I take ritalin and a single cup of coffee most days. Physical exercise is supposedly helpful as well.

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][1].

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.

Bayesian Statistician Andrew Gelman appears to have some differences with you. See: http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2009/02/different_meani.html

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html

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.