Mini Blog Post 20: Emotions are Bayesian Evidence
Motivation
I consider myself part of the rationalist community, loosely, a community based around seeking truth, understanding your own mind, improving your life, and making the world a better place. And one of the significant benefits I’ve gotten from this community is having a lot more respect for my emotions and intuitions. Yet, in part because of the name, a lot of people seem to think the community is all about doing the complete opposite. And I think that not listening to your emotions and intuitions is a common error in my past self, and in the kinds of people who enjoy the ideas I blog about! My goal in this post is to outline where this error comes from, why I think it is an error, the mindset I take in response to this, and some starting points for actioning upon this.
Note: A lot of this is pretty specific to how my mind works, and these are pretty personal examples. I expect a decent chunk of the people reading this to relate to them, but there are likely some readers to whom this message feels blindingly obvious.
Seek Bayesian evidence, not understanding
An excellent motivating example of this point is taking breaks. I find it easy to fall into the trap of thinking breaks are unnecessary - I’m currently focused on working, breaks disrupt my flow, and don’t really feel necessary. But empirically, taking time for breaks, and sometimes for more meaningful rest and relaxation seems to improve people’s long-term effectiveness. I think failure to do this in the long-term is a good chunk of what leads to burn-out. So, I know all of this in the abstract, yet in the moment I don’t feel like I need to take breaks. Some part of feels like it needs rest, but that doesn’t feel necessary, like it’s something I can ignore. And the main solution I’ve found to this is the hack of taking breaks as a point of principle - whether I “feel” like I need them or not. And empirically this makes me happier, and better able to focus!
I diagnose the underlying error here as demanding a legible causal mechanism. I’m not satisfied with just knowing “taking breaks correlates with good performance”, I want to understand how, in detail. And it feels unsatisfying to not have this clear causal mechanism in my head. I think this underlying error explains a lot of reluctance to listen to emotions and intuitions - an emotion is just a point of data in my mind, that rarely has a clear chain of logical reasoning attached to it. And I have a lot of instincts that demand to understand exactly how something works, and feel dissatisfied if I can’t.
And it is clear that this is an error! My underlying goal is to get results. To make the future state of the world awesome, and in accordance with my goals! And fundamentally, my goals live in the world, while “having a legible causal mechanism” lives in my mind. Having a clear understanding is useful - it makes it much easier to ensure my beliefs are correct, to reason about counterfactuals, etc. But this is an instrumental goal, not a terminal one. I should only care about causal mechanisms to the point that they help me achieve my goals.
And the world is complex, and messy, as is my mind. My understanding of them both, and how they interact is fuzzy, and there’s no magic solution to this. If I require a clear causal mechanism, I will systematically miss out on a bunch of actions worth taking to achieve my goals.
I find a more useful framework is one of Bayesian evidence. Formally, A is Bayesian evidence of B if “A is more likely to be true if B is true, than if B is false”. My underlying goal is to have true beliefs, because this is what will let me achieve my goals, and Bayesian evidence is the main tool for achieving this. I find this perspective clarifying, because having a causal mechanism in mind is strong Bayesian evidence. But not having a clear causal mechanism is only weak evidence against. And so if I don’t have a clear causal mechanism, and want to have true beliefs, I’ll need to use different, more empirical tools.
The power of intuition
A good case study is the importance of intuitions in forming true beliefs
Doing a maths degree has given me a lot of practice dealing with intuitions. When I first encounter a subject like analysis (rigorous calculus), I have a lot of false intuitions - analysis is full of counter-examples to “obviously true” statements, like functions that are continuous everywhere but different nowhere. To address this, I need to dive deeply into formal, rigorous nonsense, and practice laboriously writing out detailed proofs. But once I’ve come out the other side, I have really crisp intuitions! I can look at unfamiliar analysis problems and think “maybe I should use symmetry here” or “this seems too strong to be true”. And these intuitions don’t have a clear causal mechanism attached to them - they just pop up in my mind as a vague feeling. Maybe, if I pay attention, I can dig out some deeper structure. Yet, empirically, they’re often right! And using these intuitions is a key part in my problem solving process. Terence Tao outlines this process quite elegantly here.
My underlying model here: Human brains are complicated. We know this, and we know that human brains are capable of a lot of stuff that computers can’t (yet) do. But my system 2, the explicit, systematic, verbal reasoning that goes on in my head, is something that computers ought to be able to simulate. It’s systematic, logical, and legible. Thus, there’s a lot of computation going on under the hood! In my System 1 - the much less legible, fuzzy, intuitive part of my brain - a lot of the powerful processing that makes humans effective is going on. And intuitions are one of the main ways that that underlying computation appears in my conscious reasoning. So it makes perfect sense that your intuitions should be useful as a way of finding truth!
One good example of this is planning! I easily fall into the trap of procrastinating on assignments, leaving them to the last minute, and then doing them in a stressy rush. And when I get a new assignment I know that this time will be different, because I’m competent and going to try hard! Yet, inevitably, I leave it to the last minute. While, if I imagine myself rushing to do it at the last minute, and ask myself “am I surprised if this happens?”, it’s pretty obvious that I’m not surprised, and this feels normal. There’s two lessons to take from this: My intuitions contained information that is useful to make the right decisions, because they’re good at learning from my past experience. And this process wasn’t clearly legible to me - I had to ask the right questions and think in the right ways to get the data, and it’s not immediately clear where “surprise” comes from.
So, in practice, intuitions are sometimes a powerful guide to truth! But this is an empirical fact, and one that may be true or may be false. I also know that there are a lot of times when my intuitions mislead me to truth, eg when I feel defensive. Thus, when my underlying goal is to find true beliefs and take actions that achieve to my goals, the two extremes of “always follow my intuitions” and “ignore my ‘irrational’ intuitions” are both ineffective. The world is complex, and intuitions represent a lot of my brain’s computing power, yet my brain is not an engine of perfect true. I need to treat “my intuitions are evidence of truth” as an empirical claim, and investigate this. And learning about biases, trying to use intuitions in practice, and seeing what works and what doesn’t, is the main way to make progress on this
Feeling Irrational
Another important instance of this principle is with emotions. It’s easy to dismiss my emotions as “irrational” or “not helping me achieve my goals”. But this is again falling into the same trap - generally irrational is used to mean “lacks a clear causal mechanism” rather than “I am confident these do not correlate with world states I care about”.
Further, a lot of my goals tie to emotions! I want to have friends where I feel excited, but also comfortable and safe. I want to feel happy and fulfilled. I want to feel like I’m successful, and achieving things. Emotions are obviously useful evidence for these goals!
But again, this is an empirical fact! It’s important to notice this and actually test it. Sometimes they’re useful: discomfort is evidence that something is bad for me; happiness and excitement are evidence that something is worth doing. Sometimes they’re not: insecurities are not a good guide to truth, rage/jealousy causes actions that don’t lead to long-term happiness, the compulsion to procrastinate leaves me drained and unhappy. And these are all empirical facts (about my own mind) - I feel I have tested all of these to my satisfaction.
A warning: it’s easy to be overconfident in empirical facts like these! Actually test them. Be open to the possibility that you’re wrong. Ask friends for external opinions, and genuinely hear them out. Truth-seeking is a difficult skill, but a learnable one.
My underlying model: I am the product of billions of years of evolution. And evolution is an incredibly powerful optimiser for creating organisms that survive, thrive and reproduce. And emotions are an important component in this process. And my goals are not the same as evolution’s. Rage and jealousy serve evolution’s goals far more than mine. But often there is value in listening to these emotions, because my goals correlate with evolution’s!
Thus, in practice, I try to have the prior that my emotions matter. And it should be a strong prior! It’s easy to fall into the trap of dismissing parts of myself as “obviously not important”, and extremely easy to be overconfident on this. The world is uncertain, and difficult to find truth in. But there are also times when I do want to overrule my emotions.
I find the parable of Chesterton’s Fence useful here - generally things are there for a reason, and I am too hasty to remove things that I can’t see a reason behind, so I should deliberately err towards conservatism and trusting my emotions. But it is also important to be able to remove the things that truly don’t help me. I should do experiments, beware the long-term consequences that I can’t fully understand, seek advice, and be cautious. And I should feel more comfortable if I can understand where they come from - it’s pretty clear that rage and jealousy serve evolution’s goals more than mine, which makes it less likely that I’m breaking something important. But my default should be caution!
Emotions are not under conscious control
Another thing “my emotions are irrational” can mean is “my emotions are not the way I want them”.
On a purely object level, it is important to note that emotions are not under my conscious control! If I want to be happy and fulfilled, I need to work with the happiness creation mechanism I already have. And understanding my emotions and introspecting is an important way to form true beliefs about this mechanism, and to do the things that make me happy. And this feels “irrational”, and the logical, reasoning part of me finds this irritating. But nonetheless, this is the obviously correct way to achieve my goals!
For example, I find it pretty easy to fall into spirals of insecurity - to see the way people perceive me in the worst possible light, and to have a strong negative bias. And empirically, this does not help me to have true beliefs, and is bad for my overall happiness. But just because I dislike it, doesn’t mean it’ll go away! And in practice, the best way to deal with insecurities is honest opinions from those I trust, and sincere compliments. And it feels irritating, and unnecessary to need to seek this out, but this is just a fact of how my mind works. So, I try to respond to this by creating an environment where I trust my friends to give me honest criticism where it’s justified, and honest compliments where it is not - this feels unaesthetic, but is clearly the best path to achieving my goals, and my emotions were important evidence for finding this path! It feels awkward to ask people for feedback or sincere compliments, this incurs emotional labour on them and it feels unnecessary, but empirically this is important to my happiness. Understanding “irrational” parts of myself is key to achieving my goals.
And on a more meta level, these things can be changed. It’s hard, and can’t just be willed to happen, but it’s possible. As far as I can tell, this is much of the point of therapy, especially techniques like CBT. And I’ve found techniques like Noticing highly valuable for shifting my reflexive reactions in the moment, which has a big influence on my emotions. But trying to change deep parts of your psyche is pretty dangerous - it’s easy to misunderstand what changes need to be made, and it’s easy to think you’ve made changes when you haven’t. That you’ve managed to remove an “irrational” need, when you’ve really just suppressed it.
And so, in practice, understanding what’s actually going on in my mind is a pretty key part of achieving my goals. It would be nice (in some sense), if I was a pure, luminescent floating ball of rationality who didn’t need to care about such things, but this is empirically false. And I should not let pleasant but false beliefs hold me back from my goals (note: your mileage will highly vary on whether this is a pleasant belief).
Taking Action
I’m pretty confident all of what I’ve said is true, but this is pretty difficult to put into action! The world is fundamentally uncertain, and introspection is hard. But here are some things I’ve found helpful
Be grounded
The fundamental point of thinking in terms of Bayesian evidence is that it’s empirical - you’re seeking facts about the world. So treat this as a problem, where you want to look past your intuitions and find the truth!
Run experiments, try new things, pay attention to how it actually makes you feel, not just how you think it makes you feel. Be open to being wrong about what’s going on in your mind. Your first hypothesis is often wrong, and often right - take it seriously, but also be creative and generate alternate ones
Ask other people for their perspective, and genuinely listen - there’s a good chance they’re wrong, but also a good chance you’re wrong! Think about how you could distinguish between a world where they’re right, and where you’re right
Track data - keep track of weird situations where you didn’t feel or act like you’d have expected, and look for common trends!
And remember - emotions and intuitions are often evidence, even if they don’t feel “rational”
Practice introspection
Introspection is a super valuable skill, and a learnable one! This is difficult, but one where you can make noticeable progress
This is hard to make actionable, but I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of just giving time and space to it. Notice the weird, unexpected and subtle emotions, and pay attention to them! Write down your thoughts. Go to a quiet space, and just pay attention to how you feel.
It’s easy to feel like introspection should be easy, that you’re failing if you don’t have a clear and immediate idea - this is just false. It’s a difficult skill that takes practice, and deserves time to practice in. And sometimes you’ll put in time, and fail
And ultimately, you don’t need to listen to the information you get, but it is information, and if you throw it away completely, you’re losing out!
Notice when you have situations with strong emotions, and (where possible) just stop and pay attention to how you’re feeling, and where the feelings come from
It’s much easier to practice introspection when an emotion feels alive - it’s strong and visceral - than when trying to dig it up after the fact
I’ve found Noticing is a pretty powerful skill for amplifying existing introspection - practicing it for several months has really helped me improve at noticing subtle emotions
Some people swear by Focusing
I find it useful to notice something resonating - an explanation for how I’m feeling feels right, like it connects with something deep and true. This is often a good sign that I’m on to something
Use simulated data - thinking through past situations where I felt strong emotions, and trying to mentally simulate the situation. It’s good to try to make it as visceral and vivid as possible - think through the context, sensory cues, the physical sensations associated with the emotion.
Health warning: Don’t do this if it feels like a bad idea, or is about anything remotely traumatic!
I find this often helps me to notice associated cues with the emotion, what I call surface area, which is valuable for understanding it better and noticing it in the future
Understand other people
Everyone’s mind is different, but there are commonalities! I’ve found it useful to talk to other people about their internal experience. Trying to be empathetic, and curious, and to try to understand until their mind makes sense to me
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you think exactly like everybody else, and this is rarely true, but I’ve found that these conversations can help me highlight what’s going on in my head - either because I relate, or because I don’t relate and that surprises me
Give yourself the benefit of the doubt
It’s easy to dismiss emotions and intuitions as irrational - next time you do this, notice! And stop, zoom out, and assume there’s a hidden chain of logic behind them. And sometimes this isn’t true, or you won’t find one, but often there is something there, it’s just not immediately legible!
Conclusion
Hopefully, for at least some of the people reading this, the idea of dismissing emotions as “irrational” resonates. And I hope my reasoning for why I consider this an error makes sense! Ultimately this is difficult, and complicated, and hard to directly put into practice. But I think that ignoring things that feel “irrational” is a pretty major error that can hold you back from achieving your goals. As can trusting these parts of me blindly. This is an empirical fact about the world. And the solution to those is to seek truth - and all parts of me can align behind this.
