Joshua, I’ve worked on it. And they’re mutually refinforcing. The simple version is that men are more internally regulated (environmental adaptability) and women more externally regulated (social conformity) and the evolutionary reasons for this are somewhat obvious.
Next men systematize over time and women empathize within time. This means men predict narrow criteria (nature) over time and women predict wide criteria (people) in time.
So absent external regulation the combination of female neuroticism and incapacity for systemic prediction – or perhaps oversensitivity to conflict prediction in time simple pushes women into amplifying their neuroses (negative thoughts).
At least that’s the simple version of it.
“Inside every grown woman is a scared little girl” is an old dictum that reemerges every few decades.
CORRECTLY UNDERSTANDING THE SIMPLICITY OF SENTIENCE VS CONSCIOUSNESS
I would clarify in that sentience narrowly defined is the capacity to react (autonomically to deliberately) to real world environmental stimuli and its subsequent effect on homeostasis.
Consciousness requires continuous recursive use of short term memory to review that sense perception and valence in the context of using memory of predictions of consequences and choice of actions and that same effect.
The difference is the hierarchy that results from sensation to perception to valence to reaction (response without choice) to action (planning with choice).
Effectively all cognition is just the time span of prediction from memory: reaction to action.
Well, I mean, scientifically speaking, that set of mammalian instincts and surviving memory processes that constitute what we metaphorically and pre-scientifically call a ‘soul’ is in fact existential in the individual. So perhaps I don’t grasp what you mean.
Humans develop narratives to justify the siezure or evasion of incentives. The study of history in the absence of those incentives is a story of human creative will – while in the presence of those incentives, a story of adaptive utility.
In the study of history it is too oft overlooked that some civilizations consistently choose narratives poorly and some choose better. Because the narratives are capable of persisting error. And foundational narratives most capable of persisting error.
Hence the near impossibility of chanigng a civilization the farter from the natural law it has evolved through the accumulation of narratives in support of poor choices.
A difference in judgements. There are those of us who were not indoctrinated, systematize more than empathize, and have agency more so than fear. THere are those who were indoctrinated, empathize more than systematize, and have more fear than agency. Additionally some of us are foolish and see the other end of the spectrum as wrong rather than different, and some of us that are foolish and cannot comprehend the other end of the spectrum. But there are some who can understand the opposite end of the spectrum and who also feel compassion for their need for security versus agency. Peterson is smart enough and moral enough, systematizing enough yet empathic enough, to recognize that people below a certain level of intelligence, a certain level of systematizing, and a certain level of agency, literally cannot function without faith. And some of us, who have studied world religions, easily recognize that the folks at the bottom who are christian live better lives than the folks at the bottom in every other religion or every other secular frame. We might also recognize that one can treat god as outside the universe, of the universe, a product of the universe, or a product of man within the universe – but as long as we identify the same moral laws, the manner of the existence of god is immaterial TO OTHERS. Likewise we can see Jesus as god, jesus as the product of god, jesus as the product of the laws of the universe which he perceives as god, or jesus as a teacher who understands the laws of the universe and teaches to the faithful and those who need faith in the name of god. We need not agree on the origin of god or the origin of the teachings of jesus to obey the. laws of jesus, god, and nature. If they are the same then they are true regardless of their origin.
I”m with you brother. I find it depressing because I very much enjoyed the dance between the sexes under traditional roles, and I was happy to hold women on a pedestal. But what has happened in a short time is that we have restore the ancient and universal perception of women as selfish, experience-gluttony, gold digging wh–res, and that Pandora is the very lesson that we should take when we consider women without domestication against her hyperconsumption especially of attention. Attention whoring is perhaps the worst trait that allows the expression of the worst in female behavior. And the west along shows of our women as a point of pride only exacerbating the issue.
Q: A husband and wife are in an ‘argument’ because he doesn’t anticipate what she’s thinking and he says she needs to express her thoughts. Can you break this down into first principles?
A: Curt Doolittle’s Natural Law GPT Says
We can decompose the marital dispute you’ve described—where the husband expects explicit communication, and the wife expects implicit anticipation—using Natural Law’s first principles and epistemological commitments.
Here’s the analysis:
I. First Principles Action Requires Incentive: – All behavior is acquisition. – All acquisition demonstrates interest. – Cooperation Requires Reciprocity in Demonstrated Interests. – Cognition Operates via Prediction and Disambiguation. – Speech is Testimony. – Truthful speech is a performative warranty under threat of perjury.
II. Causal Chain of the Conflict
1. Cognitive Division of Labor (Sexual Dimorphism): – Women evolved to manage social harmony through high-context, emotionally intuitive communication (implicature). – Men evolved to manage external threats and production through low-context, propositional communication (explicit instruction).
2. Different Strategies of Coordination: – The wife’s implicit expectation (“You should know what I feel”) reflects evolved female strategy for emotional calibration via mutual awareness—contingent on visible cues and social signaling. – The husband’s explicit demand (“You need to say it”) reflects male optimization for efficiency, clarity, and conflict avoidance by reducing ambiguity through propositional speech.
3. Conflict Emerges from Asymmetric Grammars: – The wife is operating in a feminine, high-context grammar: trust and understanding are inferred from empathic anticipation. – The husband is operating in a masculine, low-context grammar: trust and understanding are earned through explicit negotiation and declared intent.
III. Operational Breakdown Component
IV. Decidability via Reciprocity
The disagreement is undecidable without mutual adaptation to a shared grammar of coordination. The conflict arises from:
1. Asymmetric Demonstrated Interests: She demonstrates emotional need for proactive attention. He demonstrates pragmatic need for explicit instruction.
2. Irreciprocity in Expectations: She imposes a cost of constant emotional vigilance without compensation. He imposes a cost of emotional labor outsourcing without mutuality.
V. Restitution via Operational Solution
1. Institutionalize a Shared Protocol: Mutual agreement on what must be spoken and what can be assumed. E.g., “I will try to anticipate, but you must inform me when it’s critical.”
2. Reciprocal Commitment to Disambiguation: She practices explicit signaling of emotional state. He practices proactive questioning and checking for context.
3. Testimonial Correction: Move both parties toward truthful speech under performative warrant. Replace mind-reading with inquiry, replace emotional withholding with disclosure.
Conclusion: The conflict reflects an evolved cognitive and communicative asymmetry. Resolution requires both parties to converge on a mutually intelligible operational grammar—transforming the marriage from adversarial guessing into reciprocal coordination. This is the institutionalization of empathy via decidable speech.
