Whether or Not to Have Kids, Transformative Experiences, and More — L.A. Paul
Here are the top 10 key takeaways from the conversation between Tim Ferriss and philosopher L.A. Paul on transformative experiences, decision-making, and how we navigate life's biggest choices.
1. Transformative experiences and decision-making
Transformative experiences fundamentally change who we are and how we see the world. These experiences, like becoming a parent or vampire (in Paul's thought experiment), create a profound shift in our perspective that cannot be fully anticipated beforehand. The challenge with transformative decisions is that we cannot use standard rational choice models because we don't know what values we'll have after the transformation.
This creates a paradox in decision-making. We try to calculate the expected value of different choices based on our current preferences, but after a transformative experience, we become different people with different preferences. The person who decides to have a child is not the same person who will experience being a parent, making it impossible to properly evaluate these decisions in advance.
2. The vampire thought experiment
L.A. Paul uses a vampire thought experiment to illustrate transformative experiences. In this scenario, you're offered a one-time opportunity to become a vampire - gaining immortality and special powers, but also developing a thirst for blood and having to sleep in coffins. Your vampire friends tell you it's wonderful but add that you can't possibly understand what it's like until you become one.
This example highlights the epistemological barrier we face with transformative choices. We cannot truly comprehend what it's like to be on the other side of these experiences. Just as someone who has never seen the color red cannot understand what "red" looks like, we cannot fully grasp certain experiences until we have them. This creates a decision-making challenge where we must choose whether to become a different kind of being without knowing what that will be like.
3. Parenthood as a transformative experience
Becoming a parent serves as one of Paul's primary examples of a transformative experience. Before having children, we cannot fully understand what the experience will be like. After becoming parents, we undergo profound changes that alter our preferences and perspectives in ways we couldn't have anticipated.
Paul notes that after having her children, she found herself willingly waking up at 4 a.m. to write before they awoke - something she would have previously considered impossible as someone who "could barely get up before noon" as a graduate student. This example illustrates how transformative experiences can fundamentally change our preferences and values. We may become versions of ourselves that our pre-transformed selves would find alien or incomprehensible.
4. The role of philosophy in modern times
Philosophy plays multiple important roles in our modern world. At its most basic level, philosophy teaches us how to think about complex issues by providing conceptual frameworks. These frameworks allow us to structure our thoughts and examine fundamental questions about ourselves and reality.
Beyond teaching critical thinking, philosophy also helps uncover fundamental truths about human existence and the nature of our world. Paul highlights how philosophical concepts appear in fields like artificial intelligence, where questions about intelligence, knowledge, and reasoning become practically relevant. Philosophy also contributes to bioethics, political theory, and law, helping create more precise policies that reflect our values and priorities.
5. Entry points to philosophy
Discovering accessible entry points to philosophy can be challenging. Paul suggests fiction as a gateway, particularly recommending authors like Ted Chiang, Jorge Luis Borges, and Lewis Carroll, whose works explore philosophical concepts in engaging ways. These writers tackle deep philosophical questions about time, identity, and possibility without requiring technical philosophical training.
For those wanting to explore analytic philosophy more directly, Paul recommends her own book "Transformative Experience" (particularly the first 100 pages), the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and Oxford's "Very Short Introduction" series. She acknowledges that learning philosophy can be challenging - like "training for a marathon" - but rewarding for those willing to put in the effort. She also recommends Agnes Callard's book "Open Socrates" as an accessible introduction to philosophical thinking.
6. Breaking act state independence
Paul introduces a technical concept called "act state independence," which is fundamental to rational choice theory. Normally when making decisions, we remain the same person before and after the choice - the "state" (who we are) stays independent from the "act" (what we do). This allows us to evaluate choices based on our consistent preferences.
Transformative experiences violate this principle because the act of having the experience changes our state. When we undergo transformative experiences, we become different people with different preferences, breaking the connection between our pre-decision and post-decision selves. This break forces us to reconsider how we approach major life decisions, as traditional decision-making models rely on this independence to function properly.
7. Philosophy's approach to consciousness and experience
Philosophy offers unique insights into consciousness and experience, including altered states from psychedelics. Paul describes how psychedelic experiences can reveal the constructed nature of our perception and self-concept, demonstrating that our minds actively create our reality rather than passively receiving it.
These experiences highlight the limitations of language and concepts in capturing certain types of knowledge. Just as someone who has never seen color cannot understand what "red" looks like through description alone, some experiences remain ineffable - impossible to fully communicate through language. This ineffability connects back to Paul's work on transformative experiences, where certain knowledge remains inaccessible until directly experienced.
8. Approaching difficult life choices
When faced with potentially transformative decisions, Paul suggests reframing the question. Rather than trying to calculate which choice will maximize our happiness (which is impossible when we can't know our future preferences), we should ask whether we want to discover a new way of living, with all its accompanying joys and suffering.
Paul emphasizes that there's no single rational answer that applies to everyone. Someone might reasonably choose not to become a parent even if they would likely be happy after becoming one. The decision becomes less about predicting outcomes and more about whether we want to explore a different mode of being. This approach acknowledges the inherent uncertainty while giving us a framework for making these difficult choices.
9. Facing transformative challenges we don't choose
Not all transformative experiences are chosen. Paul discusses how unwelcome transformations, like serious illness or disability, force us to reconfigure our identities and sources of meaning. She specifically mentions cognitive decline as a transformative experience she anticipates facing eventually.
Her approach to this challenge draws on Buddhist concepts about attachment and suffering. Rather than clinging to abilities she may lose, Paul hopes to reconfigure what she values - shifting from intellectual achievements to more immediate pleasures like art, music, food, and relationships. This perspective offers a way to approach involuntary transformative experiences with resilience, focusing on finding new ways to experience meaning rather than lamenting what's been lost.
10. Conceptual frameworks as tools for understanding
Paul's work reveals the value of conceptual frameworks in making sense of confusing or anxiety-producing experiences. She describes how her realization about transformative experiences came partly from her frustration with pregnancy books that failed to address her deeper questions about becoming a parent.
By articulating the concept of transformative experiences, Paul helped validate the anxiety and uncertainty many people feel when facing major life decisions. She doesn't offer easy answers but instead provides a framework that explains why certain decisions feel so difficult. This illustrates philosophy's practical value - it can't always tell us what to choose, but it can help us understand why we struggle with certain choices and provide structure to our confusion.