictive filling: generates expected responses before the person speaks (accuracy varies wildly)
Emotional indexing: stores not just what they did but how you felt when they did it
Nostalgia integration: past versions of the person are preserved and sometimes preferred
Shared language cache: inside jokes, shorthand, the specific meaning of a look
Conflict resolution heuristics: inherited from previous relationships, often incorrectly applied

Known bugs

Projection overflow: your own fears and desires bleed into the model without flagging
Version lock: the model freezes at a significant moment (first meeting, a betrayal, falling in love) and resists later updates
Confirmation loop: you seek situations that validate the existing model rather than stress-test it
Absence hallucination: when the person is not present, the model runs unsupervised and drifts
Death persistence: the process continues running after the person is gone, with no new inputs, forever

Configuration

depth: shallow | acquaintance | friend | intimate | self (unreliable)
update_frequency: rare | occasional | constant
trust_threshold: 0.0 - 1.0   # above 0.8, contradictions are explained away
grief_on_model_failure: enabled by default, cannot be disabled

Edge cases

You may know someone better than they know themselves. They will not thank you for this.
Two people can know each other simultaneously and have built completely different objects.
Long marriages sometimes reveal the model was never the person. This is called a reckoning.
Children are a special case: the model must be rebuilt from scratch every few years or it becomes a source of harm.

FAQ

Is knowing someone the same as understanding someone? No. Understanding requires the other person's participation. Knowing does not.

Can you unknow someone? You can stop updating. The model remains.

What is intimacy, technically? Two people granting each other elevated write permissions on their own model.

How do you know when you really know someone? You don't. This is not a failure state. This is the spec.

Changelog

v1.0.0 — First contact. High signal, high noise.
v2.x — Stable period. Updates slow. Comfort increases.
v3.0.0 — A revelation. Full model recompile required.
v3.1.4 — Current. Running. Still incomplete. Shipping anyway.

drafting spec…