Marriage and the Prisoner's Dilemma

The situation:

Bonnie and Clyde are arrested by a detective who knows that they are famous bank robbers. The trouble is, he can’t prove it.

So the detective makes this ploy.  He separates Bonnie and Clyde, putting them in separate cells with no way to communicate with each other. The detective then approaches each of them separately with this offer. 

Betray your partner, and I’ll see that you get only 1 year of prison time if your partner stays loyal, and your partner will go to prison for a minimum of five years. If your partner rats on you, but you stay loyal, then your partner gets one year and you get five years minimum. If both of you rat on each other, then you will both spend three years in prison each.

As Bonnie sits quietly in her cell, she weighs her options. “The detective might be bluffing, which would mean that Clyde and I could go free if we just stay loyal and don’t rat each other out. But If Clyde tells on me while I stay loyal, then I get a minimum of five years. If I tell on Clyde I get either one (1) year or three (3) years. But if I stay loyal, I get either none (0) or five (5).”

On the other side of the station, Clyde is thinking the exact same thing. 

The situation is dire. Each of these partners in crime makes their choice. No one is surprised when both partners betray each other, and each serves a three year sentence.

Bonnie and Clyde both know that their partner is not entirely trustworthy and will probably betray them. Because of this, each will choose to betray (rather than be betrayed).

This situation is a thought experiment from game theory called “The Prisoner’s Dilemma.” Game theory, which is the study of decision making in strategic situations, operates on the assumption that people usually act out of a desire to further their own rational self-interest. Game theory provides the backbone of economics, national defense, and political theory.

The unsettling irony of this situation, however, is that exactly by pursuing their rational self-interest, both Bonnie and Clyde have wound up counting days in a cell.

This brings me to the subject of marriage. Marriage is a partnership similar (hopefully without the crime) to Bonnie and Clyde’s in the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Conflicts arise constantly in marriage which force both partners to decide between their own rational self-interest (what they want) and the needs of their spouse/marriage/family.

Commitment in marriage is like staying loyal in the Dilemma. If both partners sacrifice their rational self-interest and personal wants, then both receive the highest possible benefits. But if either spouse is in it for their own happiness, the whole thing falls apart and everyone is miserable. This has been made even more visible with no-fault divorce laws, but a marriage does not need to end in divorce to be a failure.

This terrifies me, and I assume other rational, sane people feel the same way. Personal commitment and self-sacrifice are not enough to make a marriage work if only one partner is in the game. It takes both partners 

willingly sacrificing themselves for the marriage to succeed, but it only takes one to destroy it. You are at your spouse’s mercy, just as they are at yours.

However, as afraid as we may be, if we act on that fear, then we have failed before we have even started. Marriage is an integral part of human happiness, but if you go into marriage seeking your own happiness, you are likely to lose it.

This is something worth thinking about. What quality could be more important to find in a future spouse than loyalty? Forget the looks, or even the people-skills. Loyalty is of supreme importance.  In yourself, cultivate reliability and trustworthiness. Meet your commitments, always.

Remember that for marriage to benefit personal happiness, it cannot be about personal happiness.  Laws and politics which speak of marriage as a vehicle for personal fulfillment are missing the point.

Mathew 10: 39 "^aHe that findeth his life shall ^blose it: and he that ^closeth his^dlife for my sake shall find it."

KJV 

Moving Forward in a New Semester

Life is great. And busy. My three-and-a-half-month-old daughter Adelaide has discovered her hands and Aubrey and I have discovered mobiles. I always thought that mobiles were a myth.  Nothing that simple could possibly entertain a child, but lo and behold, it works.  Aubrey is hard at work designing a creative mobile for Little Adelaide this week.

The new semester just started here at BYU-Idaho only one week after the last one finished.  The break was brief but sufficient, and the new semester has both Aubrey and me back in the saddle. She is amazing. My dear Aubrey has landed a job as adjunct faculty teaching English for the university in addition to all the full-time effort required to feed, love, and entertain our baby. Babe, you rule. As for me, I am still working hard on my undergraduate degree in English with a full load of 15 credits. This semester I am studying medieval literature and will be memorizing passages in Anglo-Saxon and Middle-English for class. I am so excited!
In addition to my regular classes I am busy trying to get the Philosophy Society  up and running and managing/instructing the Taekwondo Club. As I said. Life is great, we are busy, and good things are happening.

Looking back on the post I wrote for the start of last semester, the changes are starkly apparent. I have been growing personally as a result of my marriage, education, and numerous prayers for strength and guidance. Going to school is not the burden it once was, and I know that life is going to continue getting even better.

Gratefully,
Joseph Bjork

New thoughts on the word “Old”

“Dude, your computer is ancient. That thing has to have come from the stone-age.”

In the modern word, “Old” means bad.  “Old” has connotations of “outdated,” “outmoded,” “irrelevant,” “inefficient,” “inferior,” and so forth. 

“New,” on the other hand, seems to mean “better,” “relevant,” “effective,” bigger, better, faster, stronger. Newer computers, cell-phones, games and etc. are better than older ones. But does that apply to ideas as well? Often we (modern people) think so.  “Cutting edge solutions” and the like.

But is that really the case?

A hundred years ago (and even more recently than that) the word “old” wasn’t a bad thing.  “Old” also meant “tried and tested,” “reliable,” “mature,” and “refined” (think of fine wines and cheeses). “New” was just the opposite. “Untried,” “risky,” etc.  

I think this is very interesting. New ideas are not always better than old ones. (If you even believe in new ideas, most “discoveries” in politics and philosophy have been around for millennia.) "Nihil novi."

Just a quick thought.  Listen when old people talk.  You stand a good chance of learning something valuable.  Don’t throw out old ideas just because they are old. Some things don’t get outdated.

The Gift of Distraction

When I was a missionary in the Netherlands and Belgium it boggled my mind that so many people had never once stopped to wonder about the big questions.  Who are we? Who am I? What is the point of all this? Where did it come from? Why?

These questions are of critical importance to everything we do in life.  It is critical to know what is worth pursuing and what our long term goals should be when deciding what direction to take in life.  But people don’t live that way. 

How often have you sat still and wondered about your place in the universe? Or pondered the dark, and somewhat awkward, question of the meaning of life? Is there anything after this life?  Does being alive even mean anything? How do I even know that I am alive? Perhaps it was in the moment when you were away from the city lights and saw the night sky full of stars.  In quiet moments when you felt empty and alone.  Maybe when choosing a college major or making some other life changing decision.

However, most of the time, we don’t think about it.  We worry about the tasks of the day, we watch TV, we get distracted, and we distract ourselves.

After years of tearing my hair out over this observation, I think distratction might be a good thing in moderation.

This is why.

Before setting out on a journey, it is important to know the goal.  “Begin with the End in mind” as the saying goes.  Without the big picture none of the smaller steps have any meaning or direction and nothing can be achieved except by accident or dumb luck. Understanding long term goals can be critical to one’s happiness and success.  The trouble with that is this.  What bigger goal is my big goal working toward? The scale can always increase to a larger plain.

This is a problem.  If you wait until you have the journey completely planned, “with the end in mind,” you will never start walking, and you will get absolutely nowhere.  This is the paradox of beginning with the end in mind. 

The beauty of the big questions is in their relevance and monumental importance.  The trouble with them is that they do not always have answers.  There will always be things (sometimes answers monumentally important things) that we will not know.  What makes something good?  Why are wrong things wrong? Good luck trying to figure that one out.

Our entire lives are a balance between the powers of reason and distraction.  Reason asks the questions, and if left alone with them, drives itself insane asking them. Distraction doesn’t bother with the questions, ignoring them entirely, and living on assumptions and dogmas.  Clearly, there is danger in each of these.  The danger of obscurity and an infinite regress on the one side, and of ignorance and dogma on the other. 

Reason helps us to question our beliefs and to trim away false ones so that the truth may thrive.  But like a set of overzealous pruning shears, reason alone continues to cut away at beliefs until none remain.  The entire branch of philosophy called Epistemology is dedicated to correcting this problem, and so far, there has not been any progress. Reason cannot even prove that there is a real world outside my head (think Matrix), let alone what that world is like.

Thus the need for distraction. And an even greater need for faith.  At some point, we need to be able to step back from the questions to live our lives.  This does not mean abandoning critical thinking and living in ignorance.  It simply means being able and willing to admit ignorance and keep living anyway. 

Gratitude Follow Up

The week after my last post on gratitude was incredible.  I found a few small ways to serve (mostly my wife and a friend who needed some help), and at the end of the week I was asked to give a talk in Church on service.  It was an interesting experience to think about, and try to practice, gratitude and service in a concentrated way. What I learned was to serve where I am.  There are plenty of opportunities here and now without rushing off to “somewhere else” to do service.  

Gratitude and Service

I feel really good today, and I’m grateful for it.  Life is incredible, even with homework.  I am grateful for my daughter (Adelaide) and my beautiful wife (Aubrey).  I am grateful to have Sundays off so that I can spend time with my family. I am grateful for shelter, central heating, and a well-stocked fridge. I am grateful to attend University. I am grateful to be alive.

I have so much to be thankful for, and I can’t say that I deserve any of it. I am blessed to live in very good circumstances. All good things come from Christ, including sunlight, rain, and the contents of my refrigerator.  He blesses the whole of humanity daily with life, the air that fills our lungs, the food we eat, the people we love, and the very earth beneath our feet.  Wow. I can never pay Him back, but I can pay my portion forward.  This is why I want to be a teacher someday. This is why Aubrey and I contribute a fast offering every month to bless those in need.

I will look for ways to give of my time and resources this week.  I invite anyone who reads this to do the same.

Value, Philosophy, and Faith

If “owl city” can make hit music with insomnia then perhaps I can write hit philosophy with it as well.  Thoughts often seem clearer before any attempt is made to communicate them though they do not become useful until they are expressed. Some things are not understood until taught.

I have struggled lately with a certain meaninglessness.  I have done what I believe was right, though I have been gaining little from it in the way of happiness or fulfillment.  I feel distanced from God and His nourishing power. And as much as I struggle with these feelings, I cannot help but also feel that that may be the point. 

As I see it, though I am not God, the single most important question in mortal life is the question of value.  The only trouble is that all the evidence of the senses and reason cannot positively guarantee what has value or even if value exists.  I believe that the world has been deliberately designed this way.  Life has no apparent or justifiable meaning.  There is none.  Every philosopher I have heard or read who tries to defend some objective ground for value has his axioms rooted in blind faith.  Value is then both essential to human life and meaning and also frustratingly elusive. 

If we were truly sent here to earth to learn from experience and to define ourselves by our choices, would it not make sense that we would be allowed to make those choices in the freedom of a value vacuum?  Justification and philosophy prove only that there is no conclusion which we cannot doubt.  All the intellects of the ages have not offered a single scrap of information which we can trust as a reliable foundation of knowledge, let alone value. 

I believe that the Plan of Salvation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ are beautiful in their truth and clarity.  However, they do not clear the fog of mortal existence.  Life is hard. It stays hard even with all the right answers because we cannot prove or justify those answers to rid them of the possibility of doubt.  We are free to choose the probable or the improbable, the true or the fictitious, the real or the absurd.  The decision is a matter of faith in the value of the choice. 

This is important to remember that just because the gospel is true does not mean that it will be obvious or clear.  To remove the fog, struggle, and despair of mortal life would be to defeat the entire purpose of its existence.  God is kind and gives us moments of clarity where we can see through the veil but we must not expect this as the norm.  Trials of faith can come before and also after moments of great insight.

Hope

I really believe that hope is the one idea that I am most passionate about.
The world can be a bleak, scary place.  Things happen for no good reason all the time and often times those things are painful.
Hope is the belief that God is kind and that He will fulfill his promises, and it changes everything. It changes the focus from the details of the here and now to the meaning which those details have in the big picture.  Most of the things which I and the rest of humanity tend to worry about are not that significant even the scope of a human lifetime, let alone eternity.
What it means that God will fulfill His promises is that everything will eventually be fair and just, that our lives will be given meaning, and that we will live forever in this just and meaningful life.  That is awesome! Even the worst aspects of earth life will be made up.  There will be no sickness, death, physical or mental weakness, hunger, etc.

According to my beliefs as a Latter-day Saint (Mormon) every single human being who has ever lived, or ever will, will be resurrected and given immortality free from physical problems. This gift is a freebee which Christ has given to all of humankind regardless of the way they have chosen to live. The gift of Eternal Life, or the kind of life that God Himself has, is promised only on condition of repentance and honest effort to live the way Jesus Christ did while He was on earth. That means allowing Him to teach, guide, and instruct you in the way you live.
So hope changes everything.

If God does not exist or will not fulfill those promises then we will all live out our years however we decide to live them, and when we die, our self-created purposes and meanings will die with us. Even a well remembered name will last only so long before it is forgotten and lost.

However.

If  an honest God will honor these promises then the meaning of this life is eternal and every injustice on earth becomes nothing more than a temporary inconvenience which will be made up in the end


 

New Semester Panic

I can feel my stomach curdling.  The sour, dizzy smell of panic exudes from my own skin, and the worst part is, I’m not exaggerating.

Why does the very thought of an extra class fill me with dread? 

I was excited for this semester.  Every one of my classes are in topics that I find interesting.  I would probably study them eventually on my own time.  Eventually is right.  How often do I actually stop to read the classics and philosophy treatises? Not often. Rarely will I ever sit down with a book to read.  I am too busy.  Often, ironically, with school.

I feel trapped.  Locked in with no escape.  From what? Is it the work and effort required?

I think it is the commitment.  Ironic that I struggle so much with that.

Every class is a bundle of responsibility which I must commit to carry.  Registering for classes is akin to standing on the beginning of a ski-run in the moment before plunging over the edge.  The trouble is that it is skiing with a tow rope. Rather than gliding effortlessly down the slopes and enjoying the speed and the wind and the silence, I roll and bump and bash my way from rock to bush to bramble with a rope around my neck pulling me ever onward.  There is never a chance to get to my feet and fly.

Every class adds to the weight of panic.

I do not think this feeling is limited to school.  I contemplate other commitments (careers of various kinds et cetera ad infinitum) and the panic is the same.  I feel overwhelmed and grossly inadequate.  I feel offended by the challenge that dares to make me feel small and resigned to the bumping and the bruising.

All education is pain.  We come to understand pain as a gourmet understands food.  These pains produce these strengths. Those, others.  Each has a subtle character and distinct attributes. No two pains are exactly equal.  In the strain of exercise there is sweat and the tension of tearing flesh. Then the ache of rebuilding what was lost, stronger, denser, more complete.  The old is torn and bent and broken, and the resilient emerges as strength is created.  

What ought I to do?  This question is never easy to answer.  I believe that I must prepare now to endure later.  These thoughts now will serve to remind me that there is nothing good which does not require sacrifice.  I am ready to become stronger.  I am ready for pain.