I need relationship advice and I trust the wisdom and honesty of this community more than most of my friends. I created a new account to ask this question.
I’m with an incredibly compassionate, creative woman. She excels at her job, which is a “helping profession,” and one which I believe improves social welfare far more than most. The sex is outstanding.
But she loves magical thinking, she is somewhat averse to expected-utility calculations, my atheism, etc. She is, by her own admission, subject to strong swings of emotion and at greater than average risk of longer-lasting depression. We love each other but are scared that our differences may be too great.
How would you personally feel about a relationship like this?
How should I go about deciding whether to continue this?
Added: We have been together more than 6 months. She has learned a decent amount about my way of thinking, but I have not pushed it on her. I frequently mention how great rationality is (but also mock myself to make sure we’re all having fun).
I wish I had confidence that trying to convert her to my way of thinking would have net-benefits for her and for the world long-term, but I don’t. Not that I’m convinced trying to convert her is a bad idea on utilitarian grounds either, it just seems risky.
How should I go about deciding whether to continue this?
With science!
Specifically, the science of John Gottman. Short version: irreconcilable differences of viewpoint are not an intrinsic bar to a long-lasting relationship. The most potent relationship poison is contempt.
I was pretty amazed the first time I saw this, and even though I’m pretty confident in my relationship, it seems like this test would still be worth quite a bit.
Does anybody still run these microexpression tests or would you have to convince the researchers to get back into it for a one off thing?
When I looked, I couldn’t find anyone offering to run this test. I hadn’t gone far enough as to contact the original researchers and see if they’d be willing to do it, but if there are other people interested, it might be worth a shot.
I assume you’re talking about the test where the researchers infer the likely fate of the marriage by tracking the “trajectory” of a 20-minute-or-so conversation. My impression is that proper interpretation of the test requires training.
Gottman has written popular relationship advice guides based on his research; I’d recommend that anyone interested in maintaining the health of their current relationship have a look. His advice makes the assumption that certain correlations he’s observed are causative, but that assumption seems reasonable for the most part. Research into the actual causal effect of his suggested interventions is ongoing.
It is possible to make a relationship work in which each party has a role in the general neighborhood of “the rational one” or “the emotional one”, as long as the relative places and merits of these roles are acknowledged by both parties. Since you say she’s prepared to admit to her mood swings, this may be doable. My proposed checklist:
If she suffers from an extended period of depression, is she prepared to address that (therapy, antidepressants, ice cream & sad movies, whatever she finds works for her), or would she let it greatly interfere with her life and your lives together?
How averse to your atheism is she? How averse to her (presumable) theism are you? Do you have enough else to talk about and enough ability to skirt the topic that it can avoid being a major point of contention between you? If you want kids eventually, can you come to an agreement about how to raise them re: religion?
Does her magical thinking lead her to do anything profoundly instrumentally stupid, or does it mostly just make her sound a little silly occasionally?
Can you respect her, as well as love her, in spite of her failures of rationality? Or would you be hoping in the back of your mind forever and always that she’d eventually wise up and be a more rational version of herself that you could respect?
Are you compatible on other long-term axes? (Financially, politically, life goals, desire to live in a particular location, opinions on family and homemaking, etc.)
If you can give the “right” answer to all of those questions (I think it should be obvious in each case which answer would be best) then go for it and the best of luck to you. If you can’t, you either need to address the situation and fix it, or move on.
Alicorn, Thanks for responding—see my “Added” to the original comment.
She seems to take a fairly reasonable approach to dealing with / working around her emotional issues and tries hard not to let me suffer because of them.
The atheism / theism divide could be much worse. I’m not sure her beliefs even have net-negative consequences. At present, the main issue is that we each have important beliefs that we don’t think we can share. RE: children, we could probably both accept me having the right to be honest about my beliefs but not pushing them, or going into detail unless they really want to hear it or reached 18.
She doesn’t generally do things that are obviously and profoundly instrumentally stupid, but its probably fair to worry about whether she might in the future. She’d need some money to spend on her friends more lavishly than I would, and to give to inefficient charities, but it seems unlikely she’d want to spend more than I could indulge.
At present, the main issue is that we each have important beliefs that we don’t think we can share.
Being able to share differing beliefs has more to do with whether you can both remain civil about important things than whether you agree. I regularly and enthusiastically pick apart minute disagreements between myself and my friends, and would feel as though something were lacking if I couldn’t—but we can switch topics from politics to polenta when someone gets fed up and there are no hard feelings. If you can’t do that with your girlfriend, that indicates a deeper-running incompatibility than merely disagreeing on rationality. Even if you agreed on all the big issues, it would be miraculous for you to make it through life without ever arguing, and being able to argue without it having it destroy your relationship is an essential skill.
A big part of the issue is that I’m not sure whether in depth discussions of my views will a) convince her, or b) help her live a good and happy life, or c) the relationship between a) and b).
Regardless, I’ll need to push a little more conversation of LWish topics before doing anything crazy like getting married. She realizes this as well.
Let me explain that sentence a bit more. As you know, preference utilitarianism comes with quite a bit of bullet-swallowing and while I may be less hard core than some, I swallow bullets she seems very hesitant to. Perhaps equally or more importantly, like most people, she doesn’t seem to like to taste the bullets, i.e. ponder uncomfortable thoughts, accept uncertainty, etc. I, on the other hand, seem to take some perverse pleasure in thinking and talking about such topics. From her perspective, I sometimes “analyze things e.g. a poem, a play, the proper emotional response to situation X, to death to the point of being distracted from their inherent value.”
Using the word “overanalysis” isn’t always a red flag for unwillingness to analyze where appropriate. Sometimes it just means recognizing that it is not worth six hours of nutrition research and blind taste tests to decide what cereal is the optimal breakfast. In a pinch, you can just grab the generic crisped rice or a prettily-packaged granola and call it good.
Of course. To clarify a bit, it’s obviously possible to give things more thought than they deserve. But someone who habitually makes accusations of overthinking, to my mind, is indicating a contempt for thought itself, which is about the most horrible quality I can think of. (I believe I first came to this conclusion when I read this webcomic, though on looking back at it I’m not sure.)
Some people just aren’t very good at getting right answers through deliberate reasoning, but can get by using implicit reasoning. Combine that with the typical mind fallacy and you get someone who sees “overthinking” everywhere they look. But I think the problem here isn’t so much about these implicit reasoners, but rather about contemptuous people in general, with contemptuous implicit reasoners as a special case.
I think my partner and I both experience some level of discomfort at knowing that our worldviews are in significant conflict, even though this conflict seems to coexist with a high degree of respect for how the accomplishments of the other. It is unfortunate that we basically have to avoid certain topics of conversation that we both find important and that our emotional reaction to things often differs.
So the program of understanding each other doesn’t make progress. I agree with Alicorn, it’s essential to establish a mode of communication where you can steadily work on disagreements, with the goal of ultimately resolving them in full. The arguments shouldn’t turn into color politics, polarizing and alienating.
A bit of advice, based on my experience, for a long-term conversion strategy:
Work on understanding your own position better, make sure you know why you believe what you believe before trying to convince another person to change one’s mind. Maybe you are wrong.
Make the mode of interaction and your goals clear when you are arguing, distinguish analysis from social interaction.
Educate the person about fundamentals, thus steadily crafting tools for making deeper arguments in specific discussions.
Prefer shifting the discussion towards education about more general mistake that (might have) contributed to a specific mistake or confusion. In long term, it’s more important than resolving a specific problem, and it’s easier on the other person’s feelings, as you are educating on an abstract theme, rather than attacking a conviction.
Don’t argue the objects of emotional attachment, ever (unless the person is ready for that, at which point you are probably done with bootstrapping). Instead, work on finding an angle of approach (as suggested above, maybe something more fundamental) that allows you to make progress without directly confronting the issue.
Not everyone is going to change, some people are too dim or too shallow or persistently not interested.
Thank you, this sounds like very good advice for how to lead someone down the path.
But given that she is reluctant to go down the path, do I want to lead her down it? She already believes that I can defend my views better than she can her’s. She probably even believes that my views are closer to the truth.
My guess is that she is reluctant to discuss and evaluate the fundamental facts of existence and our values, precisely because she cherishes certain aspects of her current worldview that she correctly believes she is likely to lose. I think its plausible that she’ll end up less happy, and maybe less productive, after hearing about the preference utilitarianism and the opportunity cost of spending $80 to have flowers delivered to a friend (note: I’d never try to stop her from doing it, I’d just like to explain why I’m not going to) or after explaining why the idea that people have souls is incoherent (note: I would never say something that strongly. As you suggest I’d want to build up to it slowly, by asking questions and letting the conclusions fall out of the discussion.)
Religious people report being happier. By many measures they also do more “good works.” I wouldn’t be surprised if the same were true of deontologists vs. consequentialists.
Do I really have reason to believe she’ll benefit from serious detailed discussion of our respective worldviews?
She already believes that I can defend my views better than she can her’s. She probably even believes that my views are closer to the truth.
I’d be curious to know what sort of power dynamic you have. My spouse believes I am more rational and intelligent than s/he is—but s/he’s still the one who makes the decisions. I advise—my spouse decides. We both like it that way and we’ve had a successful and happy relationship for more than a decade. Now that I think about it, this is reminiscent of Eliezer’s “Three Worlds Collide”. You want to keep the rationalist cultists around—but you don’t want them in charge :p
In “Three Worlds Collide”, the rational one does have the power to override if necessary, which I think is very important. If you cant agree, you’re doing it wrong- but it still happens occasionally. You’ll get better results if you defer to the person that is more rational under those circumstances.
In general, it seems like the right policy is to let whomever has harder to communicate data decide. This way, the decision maker is as informed as possible.
Actually, in 3WC the Confessor is supposed to be strictly charged with sedating people who depart the bounds of sanity. He goes outside this bound, which is completely against all the rules, and afterward he can no longer be called a Confessor.
I don’t know about the rest of the audience, but I’d really appreciate a worldbuilding writeup, or maybe even just a glossary, explaining the cultural/technological backdrop of 3WC in more detail than the story provides.
I was referring to the part where the president went crazy and her confessor sedated her “and recommend to the government that they carry out the evacuation without asking further questions of your ship”.
If that doesn’t count as the “power to override if necessary”, then I’m missing a distinction somewhere.
Well, part of the point there was that their President would have been universally recognized by her own society as crazy, at that point, just as if she’d said she was hearing voices from her teapot. In contrast to say our own society where this would be considered perfectly normal madness in a politician. The reason her Confessor then needs to advise the government is that her Confessor was the only one to listen to an extremely classified conversation; in other words she has private info which she must summarize/convey somehow to the government.
It’s impossible to make someone reason if they don’t wish to. It’s impossible to force someone to acknowledge the truth if they don’t want to acknowledge it.
You don’t need to lead her down any path, even if she were willing to follow. She probably already knows what the rational approach is and doesn’t choose to implement it.
In the event that she doesn’t, teach her the method of rationality—not just the result—if she comes to you for help. Don’t, otherwise.
If she’s comfortable with letting you be reasonable, and you’re comfortable with letting her have her magical thinking, I’d say everything is fine.
Part of what motivates this post is that research on happiness suggests that people have a hard time predicting how happy they will be in various possible futures. Gilbert has suggested that introspection is so poor that we better off just asking people in that situation how they feel.
In my case, it was worth it. There may be a stubborn reluctance to “give in” or other lower level things that get in the way of believing the truth, but if at the top level she would really rather believe the truth, you’re probably fine. If you can’t get her to say in full honesty “I would rather believe the truth than made up ‘feel good’ stories”, you’re probably hosed.
My girlfriend started out as a creationist christian and is now pretty much atheist. Overall, she is much more reasonable and can make the right decision on the types of things she previously did not. She seems to be about as happy as before, and when she’s not she can recognize the cause so it’s not nearly as damaging. I’d call that a success so far.
In general, I have a pretty strict policy of calling each other on any BS. I attempt to get the point across in a nice way, but will persist until she understands even if it does make her upset in the short term. The one exception was when I found out that she believed in creationism. That was too big of a bite, so we left it as “agree to disagree”, though I made it obvious that I did not respect her belief. I never made an attempt to deconvert her, but it did happen on its own.
There’s probably a better way to do it that can make the same progress without ever upsetting the person, but in my experience it ended up being worth it to push through anyway.
I’m in a situation which seems sort of the opposite of yours. I’m with a woman, who’s more rational than any other I personally know. But the sex is just not very good, and I find myself getting physically drawn to other women a bit too much. I’ve struggled for weeks, trying to decide whether to continue or not. I’ve tried hard to think what I really want. And I think that if I were sexually satisfied, I would be very happy with the relationship because everything else seems perfect. So, I’m trying to work on that now. I’m paying more attention to being a loving and sensuous partner. Let’s say I’m experimenting on the weak aspects of my relationship.
If I were in your place, I’d take each point of disagreement on its own merit. If it’s decisions where the results can be seen clearly I wouldn’t argue but just politely point to the results. As far as religious beliefs are concerned, the more I think about it the more I feel, that defining myself as an ‘atheist’ is only useful in saying that I don’t believe in God. Beyond that, it doesn’t add anything valuable to my personality. It can’t because it’s a negative definition. So, I would try and deal with specific issues rather than try to convince my partner that theism is wrong. If she believes in magic, playful humour might lighten things up a bit.
I also think it would be useful if you learnt more about her way of thinking, just like she has learnt about yours.
My advice is first, to talk to her a lot about sex and make it clear how important that is to you.
If that doesn’t work, consider asking her for permission to sleep with other women. That option would satisfy me in your situation temporarily, but I’d have to think about whether it would satisfy me longer term.
With respect to making your decision, I would advise you to just spend more time with her. It usually took me about 18 months to figure out how I would finally feel about someone, long-term, that I was initially attracted to. After that period of time, differences were either sources of annoyance (or something more neutral) or sources of contempt. If the latter, for either one of you, you’re “too different”. (Things are complicated by the fact that there’s always a little contempt in a relationship, but the contempt I’m talking about will tend to grow and feel more important than everything else over time.)
In other words, I don’t believe, a priori, that in order to be consistently rational, a rationalist should seek out another rationalist. You’re probably seeking someone that complements you, and pushes you to more fully experience life, and that’s why opposites attract. As long as you have the same core values about what matters to you both. It takes time to determine if you share those.
Regarding the magical thinking that perplexes you: it doesn’t seem to me that most rationalists actually understand what it is that magical thinkers believe. For example, if you think about it in terms of scientifically true and false, you’re probably not thinking about it the right away. Magical thinkers know they’re not making scientific statements. For example, it’s not false to believe you have a soul. Whatever she really means by having a soul, she does have. That’s why rational arguments don’t work. I think it’s a matter of communication: she’s not really expressing what she means by soul, and you’re not really arguing (if you were to) that what she doesn’t have is the soul she’s talking about. Her description of a soul may be naive and if she’s says anything about it that is scientifically falsifiable, then she is confused about what she means. But whenever she gives a description that is not scientifically falsifiable, and you see it as false, you are probably interpreting the words in too literal a way. Magical thinkers make the same mistake as well, and there is a downward spiral of overly literal thinking when the original belief was just that there is some concept of self that is related in some complex way with the physical body, that has value to her and her community (religion).
I don’t think establishing a rule “you won’t try to convert her” is going to work well, as I personally wouldn’t want to always (or ever) have to repress what I think. That’s not respectful of either of you. Instead, another suggestion: use your rationalist skills to approach it as a research project, but expand your sources. Trying reading books written by really good theologians (for example, very logical ones) on whatever they have to say about the soul—you may be able to find a description of “soul” for example, that you both agree on. And then the difference may just end up being that she has a context for valuing that concept, while you don’t.
I am pretty sure that most strong male rationalists are better off learning how the typical woman thinks than holding out for a long-term relationship with a strong female rationalist. Since this point is probably of general interest, I put it in a top-level post.
Converting her to your worldview sounds like a bad idea in general. An additional consideration that applies in your particular situation is that converting a helping professional from deontologism to consequentialism will more likely than not make her less effective at work (because helping professionals need all the help they can get to care enough about their patients and clients, and worldview is definitely one source of significant help in that regard).
Nobody has responded to the following:
she is, by her own admission, subject to strong swings of emotion and at greater than average risk of longer-lasting depression
I, too, will refrain from commenting because you probably mean “strong swings of mood” and I do not have romantic experience with a moody woman. I do have romantic experience with a fiery woman, i.e., a woman easily aroused to strong negative emotions, but I doubt that is what you mean: in what I am calling a “fiery” woman, the emotion always dissipates quickly—usually in a few minutes.
You say,
She excels at her job, which is a helping profession, and one which I believe improves social welfare far more than most.
I would consider that a very positive sign in a prospective sexual partner—maybe an extremely positive sign (the reason for my uncertainty being that I have never been with a woman whose expected global utility was as high as you describe) -- a sign that would make me pursue the woman much more keenly. The fact that you use language such as “would have net-benefits for her and for the world long-term” (emphasis mine) suggests to me that you are like me in the relevant characteristics and consequently should take it to be a very positive sign, too.
The most I can say about the global expected utility (i.e., expected effect on the world in the long term) of any of my girlfriends up to now is that (1) she has many close friendships of long duration, and she is very caring and helpful to those friends or that (2) she is a resourceful and clearly productive member of the labor force and does not harm anyone unless you consider the occasional cheating of the government a harm. If I were with a woman whose expected global utility was much higher than any of my girlfriends up to now, there is a good chance that I could become much more unconditionally loving to her than I have been to any of my girlfriends up to now. By “unconditionally loving” I mean being helpful and caring to her without any regard for how much she has done for me or is expected to do for me.
So, that is why I would consider what you wrote a very positive sign: lack of expected global utility is my best current guess as to what has been holding me back from being more unconditionally loving to my girlfriend up to now. (Why I even want to become more unconditionally loving to my girlfriend is a long story.)
And yeah, I know that “expected global utility of the girlfriend” is an odd and cold phrasing, but if that oddness or coldness is enough to prevent you from reading this comment, then we are probably too different for the advice in this comment to be of any use to you.
Thanks very much for your thoughts, and for making a top level post on the topic. Yes, her contribution to social welfare is something I find very attractive, and you help me remember just how important and rare that is.
Rationality sometimes goes badly wrong, when important details don’t fit into a neat reasoning structure or a fatal flaw in argument goes undetected. Emotional reasoning sometimes goes badly wrong, when it deals with corner cases or situations too far from the environments it was evolved to handle. Rationality goes wrong less often, but crucially, they go wrong in different and mostly non-overlapping circumstances. If you have a different world view and reasoning style than your partner, then this might produce conflict, but it also gives you both far better sanity checking than any like-minded person could. You can’t transform her mind, but you can act as a rationalist oracle. You speak of this as though it were only a flaw, but in fact it has both an upside and a downside. Use the upside, and mitigate the downside.
How strong is your own understanding of rationality? Why are you an atheist, (why) do you believe science works, what is the difference between one person who is actually right and another person who is merely confused, etc.? How smart is she (that is, how easy it’ll be to positively apply more confused and complex arguments, not requiring of you great feats of persuasion)?
I’ll be interested in what other people think about applying the corpus of Overcoming Bias directly (doesn’t seem like a generally good idea to me, requires a person to be of a kind that’ll maintain focus for extended period of time).
I think I’m quite rational and have a decent understanding of aspects of rationality that I haven’t managed to implement yet. I think karma is a very imperfect measure, but I’ll note that I have more than 100 and less than 400.
She is probably one standard deviation above average in terms of IQ, and would score more highly when considering other kinds of intelligence. The main problem in convincing her to think more rationally is emotional resistance.
Thank you for responding—see my “Added” to the original comment.
I think I’m quite rational and have a decent understanding of aspects of rationality that I haven’t managed to implement yet. I think karma is a very imperfect measure, but I’ll note that I have more than 100 and less than 400.
Huh? Karma on this site primarily shows positive contribution/participation (if you are able to contribute positively), treating it as a “measure of rationality” is a bizarre perspective. Please try to outline your position on the specific questions I suggested, or something of that kind, it’s hard to make such a decision in a well-known case, but yet harder to construct fully general advice.
For another example, why do you think it’s important to get away from magical thinking? Is it? What is your motivation for thinking about rationality, and for dispelling the other person’s confusion? “Compatibility” of worldviews?
I would probably give you a response you liked better if I understood why you were asking what you were asking.
Why are you an atheist, (why) do you believe science works...
Because the evidence favors atheism and suggests science leads to truth more often than other approaches to belief formation? I could link to arguments but I don’t see the point in trying to explain these things in my own words. Does it help to know that I usually agree with your comments and with the LW consensus, where it exists? Is the implication that the more rational I am, the more of a problem my partners rationality will be?
what is the difference between one person who is actually right and another person who is merely confused, etc.?
I don’t think I understand this question.
why do you think it’s important to get away from magical thinking? Is it?
I think the importance of getting away from magical thinking varies across people and contexts. I’m not confident I know how important it is, or even whether its helpful, for some people. Its clear that getting away from magical thinking can sometimes help people achieve their personal goals and help make the world a better place.
What is your motivation for thinking about rationality,
I enjoy the process regardless of the consequences. But I also hope that it will help me in my career and help me contribute to the world.
and for dispelling the other person’s confusion? “Compatibility” of worldviews?
I think my partner and I both experience some level of discomfort at knowing that our worldviews are in significant conflict, even though this conflict seems to coexist with a high degree of respect for how the accomplishments of the other. It is unfortunate that we basically have to avoid certain topics of conversation that we both find important and that our emotional reaction to things often differs.
You might check my responses to Alicorn to learn more. Once again, thank you very much for responding.
I would probably give you a response you liked better if I understood why you were asking what you were asking.
This is a delicate topic, but I think Vladimir is trying to tell whether you really use rationality to the degree you claim, or whether you rather accept certain opinions of people you see as rationalists, and wish others shared them. In the latter case, it doesn’t matter that the clash is between rationalist and irrationalist opinions: the conflict is isomorphic to any relationship between people of different religions or political parties, and much of the advice for those people should work for you. It’s the former case that would require more particular advice.
Because the evidence favors atheism and suggests science leads to truth more often than other approaches to belief formation? I could link to arguments but I don’t see the point in trying to explain these things in my own words. Does it help to know that I usually agree with your comments and with the LW consensus, where it exists?
I’m afraid that, in the absence of seeing your thought process, much of this looks like guessing the teacher’s password to me. I’d be happy to be corrected, though.
EDIT: Wow, that sounds really tactless and dismissive of me. I retract my accusation, on the basis of (1) not having any real justification and (2) it would set a bad precedent, especially for the sort of reception newcomers get.
Its interesting that people seem to a) be as skeptical of my rationality as they seem to be, and b) think that is the crux of the matter.
Regarding a), if someone tells me that they’ve been reading OB/LW for quite a while and that they think they are considerably more rational than their romantic partner, I think it is very likely that they are correct. But maybe if I was on the other side I would react differently. If I knew of an easy way to prove my rationality I would, but I don’t. Even writing an original rational essay wouldn’t prove much because I could easily be irrational in other domains.
Regarding b), I’m not sure exactly how important it is that potential advice-givers have a very accurate estimate of my rationality (and my girlfriend’s rationality). Perhaps it would be helpful to focus on more specific aspects of our beliefs and approaches to experiencing and acting in the world.
I lean towards preference utilitarianism, though I don’t walk the walk as well as I should.
I attempt to calculate the costs and benefits of various choices, she does this too sometimes, but doesn’t like applying it reflexively.
She believes in spirits, I’m into Dennett and Dawkins (though I see positive aspects to religion/spirituality)
My partner and I both agree that:
She is much more emotional and I am more rational.
She is more prone to depression.
She has more faith in intuition, I’m more skeptical of it.
Lets say you’ve read everything I’ve written here and you think I’m probably no more rational than my partner. ok, that’s fine, I’d be happy to hear advice that works for two equally irrational people with different beliefs/values/approaches to experiencing and acting in the world.
I think my partner and I both experience some level of discomfort at knowing that our worldviews are in significant conflict, even though this conflict seems to coexist with a high degree of respect for how the accomplishments of the other. It is unfortunate that we basically have to avoid certain topics of conversation that we both find important and that our emotional reaction to things often differs.
So the program of understanding each other doesn’t make progress. I agree with Alicorn, it’s essential to establish a mode of communication where you can steadily work on disagreements, with the goal of ultimately resolving them in full. The arguments shouldn’t turn into color politics, polarizing and alienating.
A bit of advice, based on my experience, for a long-term conversion strategy:
Work on understanding your own position better, make sure you know why you believe what you believe before trying to convince another person to change one’s mind. Maybe you are wrong.
Make the mode of interaction and your goals clear when you are arguing, distinguish analysis from social interaction.
Educate the person about fundamentals, thus steadily crafting tools for making deeper arguments in specific discussions.
Prefer shifting the discussion towards education about more general mistake that (might have) contributed to a specific mistake or confusion. In long term, it’s more important than resolving a specific problem, and it’s easier on the other person’s feelings, as you are educating on an abstract theme, rather than attacking a conviction.
Don’t argue the objects of emotional attachment, ever. Instead, work on finding an angle of approach (as suggested above, maybe something more fundamental) that allows you to make progress without directly confronting the issue.
Not everyone is going to change, some people are too dim or too shallow or persistently not interested.
I need relationship advice and I trust the wisdom and honesty of this community more than most of my friends. I created a new account to ask this question.
I’m with an incredibly compassionate, creative woman. She excels at her job, which is a “helping profession,” and one which I believe improves social welfare far more than most. The sex is outstanding.
But she loves magical thinking, she is somewhat averse to expected-utility calculations, my atheism, etc. She is, by her own admission, subject to strong swings of emotion and at greater than average risk of longer-lasting depression. We love each other but are scared that our differences may be too great.
How would you personally feel about a relationship like this? How should I go about deciding whether to continue this?
Added: We have been together more than 6 months. She has learned a decent amount about my way of thinking, but I have not pushed it on her. I frequently mention how great rationality is (but also mock myself to make sure we’re all having fun).
I wish I had confidence that trying to convert her to my way of thinking would have net-benefits for her and for the world long-term, but I don’t. Not that I’m convinced trying to convert her is a bad idea on utilitarian grounds either, it just seems risky.
With science!
Specifically, the science of John Gottman. Short version: irreconcilable differences of viewpoint are not an intrinsic bar to a long-lasting relationship. The most potent relationship poison is contempt.
I was pretty amazed the first time I saw this, and even though I’m pretty confident in my relationship, it seems like this test would still be worth quite a bit.
Does anybody still run these microexpression tests or would you have to convince the researchers to get back into it for a one off thing?
When I looked, I couldn’t find anyone offering to run this test. I hadn’t gone far enough as to contact the original researchers and see if they’d be willing to do it, but if there are other people interested, it might be worth a shot.
I assume you’re talking about the test where the researchers infer the likely fate of the marriage by tracking the “trajectory” of a 20-minute-or-so conversation. My impression is that proper interpretation of the test requires training.
Gottman has written popular relationship advice guides based on his research; I’d recommend that anyone interested in maintaining the health of their current relationship have a look. His advice makes the assumption that certain correlations he’s observed are causative, but that assumption seems reasonable for the most part. Research into the actual causal effect of his suggested interventions is ongoing.
Yes, that is what I was talking about. Proper interpretation may require training, but we know those people exist, at least.
Thanks for the link Cyan.
It is possible to make a relationship work in which each party has a role in the general neighborhood of “the rational one” or “the emotional one”, as long as the relative places and merits of these roles are acknowledged by both parties. Since you say she’s prepared to admit to her mood swings, this may be doable. My proposed checklist:
If she suffers from an extended period of depression, is she prepared to address that (therapy, antidepressants, ice cream & sad movies, whatever she finds works for her), or would she let it greatly interfere with her life and your lives together?
How averse to your atheism is she? How averse to her (presumable) theism are you? Do you have enough else to talk about and enough ability to skirt the topic that it can avoid being a major point of contention between you? If you want kids eventually, can you come to an agreement about how to raise them re: religion?
Does her magical thinking lead her to do anything profoundly instrumentally stupid, or does it mostly just make her sound a little silly occasionally?
Can you respect her, as well as love her, in spite of her failures of rationality? Or would you be hoping in the back of your mind forever and always that she’d eventually wise up and be a more rational version of herself that you could respect?
Are you compatible on other long-term axes? (Financially, politically, life goals, desire to live in a particular location, opinions on family and homemaking, etc.)
If you can give the “right” answer to all of those questions (I think it should be obvious in each case which answer would be best) then go for it and the best of luck to you. If you can’t, you either need to address the situation and fix it, or move on.
Alicorn, Thanks for responding—see my “Added” to the original comment.
She seems to take a fairly reasonable approach to dealing with / working around her emotional issues and tries hard not to let me suffer because of them.
The atheism / theism divide could be much worse. I’m not sure her beliefs even have net-negative consequences. At present, the main issue is that we each have important beliefs that we don’t think we can share. RE: children, we could probably both accept me having the right to be honest about my beliefs but not pushing them, or going into detail unless they really want to hear it or reached 18.
She doesn’t generally do things that are obviously and profoundly instrumentally stupid, but its probably fair to worry about whether she might in the future. She’d need some money to spend on her friends more lavishly than I would, and to give to inefficient charities, but it seems unlikely she’d want to spend more than I could indulge.
Being able to share differing beliefs has more to do with whether you can both remain civil about important things than whether you agree. I regularly and enthusiastically pick apart minute disagreements between myself and my friends, and would feel as though something were lacking if I couldn’t—but we can switch topics from politics to polenta when someone gets fed up and there are no hard feelings. If you can’t do that with your girlfriend, that indicates a deeper-running incompatibility than merely disagreeing on rationality. Even if you agreed on all the big issues, it would be miraculous for you to make it through life without ever arguing, and being able to argue without it having it destroy your relationship is an essential skill.
A big part of the issue is that I’m not sure whether in depth discussions of my views will a) convince her, or b) help her live a good and happy life, or c) the relationship between a) and b).
Regardless, I’ll need to push a little more conversation of LWish topics before doing anything crazy like getting married. She realizes this as well.
Let me explain that sentence a bit more. As you know, preference utilitarianism comes with quite a bit of bullet-swallowing and while I may be less hard core than some, I swallow bullets she seems very hesitant to. Perhaps equally or more importantly, like most people, she doesn’t seem to like to taste the bullets, i.e. ponder uncomfortable thoughts, accept uncertainty, etc. I, on the other hand, seem to take some perverse pleasure in thinking and talking about such topics. From her perspective, I sometimes “analyze things e.g. a poem, a play, the proper emotional response to situation X, to death to the point of being distracted from their inherent value.”
For me, any (serious) talk of “overanalyzing” or “overthinking” things would be a huge red flag. But maybe I’m unusual in that.
Using the word “overanalysis” isn’t always a red flag for unwillingness to analyze where appropriate. Sometimes it just means recognizing that it is not worth six hours of nutrition research and blind taste tests to decide what cereal is the optimal breakfast. In a pinch, you can just grab the generic crisped rice or a prettily-packaged granola and call it good.
Of course. To clarify a bit, it’s obviously possible to give things more thought than they deserve. But someone who habitually makes accusations of overthinking, to my mind, is indicating a contempt for thought itself, which is about the most horrible quality I can think of. (I believe I first came to this conclusion when I read this webcomic, though on looking back at it I’m not sure.)
Some people just aren’t very good at getting right answers through deliberate reasoning, but can get by using implicit reasoning. Combine that with the typical mind fallacy and you get someone who sees “overthinking” everywhere they look. But I think the problem here isn’t so much about these implicit reasoners, but rather about contemptuous people in general, with contemptuous implicit reasoners as a special case.
So the program of understanding each other doesn’t make progress. I agree with Alicorn, it’s essential to establish a mode of communication where you can steadily work on disagreements, with the goal of ultimately resolving them in full. The arguments shouldn’t turn into color politics, polarizing and alienating.
A bit of advice, based on my experience, for a long-term conversion strategy:
Work on understanding your own position better, make sure you know why you believe what you believe before trying to convince another person to change one’s mind. Maybe you are wrong.
Make the mode of interaction and your goals clear when you are arguing, distinguish analysis from social interaction.
Educate the person about fundamentals, thus steadily crafting tools for making deeper arguments in specific discussions.
Prefer shifting the discussion towards education about more general mistake that (might have) contributed to a specific mistake or confusion. In long term, it’s more important than resolving a specific problem, and it’s easier on the other person’s feelings, as you are educating on an abstract theme, rather than attacking a conviction.
Don’t argue the objects of emotional attachment, ever (unless the person is ready for that, at which point you are probably done with bootstrapping). Instead, work on finding an angle of approach (as suggested above, maybe something more fundamental) that allows you to make progress without directly confronting the issue.
Not everyone is going to change, some people are too dim or too shallow or persistently not interested.
Thank you, this sounds like very good advice for how to lead someone down the path.
But given that she is reluctant to go down the path, do I want to lead her down it? She already believes that I can defend my views better than she can her’s. She probably even believes that my views are closer to the truth.
My guess is that she is reluctant to discuss and evaluate the fundamental facts of existence and our values, precisely because she cherishes certain aspects of her current worldview that she correctly believes she is likely to lose. I think its plausible that she’ll end up less happy, and maybe less productive, after hearing about the preference utilitarianism and the opportunity cost of spending $80 to have flowers delivered to a friend (note: I’d never try to stop her from doing it, I’d just like to explain why I’m not going to) or after explaining why the idea that people have souls is incoherent (note: I would never say something that strongly. As you suggest I’d want to build up to it slowly, by asking questions and letting the conclusions fall out of the discussion.)
Religious people report being happier. By many measures they also do more “good works.” I wouldn’t be surprised if the same were true of deontologists vs. consequentialists.
Do I really have reason to believe she’ll benefit from serious detailed discussion of our respective worldviews?
I’d be curious to know what sort of power dynamic you have. My spouse believes I am more rational and intelligent than s/he is—but s/he’s still the one who makes the decisions. I advise—my spouse decides. We both like it that way and we’ve had a successful and happy relationship for more than a decade. Now that I think about it, this is reminiscent of Eliezer’s “Three Worlds Collide”. You want to keep the rationalist cultists around—but you don’t want them in charge :p
In “Three Worlds Collide”, the rational one does have the power to override if necessary, which I think is very important. If you cant agree, you’re doing it wrong- but it still happens occasionally. You’ll get better results if you defer to the person that is more rational under those circumstances.
In general, it seems like the right policy is to let whomever has harder to communicate data decide. This way, the decision maker is as informed as possible.
Actually, in 3WC the Confessor is supposed to be strictly charged with sedating people who depart the bounds of sanity. He goes outside this bound, which is completely against all the rules, and afterward he can no longer be called a Confessor.
I don’t know about the rest of the audience, but I’d really appreciate a worldbuilding writeup, or maybe even just a glossary, explaining the cultural/technological backdrop of 3WC in more detail than the story provides.
There are some worlds for which I have devised huge cultural, technological, and historical backdrops but this is not one of them.
I was referring to the part where the president went crazy and her confessor sedated her “and recommend to the government that they carry out the evacuation without asking further questions of your ship”.
If that doesn’t count as the “power to override if necessary”, then I’m missing a distinction somewhere.
Well, part of the point there was that their President would have been universally recognized by her own society as crazy, at that point, just as if she’d said she was hearing voices from her teapot. In contrast to say our own society where this would be considered perfectly normal madness in a politician. The reason her Confessor then needs to advise the government is that her Confessor was the only one to listen to an extremely classified conversation; in other words she has private info which she must summarize/convey somehow to the government.
Thank you very much for this data point.
It’s impossible to make someone reason if they don’t wish to. It’s impossible to force someone to acknowledge the truth if they don’t want to acknowledge it.
You don’t need to lead her down any path, even if she were willing to follow. She probably already knows what the rational approach is and doesn’t choose to implement it.
In the event that she doesn’t, teach her the method of rationality—not just the result—if she comes to you for help. Don’t, otherwise.
If she’s comfortable with letting you be reasonable, and you’re comfortable with letting her have her magical thinking, I’d say everything is fine.
Part of what motivates this post is that research on happiness suggests that people have a hard time predicting how happy they will be in various possible futures. Gilbert has suggested that introspection is so poor that we better off just asking people in that situation how they feel.
In my case, it was worth it. There may be a stubborn reluctance to “give in” or other lower level things that get in the way of believing the truth, but if at the top level she would really rather believe the truth, you’re probably fine. If you can’t get her to say in full honesty “I would rather believe the truth than made up ‘feel good’ stories”, you’re probably hosed.
My girlfriend started out as a creationist christian and is now pretty much atheist. Overall, she is much more reasonable and can make the right decision on the types of things she previously did not. She seems to be about as happy as before, and when she’s not she can recognize the cause so it’s not nearly as damaging. I’d call that a success so far.
In general, I have a pretty strict policy of calling each other on any BS. I attempt to get the point across in a nice way, but will persist until she understands even if it does make her upset in the short term. The one exception was when I found out that she believed in creationism. That was too big of a bite, so we left it as “agree to disagree”, though I made it obvious that I did not respect her belief. I never made an attempt to deconvert her, but it did happen on its own.
There’s probably a better way to do it that can make the same progress without ever upsetting the person, but in my experience it ended up being worth it to push through anyway.
I’m in a situation which seems sort of the opposite of yours. I’m with a woman, who’s more rational than any other I personally know. But the sex is just not very good, and I find myself getting physically drawn to other women a bit too much. I’ve struggled for weeks, trying to decide whether to continue or not. I’ve tried hard to think what I really want. And I think that if I were sexually satisfied, I would be very happy with the relationship because everything else seems perfect. So, I’m trying to work on that now. I’m paying more attention to being a loving and sensuous partner. Let’s say I’m experimenting on the weak aspects of my relationship.
If I were in your place, I’d take each point of disagreement on its own merit. If it’s decisions where the results can be seen clearly I wouldn’t argue but just politely point to the results. As far as religious beliefs are concerned, the more I think about it the more I feel, that defining myself as an ‘atheist’ is only useful in saying that I don’t believe in God. Beyond that, it doesn’t add anything valuable to my personality. It can’t because it’s a negative definition. So, I would try and deal with specific issues rather than try to convince my partner that theism is wrong. If she believes in magic, playful humour might lighten things up a bit.
I also think it would be useful if you learnt more about her way of thinking, just like she has learnt about yours.
My advice is first, to talk to her a lot about sex and make it clear how important that is to you.
If that doesn’t work, consider asking her for permission to sleep with other women. That option would satisfy me in your situation temporarily, but I’d have to think about whether it would satisfy me longer term.
With respect to making your decision, I would advise you to just spend more time with her. It usually took me about 18 months to figure out how I would finally feel about someone, long-term, that I was initially attracted to. After that period of time, differences were either sources of annoyance (or something more neutral) or sources of contempt. If the latter, for either one of you, you’re “too different”. (Things are complicated by the fact that there’s always a little contempt in a relationship, but the contempt I’m talking about will tend to grow and feel more important than everything else over time.)
In other words, I don’t believe, a priori, that in order to be consistently rational, a rationalist should seek out another rationalist. You’re probably seeking someone that complements you, and pushes you to more fully experience life, and that’s why opposites attract. As long as you have the same core values about what matters to you both. It takes time to determine if you share those.
Regarding the magical thinking that perplexes you: it doesn’t seem to me that most rationalists actually understand what it is that magical thinkers believe. For example, if you think about it in terms of scientifically true and false, you’re probably not thinking about it the right away. Magical thinkers know they’re not making scientific statements. For example, it’s not false to believe you have a soul. Whatever she really means by having a soul, she does have. That’s why rational arguments don’t work. I think it’s a matter of communication: she’s not really expressing what she means by soul, and you’re not really arguing (if you were to) that what she doesn’t have is the soul she’s talking about. Her description of a soul may be naive and if she’s says anything about it that is scientifically falsifiable, then she is confused about what she means. But whenever she gives a description that is not scientifically falsifiable, and you see it as false, you are probably interpreting the words in too literal a way. Magical thinkers make the same mistake as well, and there is a downward spiral of overly literal thinking when the original belief was just that there is some concept of self that is related in some complex way with the physical body, that has value to her and her community (religion).
I don’t think establishing a rule “you won’t try to convert her” is going to work well, as I personally wouldn’t want to always (or ever) have to repress what I think. That’s not respectful of either of you. Instead, another suggestion: use your rationalist skills to approach it as a research project, but expand your sources. Trying reading books written by really good theologians (for example, very logical ones) on whatever they have to say about the soul—you may be able to find a description of “soul” for example, that you both agree on. And then the difference may just end up being that she has a context for valuing that concept, while you don’t.
I am pretty sure that most strong male rationalists are better off learning how the typical woman thinks than holding out for a long-term relationship with a strong female rationalist. Since this point is probably of general interest, I put it in a top-level post.
Converting her to your worldview sounds like a bad idea in general. An additional consideration that applies in your particular situation is that converting a helping professional from deontologism to consequentialism will more likely than not make her less effective at work (because helping professionals need all the help they can get to care enough about their patients and clients, and worldview is definitely one source of significant help in that regard).
Nobody has responded to the following:
I, too, will refrain from commenting because you probably mean “strong swings of mood” and I do not have romantic experience with a moody woman. I do have romantic experience with a fiery woman, i.e., a woman easily aroused to strong negative emotions, but I doubt that is what you mean: in what I am calling a “fiery” woman, the emotion always dissipates quickly—usually in a few minutes.
You say,
I would consider that a very positive sign in a prospective sexual partner—maybe an extremely positive sign (the reason for my uncertainty being that I have never been with a woman whose expected global utility was as high as you describe) -- a sign that would make me pursue the woman much more keenly. The fact that you use language such as “would have net-benefits for her and for the world long-term” (emphasis mine) suggests to me that you are like me in the relevant characteristics and consequently should take it to be a very positive sign, too.
The most I can say about the global expected utility (i.e., expected effect on the world in the long term) of any of my girlfriends up to now is that (1) she has many close friendships of long duration, and she is very caring and helpful to those friends or that (2) she is a resourceful and clearly productive member of the labor force and does not harm anyone unless you consider the occasional cheating of the government a harm. If I were with a woman whose expected global utility was much higher than any of my girlfriends up to now, there is a good chance that I could become much more unconditionally loving to her than I have been to any of my girlfriends up to now. By “unconditionally loving” I mean being helpful and caring to her without any regard for how much she has done for me or is expected to do for me.
So, that is why I would consider what you wrote a very positive sign: lack of expected global utility is my best current guess as to what has been holding me back from being more unconditionally loving to my girlfriend up to now. (Why I even want to become more unconditionally loving to my girlfriend is a long story.)
And yeah, I know that “expected global utility of the girlfriend” is an odd and cold phrasing, but if that oddness or coldness is enough to prevent you from reading this comment, then we are probably too different for the advice in this comment to be of any use to you.
Thanks very much for your thoughts, and for making a top level post on the topic. Yes, her contribution to social welfare is something I find very attractive, and you help me remember just how important and rare that is.
Rationality sometimes goes badly wrong, when important details don’t fit into a neat reasoning structure or a fatal flaw in argument goes undetected. Emotional reasoning sometimes goes badly wrong, when it deals with corner cases or situations too far from the environments it was evolved to handle. Rationality goes wrong less often, but crucially, they go wrong in different and mostly non-overlapping circumstances. If you have a different world view and reasoning style than your partner, then this might produce conflict, but it also gives you both far better sanity checking than any like-minded person could. You can’t transform her mind, but you can act as a rationalist oracle. You speak of this as though it were only a flaw, but in fact it has both an upside and a downside. Use the upside, and mitigate the downside.
Gaining rational framework doesn’t deprive you of emotional reasoning, but allows you to guide it in normally confusing situations.
How strong is your own understanding of rationality? Why are you an atheist, (why) do you believe science works, what is the difference between one person who is actually right and another person who is merely confused, etc.? How smart is she (that is, how easy it’ll be to positively apply more confused and complex arguments, not requiring of you great feats of persuasion)?
I’ll be interested in what other people think about applying the corpus of Overcoming Bias directly (doesn’t seem like a generally good idea to me, requires a person to be of a kind that’ll maintain focus for extended period of time).
I think I’m quite rational and have a decent understanding of aspects of rationality that I haven’t managed to implement yet. I think karma is a very imperfect measure, but I’ll note that I have more than 100 and less than 400.
She is probably one standard deviation above average in terms of IQ, and would score more highly when considering other kinds of intelligence. The main problem in convincing her to think more rationally is emotional resistance.
Thank you for responding—see my “Added” to the original comment.
Huh? Karma on this site primarily shows positive contribution/participation (if you are able to contribute positively), treating it as a “measure of rationality” is a bizarre perspective. Please try to outline your position on the specific questions I suggested, or something of that kind, it’s hard to make such a decision in a well-known case, but yet harder to construct fully general advice.
For another example, why do you think it’s important to get away from magical thinking? Is it? What is your motivation for thinking about rationality, and for dispelling the other person’s confusion? “Compatibility” of worldviews?
I would probably give you a response you liked better if I understood why you were asking what you were asking.
Because the evidence favors atheism and suggests science leads to truth more often than other approaches to belief formation? I could link to arguments but I don’t see the point in trying to explain these things in my own words. Does it help to know that I usually agree with your comments and with the LW consensus, where it exists? Is the implication that the more rational I am, the more of a problem my partners rationality will be?
I don’t think I understand this question.
I think the importance of getting away from magical thinking varies across people and contexts. I’m not confident I know how important it is, or even whether its helpful, for some people. Its clear that getting away from magical thinking can sometimes help people achieve their personal goals and help make the world a better place.
I enjoy the process regardless of the consequences. But I also hope that it will help me in my career and help me contribute to the world.
I think my partner and I both experience some level of discomfort at knowing that our worldviews are in significant conflict, even though this conflict seems to coexist with a high degree of respect for how the accomplishments of the other. It is unfortunate that we basically have to avoid certain topics of conversation that we both find important and that our emotional reaction to things often differs.
You might check my responses to Alicorn to learn more. Once again, thank you very much for responding.
This is a delicate topic, but I think Vladimir is trying to tell whether you really use rationality to the degree you claim, or whether you rather accept certain opinions of people you see as rationalists, and wish others shared them. In the latter case, it doesn’t matter that the clash is between rationalist and irrationalist opinions: the conflict is isomorphic to any relationship between people of different religions or political parties, and much of the advice for those people should work for you. It’s the former case that would require more particular advice.
I’m afraid that, in the absence of seeing your thought process, much of this looks like guessing the teacher’s password to me. I’d be happy to be corrected, though.
EDIT: Wow, that sounds really tactless and dismissive of me. I retract my accusation, on the basis of (1) not having any real justification and (2) it would set a bad precedent, especially for the sort of reception newcomers get.
Its interesting that people seem to a) be as skeptical of my rationality as they seem to be, and b) think that is the crux of the matter.
Regarding a), if someone tells me that they’ve been reading OB/LW for quite a while and that they think they are considerably more rational than their romantic partner, I think it is very likely that they are correct. But maybe if I was on the other side I would react differently. If I knew of an easy way to prove my rationality I would, but I don’t. Even writing an original rational essay wouldn’t prove much because I could easily be irrational in other domains.
Regarding b), I’m not sure exactly how important it is that potential advice-givers have a very accurate estimate of my rationality (and my girlfriend’s rationality). Perhaps it would be helpful to focus on more specific aspects of our beliefs and approaches to experiencing and acting in the world.
I lean towards preference utilitarianism, though I don’t walk the walk as well as I should. I attempt to calculate the costs and benefits of various choices, she does this too sometimes, but doesn’t like applying it reflexively. She believes in spirits, I’m into Dennett and Dawkins (though I see positive aspects to religion/spirituality)
My partner and I both agree that: She is much more emotional and I am more rational. She is more prone to depression. She has more faith in intuition, I’m more skeptical of it.
Lets say you’ve read everything I’ve written here and you think I’m probably no more rational than my partner. ok, that’s fine, I’d be happy to hear advice that works for two equally irrational people with different beliefs/values/approaches to experiencing and acting in the world.
So the program of understanding each other doesn’t make progress. I agree with Alicorn, it’s essential to establish a mode of communication where you can steadily work on disagreements, with the goal of ultimately resolving them in full. The arguments shouldn’t turn into color politics, polarizing and alienating.
A bit of advice, based on my experience, for a long-term conversion strategy:
Work on understanding your own position better, make sure you know why you believe what you believe before trying to convince another person to change one’s mind. Maybe you are wrong.
Make the mode of interaction and your goals clear when you are arguing, distinguish analysis from social interaction.
Educate the person about fundamentals, thus steadily crafting tools for making deeper arguments in specific discussions.
Prefer shifting the discussion towards education about more general mistake that (might have) contributed to a specific mistake or confusion. In long term, it’s more important than resolving a specific problem, and it’s easier on the other person’s feelings, as you are educating on an abstract theme, rather than attacking a conviction.
Don’t argue the objects of emotional attachment, ever. Instead, work on finding an angle of approach (as suggested above, maybe something more fundamental) that allows you to make progress without directly confronting the issue.
Not everyone is going to change, some people are too dim or too shallow or persistently not interested.