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Transformative Experience by L. A. Paul
As we live our lives, we repeatedly make decisions that shape our future circumstances and affect the sort of person we will be. When choosing whether to start a family, or deciding on a career, we often think we can assess the options by imagining what different experiences would be like for us. L. A. Paul argues that, for choices involving dramatically new experiences, we are confronted by the brute fact that we can know very little about our subjective futures. This has serious implications for our decisions. If we make life choices in the way we naturally and intuitively want to--by considering what we care about, and what our future selves will be like if we choose to have the experience--we only learn what we really need to know after we have already committed ourselves. If we try to escape the dilemma by avoiding an experience, we have still made a choice. Choosing rationally, then, may require us to regard big life decisions as choices to make discoveries, small and large, about the intrinsic nature of experience, and to recognize that part of the value of living authentically is to experience one's life and preferences in whatever way they may evolve in the wake of the choices one makes. Using classic philosophical examples about the nature of consciousness, and drawing on recent work in normative decision theory, cognitive science, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind, Paul develops a rigorous account of transformative experience that sheds light on how we should understand real-world experience and our capacity to rationally map our subjective futures.
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First published October 30, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 57 reviews
January 7, 2016
This book takes on a really interesting topic, but in my opinion, the author's treatment falls short of satisfying. The basic premise is to discuss how people ought to behave when facing decisions that are likely to have dramatic and transformative effects, such that it is difficult to imagine what the outcomes will "be like" for us, or even such that we believe the experience itself will transform our preferences in unpredictable ways. Paul introduces the topic with the slightly silly example of whether to become a vampire, but she also gives extensive discussions of the decisions of whether a hearing-impaired person should get a cochlear implant and whether a childless person should have a child. These are certainly rare decisions, but also very important ones, so it makes sense to have a focused philosophical discussion of them.
Fundamentally, she says that this class of decision causes problems for classical rational choice theory. There is no way for us to assign valid utilities to the various possible outcomes, and therefore no way to choose based on maximization of expected value, or even weaker criteria such as maximin or maximax. (She also discusses time-inconsistency in cases of preference transformation, but I don't really see that as a necessary component of the problem.) She sets off to rescue rational choice, and discusses two alternative approaches.
One, which she rejects, is to make the decision from a neutral third-person perspective, based on whatever aggregate evidence is available. For example, one could decide whether or not to have a child based on surveys of reported satisfaction by parents and non-parents, controlling for relevant characteristics. Paul rejects this approach for a couple of reasons. The less-deep reason is that there is always variation even when controlling for observable characteristics, and we don't know which unobservable group we fall into. The deeper reason is simply that she sees it as important that major life decisions be made from a first-person perspective, because it is important for us to have agency in our own lives. This is pretty much an axiomatic assumption, but one that I wouldn't necessarily argue with.
The second, which she advocates, is to evaluate the decision not based on the (unknowable) subjective values of the outcomes, but rather on the (presumed knowable) subjective value of the "revelation" itself. She says that we may place some value on the very experience of *learning* what it is like to be a parent, a vampire, etc.--regardless of how much we like the actual consequences--and that we can make a rational first-person choice based on assessing this value.
This argument is interesting, but ultimately strikes me as something of a Procrustean bed. First, it is not obvious to me why rational choice theory deserves rehabilitating in this context. Paul seems to take this as self evident. I would ask why we see rational choice as a normative standard in the first place. I think the answer to that question would have to have some kind of utilitarian flavor, e.g., we think that human preference satisfaction is good, and rational choice is a framework that leads to the highest possible level of preference satisfaction. In the context of transformative choice, however, this justification is invalid. If we can't know the subjective values we will place on the possible outcomes, then ipso facto there is no decision-making framework that will consistently perform better than any other in terms of achieving preference satisfaction (i.e., whether a given decision-making framework leads to a bad or good outcome will be purely coincidental). If a first-person utilitarian perspective doesn't provide us with a decision rule of any value, we might consider other frameworks such as deontology or virtue ethics that could help us make a decision without regard to the (unknowable) utility consequences.
Actually, it seems to me that rational choice theory is in general not necessarily a good guide for making life-altering decisions, even when the consequences are more or less comprehensible. We know from psychological research that there are two broad classes of happiness: pleasure and flourishing, more or less. Utilitarian rational choice seems pretty well-suited to choices that primarily bear on the former. An example that Paul uses in the book is whether to eat pineapple or durian for breakfast. This will have consequences in terms of our pleasure or pain, but will not really have any bearing on our life flourishing. It is generally pretty easy for us to "mentally simulate" the different alternatives, and choose the one that we think will provide the highest expected level of pleasure. However, it is difficult or impossible to "mentally simulate" the pleasure consequences of life-altering events. First of all, we can't really imagine a life-long stream of outcomes in the same way that we can imagine a discrete outcome, and second of all, it is well-known that people strongly adapt to both positive and negative events such that long-term effects on happiness are generally muted or even nonmeasurable. So I am not sure what utilitarian rational choice has to say about choices that bear on the flourishing type of happiness. By contrast, deontological or virtue frameworks seem to have a lot to say about those types of decisions. For example, it might be difficult for us to tell what the utility consequences of becoming a soldier would be, but considerations of duty and virtue would be extremely relevant.
Paul's concept of "the value of revelation" seems to fall more into the "flourishing" category than the "pleasure" category. Presumably, she doesn't think we get some direct pleasure or pain from the experience of revelation; rather, she means that the revelation has some bearing on our flourishing. For example, one might think that it is important and valuable to explore as many aspects of the human experience as possible, and include parenthood in that list of aspects (regardless of whether or not it was pleasurable on net). It seems to me to stretch credibility a bit to characterize a decision made on such a basis as a utilitarian rational choice. It seems much more related to virtue ethics ("I want to be the kind of person who..."). So, I think Paul does the reader and the topic a disservice by not discussing the different classes of happiness and not discussing non-utility-based frameworks (except for a couple of offhanded remarks).
Fundamentally, she says that this class of decision causes problems for classical rational choice theory. There is no way for us to assign valid utilities to the various possible outcomes, and therefore no way to choose based on maximization of expected value, or even weaker criteria such as maximin or maximax. (She also discusses time-inconsistency in cases of preference transformation, but I don't really see that as a necessary component of the problem.) She sets off to rescue rational choice, and discusses two alternative approaches.
One, which she rejects, is to make the decision from a neutral third-person perspective, based on whatever aggregate evidence is available. For example, one could decide whether or not to have a child based on surveys of reported satisfaction by parents and non-parents, controlling for relevant characteristics. Paul rejects this approach for a couple of reasons. The less-deep reason is that there is always variation even when controlling for observable characteristics, and we don't know which unobservable group we fall into. The deeper reason is simply that she sees it as important that major life decisions be made from a first-person perspective, because it is important for us to have agency in our own lives. This is pretty much an axiomatic assumption, but one that I wouldn't necessarily argue with.
The second, which she advocates, is to evaluate the decision not based on the (unknowable) subjective values of the outcomes, but rather on the (presumed knowable) subjective value of the "revelation" itself. She says that we may place some value on the very experience of *learning* what it is like to be a parent, a vampire, etc.--regardless of how much we like the actual consequences--and that we can make a rational first-person choice based on assessing this value.
This argument is interesting, but ultimately strikes me as something of a Procrustean bed. First, it is not obvious to me why rational choice theory deserves rehabilitating in this context. Paul seems to take this as self evident. I would ask why we see rational choice as a normative standard in the first place. I think the answer to that question would have to have some kind of utilitarian flavor, e.g., we think that human preference satisfaction is good, and rational choice is a framework that leads to the highest possible level of preference satisfaction. In the context of transformative choice, however, this justification is invalid. If we can't know the subjective values we will place on the possible outcomes, then ipso facto there is no decision-making framework that will consistently perform better than any other in terms of achieving preference satisfaction (i.e., whether a given decision-making framework leads to a bad or good outcome will be purely coincidental). If a first-person utilitarian perspective doesn't provide us with a decision rule of any value, we might consider other frameworks such as deontology or virtue ethics that could help us make a decision without regard to the (unknowable) utility consequences.
Actually, it seems to me that rational choice theory is in general not necessarily a good guide for making life-altering decisions, even when the consequences are more or less comprehensible. We know from psychological research that there are two broad classes of happiness: pleasure and flourishing, more or less. Utilitarian rational choice seems pretty well-suited to choices that primarily bear on the former. An example that Paul uses in the book is whether to eat pineapple or durian for breakfast. This will have consequences in terms of our pleasure or pain, but will not really have any bearing on our life flourishing. It is generally pretty easy for us to "mentally simulate" the different alternatives, and choose the one that we think will provide the highest expected level of pleasure. However, it is difficult or impossible to "mentally simulate" the pleasure consequences of life-altering events. First of all, we can't really imagine a life-long stream of outcomes in the same way that we can imagine a discrete outcome, and second of all, it is well-known that people strongly adapt to both positive and negative events such that long-term effects on happiness are generally muted or even nonmeasurable. So I am not sure what utilitarian rational choice has to say about choices that bear on the flourishing type of happiness. By contrast, deontological or virtue frameworks seem to have a lot to say about those types of decisions. For example, it might be difficult for us to tell what the utility consequences of becoming a soldier would be, but considerations of duty and virtue would be extremely relevant.
Paul's concept of "the value of revelation" seems to fall more into the "flourishing" category than the "pleasure" category. Presumably, she doesn't think we get some direct pleasure or pain from the experience of revelation; rather, she means that the revelation has some bearing on our flourishing. For example, one might think that it is important and valuable to explore as many aspects of the human experience as possible, and include parenthood in that list of aspects (regardless of whether or not it was pleasurable on net). It seems to me to stretch credibility a bit to characterize a decision made on such a basis as a utilitarian rational choice. It seems much more related to virtue ethics ("I want to be the kind of person who..."). So, I think Paul does the reader and the topic a disservice by not discussing the different classes of happiness and not discussing non-utility-based frameworks (except for a couple of offhanded remarks).
January 18, 2018
The needless repetition and constant, redundant road mapping really made this a less pleasant read than it had to be. The same idea could've been expressed more effectively in 1/3rd the space. That being said the core idea of the book is very compelling and it ends on a strong note.
May 4, 2020
A very approachable discussion on transformative experiences and how they can be rationally approached. This is a great book to read in conjunction with Vervaeke's lectures (on Youtube) on "The Meaning Crisis".
November 1, 2023
John Vervaeke's "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis" lecture series brought me to this book, and I'm thankful to Prof. Vervaeke for the strong recommendation, because I've never heard about this interesting little book before I watched those lectures.
As the author of the book put it succinctly, "the main problem with truly transformative choices is not a problem in formal epistemology; it is a problem in formal phenomenology." What a mouthful sentence, that could probably only be formed after years of studying analytic philosophy. The nice thing is that the author takes this highly technical, philosophical, and essential problem of "transformative experience and how to decide about it", and then in about 170 pages creates a piece of highly engaging text that can be appreciated not only by analytic philosophers dabbling in obscure, academic logic and philosophy journals, but also by other types of people who contemplate about critical life decisions, such as "should I get married?", "should we have a child?", "how to decide about being a vampire?", and more importantly "should I have another child, oh dear?".
The book, no matter how self-help-like its title sounds, is really about "what kind of algorithm is going to work for this wicked problem, human reasoning is so limited", or, in other words, "how not to mess while trying to be rational and authentic, that is, if that's your cup of tea, which, of course, should be, because use that brain, why wouldn't you?".
Does that argumentation deserve close to 180 pages? Some reviewers complained about the book being repetitive, but I have no problems with that. People don't understand easily. You do have to repeat and make some variations on a theme, use some fancy examples such as vampires and then shake people to their rational core reminding how irrational they were when they decided to have that child, and then slowly, gently, address their mental faculties by laying out potential ways to go about deciding about having a child or another one, because, as has been repeated ad nauseam by the author, you don't even know how your preferences and value judgements will change, and no, testimony from others or "scientific papers" don't help for your rationality and authenticity. As an agent, you have to do that agency thing, that is, if you still wish to have minimal amount of self-respect.
I wish I could read the book before I had my first child. But I couldn't, it wasn't yet published, and we all know that once you had that transformative experience, you can't go back, that's the whole point of living. Therefore, I have to say that I really enjoyed reading this book, and running thought experiments. Towards the end, the author also briefly touches hierarchical Bayesian models as a potential method to make decisions in such cases, where you have no possible way of personally knowing what it would be like to be/have X (X = being married, tasting durian, having a child, being a vampire, gaining sight as a congenitally blind person, having another child, etc.). However, this part is a bit weak in terms of examples, and how to apply hierarchical Bayesian models to such cases without being a PhD. student and having nothing else better to do.
I really like this short but valuable philosophy book, but I can't recommend it to you. Please be rational, have some self respect, be authentic, have some agency, and decide for yourself. Because once you decide and act, there's no turning back, and nobody knows what it means for you to have read that book as you. On the other hand, the book gives some tips and tricks for low-stakes situations such as this one.
As the author of the book put it succinctly, "the main problem with truly transformative choices is not a problem in formal epistemology; it is a problem in formal phenomenology." What a mouthful sentence, that could probably only be formed after years of studying analytic philosophy. The nice thing is that the author takes this highly technical, philosophical, and essential problem of "transformative experience and how to decide about it", and then in about 170 pages creates a piece of highly engaging text that can be appreciated not only by analytic philosophers dabbling in obscure, academic logic and philosophy journals, but also by other types of people who contemplate about critical life decisions, such as "should I get married?", "should we have a child?", "how to decide about being a vampire?", and more importantly "should I have another child, oh dear?".
The book, no matter how self-help-like its title sounds, is really about "what kind of algorithm is going to work for this wicked problem, human reasoning is so limited", or, in other words, "how not to mess while trying to be rational and authentic, that is, if that's your cup of tea, which, of course, should be, because use that brain, why wouldn't you?".
Does that argumentation deserve close to 180 pages? Some reviewers complained about the book being repetitive, but I have no problems with that. People don't understand easily. You do have to repeat and make some variations on a theme, use some fancy examples such as vampires and then shake people to their rational core reminding how irrational they were when they decided to have that child, and then slowly, gently, address their mental faculties by laying out potential ways to go about deciding about having a child or another one, because, as has been repeated ad nauseam by the author, you don't even know how your preferences and value judgements will change, and no, testimony from others or "scientific papers" don't help for your rationality and authenticity. As an agent, you have to do that agency thing, that is, if you still wish to have minimal amount of self-respect.
I wish I could read the book before I had my first child. But I couldn't, it wasn't yet published, and we all know that once you had that transformative experience, you can't go back, that's the whole point of living. Therefore, I have to say that I really enjoyed reading this book, and running thought experiments. Towards the end, the author also briefly touches hierarchical Bayesian models as a potential method to make decisions in such cases, where you have no possible way of personally knowing what it would be like to be/have X (X = being married, tasting durian, having a child, being a vampire, gaining sight as a congenitally blind person, having another child, etc.). However, this part is a bit weak in terms of examples, and how to apply hierarchical Bayesian models to such cases without being a PhD. student and having nothing else better to do.
I really like this short but valuable philosophy book, but I can't recommend it to you. Please be rational, have some self respect, be authentic, have some agency, and decide for yourself. Because once you decide and act, there's no turning back, and nobody knows what it means for you to have read that book as you. On the other hand, the book gives some tips and tricks for low-stakes situations such as this one.
February 16, 2025
A bit much text, for sparse statements, the constant repetitions are very annoying, an essay would have done it too... The book is still quite nice, the title is promising, but the content only touches on a small part of the topic of transformative experience, the expectations are not fulfilled
August 30, 2022
This is a dense book but I found myself engrossed in the subject matter. A highlight for me was the last chapter of the book where the author reviews critiques of the statements made in the book. Not only making for a good summary, but a signal of her rigor.
The concepts of epistemic vs personal transformation was interesting to me and it reminded me of the subject of The Day The Universe Changed; where James Burke posits that once you've acquired knowledge, your view of the universe has changed (epistemic transformation).
The book helped me reflect on my own transformational experiences and gave me a framework to think of future transformational changes. The statement "We can choose rationally as long as we are guided by revelation" was the key that unlocked things for me. I've been reading a bit about dealing with uncertainty and probabilities and how those factor into decision making. A decision to switch careers is entirely rational when it's to reveal what the experience is like working in that industry (vs speculating future happiness or contentment on false credences).
I loved that she talked about the mistake of making decisions based on aggregates. Those are useful for institutions trying to make broad policy changes. They aren't that useful for your personal circumstances.
The concepts of epistemic vs personal transformation was interesting to me and it reminded me of the subject of The Day The Universe Changed; where James Burke posits that once you've acquired knowledge, your view of the universe has changed (epistemic transformation).
The book helped me reflect on my own transformational experiences and gave me a framework to think of future transformational changes. The statement "We can choose rationally as long as we are guided by revelation" was the key that unlocked things for me. I've been reading a bit about dealing with uncertainty and probabilities and how those factor into decision making. A decision to switch careers is entirely rational when it's to reveal what the experience is like working in that industry (vs speculating future happiness or contentment on false credences).
I loved that she talked about the mistake of making decisions based on aggregates. Those are useful for institutions trying to make broad policy changes. They aren't that useful for your personal circumstances.
September 30, 2025
Interesting topic; the book, however, is too long for the scope of its thesis and yet leaves some points underdeveloped. It's not particularly clear what a subjective value really *amounts to*, for instance, as compared to other values, but the importance of subjective values is absolutely key to Paul's overall account and argument. Paul's 2015 paper on the topic may be a more time-efficient way of getting to know her thoughts on the matter.
July 6, 2021
Paul asks the question: how can you decide whether or not to do something that will alter the goals that you have for doing it?
That is, if you are changed by your decision, how do you know your decision will stand? The main issue with trying to answer this question has to do with how we frame decisions, in terms of a cost-benefit analysis... if we change who we are, then the analysis goes out the window because our values change. The only framing then, that seems to work (be consistent), is to make a decision based not on the results (because those are unknown) but on our openness to new experiences...
This is a really though provoking book. I highly recommend this!
That is, if you are changed by your decision, how do you know your decision will stand? The main issue with trying to answer this question has to do with how we frame decisions, in terms of a cost-benefit analysis... if we change who we are, then the analysis goes out the window because our values change. The only framing then, that seems to work (be consistent), is to make a decision based not on the results (because those are unknown) but on our openness to new experiences...
This is a really though provoking book. I highly recommend this!
December 16, 2021
I'm rounding this up to 3 stars, probably because I'm in a kindly holiday spirit and the topic is quite interesting. Nonetheless, the author leaves much of the text beleaguered by pervasive redundancies and serious cases of 'example badgering' (this is a term, right?). The first third/half of the book must have reminded me 19 times just exactly what was 'about to be presented'.
I also think that much of the author's decision-theoretic approaches take on an implicit 'rational egoist mindset', which I think was worthy of more admission and clarification. Many of the transformative decisions, considered from a decision-theoretic 'ethical mindset' would likely not run into as many problems as the former, and the former (I think) has even fewer genuine problems than she might suspect. However, I think her overall thesis is informative, even if many are already aware of the fact that many decisions are based on the revelatory knowledge/experience one might acquire, as opposed to the more provincial and direct experiences that they endure. All in all it's worth reading a brief summary of the thesis, but this could be a 15-20 page published paper, max.
I also think that much of the author's decision-theoretic approaches take on an implicit 'rational egoist mindset', which I think was worthy of more admission and clarification. Many of the transformative decisions, considered from a decision-theoretic 'ethical mindset' would likely not run into as many problems as the former, and the former (I think) has even fewer genuine problems than she might suspect. However, I think her overall thesis is informative, even if many are already aware of the fact that many decisions are based on the revelatory knowledge/experience one might acquire, as opposed to the more provincial and direct experiences that they endure. All in all it's worth reading a brief summary of the thesis, but this could be a 15-20 page published paper, max.
October 19, 2020
There are times where we need to make a decision but we lack enough information to make an informed choice. This book talks about this kind of scenario starting with the thought experiment on what would it be like to become a vampire.
The author makes the case on why the best course of action in this type of scenarios is to make a decision based on whether we want to avoid or to embrace revelation (e.g., I've never tasted durian, but I'll like to go through the experience and find out whether I like it or not).
Overall a pretty good read (a bit repetitive at times), but it let me with a new framework to go through experiences that might be personally or epistemically transformative.
- Epistemic transformative experience: teach us something we couldn't have learned without having it.
- Personally transformative experience: radically change who you are, your points of view, and it changes what is like for you to be you.
There is also an EconTalk episode with the author https://overcast.fm/+JAWhidY - which talks about the ideas in the book.
The author makes the case on why the best course of action in this type of scenarios is to make a decision based on whether we want to avoid or to embrace revelation (e.g., I've never tasted durian, but I'll like to go through the experience and find out whether I like it or not).
Overall a pretty good read (a bit repetitive at times), but it let me with a new framework to go through experiences that might be personally or epistemically transformative.
- Epistemic transformative experience: teach us something we couldn't have learned without having it.
- Personally transformative experience: radically change who you are, your points of view, and it changes what is like for you to be you.
There is also an EconTalk episode with the author https://overcast.fm/+JAWhidY - which talks about the ideas in the book.
June 10, 2023
We often find ourselves in situations where we need to take decisions that will not only change our life but will also change the very essence of who we are. This is the basic thesis of transformative experiences. However, the key premise of transformative experiences is not that such experiences will yield personal change, but that we have no idea how this change will alter our personal values. In fact, to truly understand the epistemic significance of transformative experiences is quite disturbing to say the least.
Consider for example how the experience of becoming a vampire will change your life. Surely you will reject the idea of becoming a vampire simply because you can’t imagine enjoying living in the dark and drinking human blood? But what if you consider the fact that everyone who ever chose to become a vampire describes it as the best decision of their life. Not only are you immortal, but human blood suddenly tastes like liquid cocaine, every moment spent in the moonlight feels like radiating bliss that transforms every cell in your body into a nuclear reactor that bursts with energy and vibrance, and every single moment feels like pure unmitigated power and majesty. You truly feel like a God – unrestricted, fearless, and immortal.
However, surely you can’t take such an important decision purely based on third party reports? This is the problem with transformative experiences – you truly can’t know how it will change you until you have had a transformative experience. It’s almost like deciding to marry your girlfriend, having a child, or taking a shot of heroin – you truly don’t know how these experiences will change you or your future. Heroin addicts would not commit to abusing heroin if that first shot of heroin didn’t change who they are – turning them into people who enjoy heroin so much that they are willing to sacrifice everything they have for another heroin trip. Similarly, you will never know how your future will look like or how you will change as a person until you marry your romantic partner – there are simply too many variables, too many unknown unknowns.
This dilemma is further exasperated by the fact that simply asking your friends and family for advice is insufficient within the context of transformative experiences. Your friend might confess that becoming a Buddhist Monk was the best decision of their life, but their perspective is simply irrelevant to your personal context. In the end, we often only have our own judgement regarding transformative experiences, and when that day comes where you need to take a life-altering decision, you better pray that your norms and values are properly aligned and true. Moreover, just like you can’t adequately rely on third party judgements regarding transformative experiences, you also can’t rely on your own moral judgements regarding transformative experiences because the experience won’t be like any other experience that you ever had before. This means that if a personally transformative experience is a radically new experience for you, that many important features of your future self – the self that results from the personal transformation, are conceptually and epistemically inaccessible to your current self.
One possible solution is to apply normative standards to the subjective values of the transformative experience. It’s reasonable to imagine that the outcomes of such experiences can be mediated by subjective values such as trait openness to experience. People who are high in trait openness to experience might place a higher value on the very act of participating in transformative experiences and would even consider participating in such experiences out of pure curiosity and disregard for possible negative contingencies. On the other hand, people who are low in trait openness to experiences, or people who are high in trait neuroticism or trait agreeableness might reject transformative experiences simply due to risk aversion, regardless of possible positive contingencies. Normative standards as mediated by personal indexing therefore provides us with profound insight into the level at which our personal values shape and transform our phenomenological experiences and perspectives – you literally experience the world through the lens of your values. However, although the appeal to normative standards and personal indexing might prove useful to mediate the decision-making paradigms related to transformative experiences, even these standards are subjective to say the least and do not provide any rational empirical insights into the possible epistemic transformations that accrue during these experiences. This position further exasperates the difficult problem of transformative experiences because you are being asked to consider the possibility of an outcome where you, as the human being making the decision, cannot even construct a rationally defensible evaluation of what it would be like to live your life in this way. From a cognitive science perspective, participation in a transformational experience therefore changes the agent, the arena, and the agent-arena-relationship – it is metaphysically speaking almost an entirely different universe. The man before committing a murder, and the man after committing a murder, are not only two completely different people, they live in two different universes.
Statements such as: “I understand what you are going through” suddenly takes on a much deeper and darker epistemic architecture.
However, it’s important to qualify the parameters of transformative experiences in this instance. The lesson here is not that the decision to participating in transformative experiences such as having a child or committing a murder can never be made rationally. The lesson is that, if you’ve never had a child before or never committed a murder, it is impossible to make an informed, rational decision by imagining outcomes based on what it would be like to have a child or committing a murder, assigning subjective normative values to these outcomes, and then modeling your action preferences on these insights.
This position however begs the question if our preferences regarding the participation in transformative experiences can ever be modeled whatsoever? Surely, we can’t deconstruct the argument into an infinite regression.
The way we act in the world provides some interesting insights into how we solve this problem. Considering the fact that we are as humans often thing of ourselves as agents within a salience landscape in a particular point in time and space, with a conscious, centered point of view that looks out from that point to the rest of the world. From this first personal perspective, we simulate the subjective values of various acts we might perform in the arena by reflecting on our past, consulting our present, and mapping our possible paths into the future. At each experienced moment, we generate a continuously updating map of possible futures for ourselves, a map that evolves over time, as we move from the present into the future, in response to input from our perceptions and decisions. The function of memory is therefore not to remember the past, but to codify our lived experience and then to use it as a map that can be used to simulate the future.
However, as explained before, rationality in itself – even within the parameters of our lived experience is insufficient for providing a conclusive model with outcomes for transformative experiences. Rationality therefore must be supplemented by revelation, especially given the fact that not taking a decision is a decision in itself, and that defaulting to ignorance could even yield catastrophic consequences. We therefore, more often than not, will need to choose between the lesser of two evils, between a transformative experience and the status quo, each with their own unintended consequences.
Revelation is therefore a useful tool that can be used to strengthen the value of personal indexing within the context of transformational experiences. Furthermore, another useful tool that can be used to supplement this paradigm is the use of Hierarchical Bayesian Modelling. Similar to the historical lived experiences that informs the probable outcomes and personal values of transformative experience simulations, the Bayesian framework associates the content of specific transformative experiences with adjacent experiential constructs at a higher level of abstraction. For example, if we face the decision of joining the Hell’s Angels biker gang even though we have no prior experience of riding motorcycles or being associated with notorious gang members, we might consider exploring adjacent experiences in our memory such as riding mountain bikes or being affiliated with the local football club. Although mountain biking or belonging to a football club does not directly translate to joining the Hell’s Angels, they do however belong to the same conceptual universe. Our lived experience breaking a leg on a mountain bike or being bullied by the football coach might provide some epistemological insight into how we might experience joining the Hell’s Angels. The Hierarchical Bayesian Model can therefore be used as a powerful tool to map possible futures.
However, one massive blind spot in the book is that people have for centuries relied on transtemporal maxims as a mediating construct for navigating transformative experiences. Religious faith, especially as a non-propositional decision-making tool, is in fact exceedingly useful within the context of transformative experiences, as it renders to us an imaginal ideal that models the preferred teleological outcomes for a general set of epistemological contexts.
The insufficiency of rationality within the context of simulating transformative experiences can indeed be supplemented by revelation and personal normative standards, but even these paradigms are insufficient to adequately model life or death situations and our cognitive framing needs to be strengthened by our non-propositional cognitive machinery. Religious doctrines that afford wisdom and virtue are indispensable when confronting transformative experiences, otherwise we are rejecting powerful tools at our immediate disposal that could aid or simulation and navigation of life’s most perplexing experiences. Where rationality fails, faith prevails.
One quote of Billy Graham comes to mind when he was transformed by Jesus Christ:
“One day, I was faced a choice when Christ said: "I am the way, the truth and the life." Can you imagine that? He was a liar, or he was insane, or he was what he claimed to be. Which one was he? I had to make that decision. I couldn't prove it. I couldn't take it to a laboratory and experiment with it. But by faith I said, I believe him, and he came into my heart, and he changed my life.”
Consider for example how the experience of becoming a vampire will change your life. Surely you will reject the idea of becoming a vampire simply because you can’t imagine enjoying living in the dark and drinking human blood? But what if you consider the fact that everyone who ever chose to become a vampire describes it as the best decision of their life. Not only are you immortal, but human blood suddenly tastes like liquid cocaine, every moment spent in the moonlight feels like radiating bliss that transforms every cell in your body into a nuclear reactor that bursts with energy and vibrance, and every single moment feels like pure unmitigated power and majesty. You truly feel like a God – unrestricted, fearless, and immortal.
However, surely you can’t take such an important decision purely based on third party reports? This is the problem with transformative experiences – you truly can’t know how it will change you until you have had a transformative experience. It’s almost like deciding to marry your girlfriend, having a child, or taking a shot of heroin – you truly don’t know how these experiences will change you or your future. Heroin addicts would not commit to abusing heroin if that first shot of heroin didn’t change who they are – turning them into people who enjoy heroin so much that they are willing to sacrifice everything they have for another heroin trip. Similarly, you will never know how your future will look like or how you will change as a person until you marry your romantic partner – there are simply too many variables, too many unknown unknowns.
This dilemma is further exasperated by the fact that simply asking your friends and family for advice is insufficient within the context of transformative experiences. Your friend might confess that becoming a Buddhist Monk was the best decision of their life, but their perspective is simply irrelevant to your personal context. In the end, we often only have our own judgement regarding transformative experiences, and when that day comes where you need to take a life-altering decision, you better pray that your norms and values are properly aligned and true. Moreover, just like you can’t adequately rely on third party judgements regarding transformative experiences, you also can’t rely on your own moral judgements regarding transformative experiences because the experience won’t be like any other experience that you ever had before. This means that if a personally transformative experience is a radically new experience for you, that many important features of your future self – the self that results from the personal transformation, are conceptually and epistemically inaccessible to your current self.
One possible solution is to apply normative standards to the subjective values of the transformative experience. It’s reasonable to imagine that the outcomes of such experiences can be mediated by subjective values such as trait openness to experience. People who are high in trait openness to experience might place a higher value on the very act of participating in transformative experiences and would even consider participating in such experiences out of pure curiosity and disregard for possible negative contingencies. On the other hand, people who are low in trait openness to experiences, or people who are high in trait neuroticism or trait agreeableness might reject transformative experiences simply due to risk aversion, regardless of possible positive contingencies. Normative standards as mediated by personal indexing therefore provides us with profound insight into the level at which our personal values shape and transform our phenomenological experiences and perspectives – you literally experience the world through the lens of your values. However, although the appeal to normative standards and personal indexing might prove useful to mediate the decision-making paradigms related to transformative experiences, even these standards are subjective to say the least and do not provide any rational empirical insights into the possible epistemic transformations that accrue during these experiences. This position further exasperates the difficult problem of transformative experiences because you are being asked to consider the possibility of an outcome where you, as the human being making the decision, cannot even construct a rationally defensible evaluation of what it would be like to live your life in this way. From a cognitive science perspective, participation in a transformational experience therefore changes the agent, the arena, and the agent-arena-relationship – it is metaphysically speaking almost an entirely different universe. The man before committing a murder, and the man after committing a murder, are not only two completely different people, they live in two different universes.
Statements such as: “I understand what you are going through” suddenly takes on a much deeper and darker epistemic architecture.
However, it’s important to qualify the parameters of transformative experiences in this instance. The lesson here is not that the decision to participating in transformative experiences such as having a child or committing a murder can never be made rationally. The lesson is that, if you’ve never had a child before or never committed a murder, it is impossible to make an informed, rational decision by imagining outcomes based on what it would be like to have a child or committing a murder, assigning subjective normative values to these outcomes, and then modeling your action preferences on these insights.
This position however begs the question if our preferences regarding the participation in transformative experiences can ever be modeled whatsoever? Surely, we can’t deconstruct the argument into an infinite regression.
The way we act in the world provides some interesting insights into how we solve this problem. Considering the fact that we are as humans often thing of ourselves as agents within a salience landscape in a particular point in time and space, with a conscious, centered point of view that looks out from that point to the rest of the world. From this first personal perspective, we simulate the subjective values of various acts we might perform in the arena by reflecting on our past, consulting our present, and mapping our possible paths into the future. At each experienced moment, we generate a continuously updating map of possible futures for ourselves, a map that evolves over time, as we move from the present into the future, in response to input from our perceptions and decisions. The function of memory is therefore not to remember the past, but to codify our lived experience and then to use it as a map that can be used to simulate the future.
However, as explained before, rationality in itself – even within the parameters of our lived experience is insufficient for providing a conclusive model with outcomes for transformative experiences. Rationality therefore must be supplemented by revelation, especially given the fact that not taking a decision is a decision in itself, and that defaulting to ignorance could even yield catastrophic consequences. We therefore, more often than not, will need to choose between the lesser of two evils, between a transformative experience and the status quo, each with their own unintended consequences.
Revelation is therefore a useful tool that can be used to strengthen the value of personal indexing within the context of transformational experiences. Furthermore, another useful tool that can be used to supplement this paradigm is the use of Hierarchical Bayesian Modelling. Similar to the historical lived experiences that informs the probable outcomes and personal values of transformative experience simulations, the Bayesian framework associates the content of specific transformative experiences with adjacent experiential constructs at a higher level of abstraction. For example, if we face the decision of joining the Hell’s Angels biker gang even though we have no prior experience of riding motorcycles or being associated with notorious gang members, we might consider exploring adjacent experiences in our memory such as riding mountain bikes or being affiliated with the local football club. Although mountain biking or belonging to a football club does not directly translate to joining the Hell’s Angels, they do however belong to the same conceptual universe. Our lived experience breaking a leg on a mountain bike or being bullied by the football coach might provide some epistemological insight into how we might experience joining the Hell’s Angels. The Hierarchical Bayesian Model can therefore be used as a powerful tool to map possible futures.
However, one massive blind spot in the book is that people have for centuries relied on transtemporal maxims as a mediating construct for navigating transformative experiences. Religious faith, especially as a non-propositional decision-making tool, is in fact exceedingly useful within the context of transformative experiences, as it renders to us an imaginal ideal that models the preferred teleological outcomes for a general set of epistemological contexts.
The insufficiency of rationality within the context of simulating transformative experiences can indeed be supplemented by revelation and personal normative standards, but even these paradigms are insufficient to adequately model life or death situations and our cognitive framing needs to be strengthened by our non-propositional cognitive machinery. Religious doctrines that afford wisdom and virtue are indispensable when confronting transformative experiences, otherwise we are rejecting powerful tools at our immediate disposal that could aid or simulation and navigation of life’s most perplexing experiences. Where rationality fails, faith prevails.
One quote of Billy Graham comes to mind when he was transformed by Jesus Christ:
“One day, I was faced a choice when Christ said: "I am the way, the truth and the life." Can you imagine that? He was a liar, or he was insane, or he was what he claimed to be. Which one was he? I had to make that decision. I couldn't prove it. I couldn't take it to a laboratory and experiment with it. But by faith I said, I believe him, and he came into my heart, and he changed my life.”
October 1, 2017
*Not easy reading*
This is a book about how we make choices and how we change. An experience is epistemically transformative when we learn something new. What a new kind of fruit tastes like, for instance. An experience is personally transformative when it changes something about you. What it's like to be you shifts.
A transformative experience is the combination of epistemic and personal transformation. You learn something new that you couldn't have known otherwise except by direct experience, and you're also changed.
The problem is that we like to make choices about our lives based on what we think the outcome will be like. But with TE, we can't know what the outcome would be like to experience. So how do we rationally make decisions like having a child, graduating from school, joining or leaving a religion, etc.?
L.A. Paul says we can lean on the idea of revelation. Instead of making the decision based on whether you'll like the outcome, decide on the basis of believing that learning what the outcome will be is worth it in and of itself.
This is a book that raises questions about some of the most important and most common life experiences and decisions we can make. For that reason, it haunts me. A difficult but worthwhile read.
This is a book about how we make choices and how we change. An experience is epistemically transformative when we learn something new. What a new kind of fruit tastes like, for instance. An experience is personally transformative when it changes something about you. What it's like to be you shifts.
A transformative experience is the combination of epistemic and personal transformation. You learn something new that you couldn't have known otherwise except by direct experience, and you're also changed.
The problem is that we like to make choices about our lives based on what we think the outcome will be like. But with TE, we can't know what the outcome would be like to experience. So how do we rationally make decisions like having a child, graduating from school, joining or leaving a religion, etc.?
L.A. Paul says we can lean on the idea of revelation. Instead of making the decision based on whether you'll like the outcome, decide on the basis of believing that learning what the outcome will be is worth it in and of itself.
This is a book that raises questions about some of the most important and most common life experiences and decisions we can make. For that reason, it haunts me. A difficult but worthwhile read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 4, 2019
I'll rewrite this review to make it into an objective review of Laurie Paul argumentative goals and steps. In the meantime, let's go for some therapeutic writing (it's free of charge for me :D).
If you're interested in crafting your life, formal decision theory, personal identity or existentialism, you're going to have something to converse with this engaging book.
Let me tell you a story of a following suits of transformative experiences
Once upon a time, I was a hardcore naturalist fascinated by cutting-edge analytic and naturalistic philosophy of mind and contemporary cognitive sciences. Philosophy was my bread and butter. My whole personal identity revolved around pursuing excellence in the field, envisionning pursuing an academic career into it, crushing the many obstacles in between.
Well, the only problem in all this was that I also suffered from major mental health issues since I was 12, which compounded. Coming from a deeply non-western education, I buckled up for years and years, becoming a full control freak and going to extent which yields the intensity of fiction. I had listed procedures for everything, and committed every day to never ever sink into madness without maintaining an observer which could assure basic survival and baseline hiding of symptoms. A significant part of life came to revolve around this, I lived in a deep survival mode, in a degree of isolation and feelings of unsafety beyond reason. Well, I was lucky to live alone at 17, because the last psychotic episodes would have been impossible to hide.
Those experiences brought me to the edge of reality and life. It's a given of my current life to inherit this past, I am not grateful it happened or anything supertitious like that. Yet my current self appreciates the deeply positive impact it had on my life. Those transformative experiences left me with no choice if I wanted to survive, which I did, but to progressively reconfigure the whole subjective values system driving my life.
At 22, I now am a kind of happy, loving person aspiring to a deeply spiritual life, thinking that nothing is more important than to see directly the true nature of reality and to practice to love unconditionally. Following lovingkindness buddhist practice, I adress wishes of true happiness to strangers in the street, feeling deep compassion, sympathetic joy and lovingkindness along the day for all beings and spend most of my free time meditating to develop presence and insight. I gained skills to meet the deepest sufferings, simple skills which have proven so effective and transformative. I stopped to entertain the content of the mental states in the mind and being fascinated by it, content is content, content is endless quicksand. Life's not where we were looking for it all those years.
In her book, Laurie Paul describes transformative experience which are (a) epistemically transformative experience : you gain knowledge which you could not have without having this experience, typically the knowledge of a phenomenal concept, "what it feels like" to have this experience" (b) personally transformative experience : as a result of having this experience, your perspective deeply changes, your core desires changes and eventually your self changes.
The last part got me really intrigued, as I'm currently on a path with tremendous compassion to deepeen and deepen the awakening to the emptiness, the no-self nature of reality. The last journey if you want, not the one I desperately longed for many years, to die physically, but the one where selfhood is ultimately transcended at the core of experience, to let go of the fundamental process base of suffering.
All of that is really puzzling if I would get into those stories.
On one hand, the deep major depressive episodes, hallucinations, psychotic experiences and hypomanic episodes I've known since I'm 14 are no fun. But each time they led me to a higher and higher purpose. They changed my values positively and led me to live a fascinating life. They led to knowledges of what it feels like to have your personal identity destroyed and rebuild and many other experiences associated with this kind of experience. This was epistemically transformative. They also led to core changes of my core drives, preferences, world views and perspectives.
Me rambling now :
On the other hand, so much healing is still to happen. I had to give up all my previous goals and aspirations because I was deeply unable to "create, build" a life for myself. It would be dishonest to say philosophy has left my heart. But philosophy deeply wounded my heart as I was unable to face the demands of the process of becoming great at it. Today, I face a bizarre situation. I graduated in philosophy with excellent grades last year. And I got to a master program. (all of this in a top 25 world ranked institution in philosophy). I write the papers, including one on this book. Grades are decent, I majored a few class. Yet the sparkle is still there and not there at the time. Ok, philosophy is fascinating intellectually. But does the existential implications of philosophy really holds up ? I don't believe so, and I never got into philosophy for that reason. It was all a dream, a mirage, a misplaced locus of life into the mind, into the intellect. Between this intellectual curiosity and realization, there will be integration some day probably.
Meanwhile, let's follow the new self, the new set of values, let's follow what worked for the first time of my human since since I am a child, not anything external, not any relations, not any achievments, not any mind stuff, not psychotherapy, no, pure and simple spiritual practices, so let's follow this way !
If you're interested in crafting your life, formal decision theory, personal identity or existentialism, you're going to have something to converse with this engaging book.
Let me tell you a story of a following suits of transformative experiences
Once upon a time, I was a hardcore naturalist fascinated by cutting-edge analytic and naturalistic philosophy of mind and contemporary cognitive sciences. Philosophy was my bread and butter. My whole personal identity revolved around pursuing excellence in the field, envisionning pursuing an academic career into it, crushing the many obstacles in between.
Well, the only problem in all this was that I also suffered from major mental health issues since I was 12, which compounded. Coming from a deeply non-western education, I buckled up for years and years, becoming a full control freak and going to extent which yields the intensity of fiction. I had listed procedures for everything, and committed every day to never ever sink into madness without maintaining an observer which could assure basic survival and baseline hiding of symptoms. A significant part of life came to revolve around this, I lived in a deep survival mode, in a degree of isolation and feelings of unsafety beyond reason. Well, I was lucky to live alone at 17, because the last psychotic episodes would have been impossible to hide.
Those experiences brought me to the edge of reality and life. It's a given of my current life to inherit this past, I am not grateful it happened or anything supertitious like that. Yet my current self appreciates the deeply positive impact it had on my life. Those transformative experiences left me with no choice if I wanted to survive, which I did, but to progressively reconfigure the whole subjective values system driving my life.
At 22, I now am a kind of happy, loving person aspiring to a deeply spiritual life, thinking that nothing is more important than to see directly the true nature of reality and to practice to love unconditionally. Following lovingkindness buddhist practice, I adress wishes of true happiness to strangers in the street, feeling deep compassion, sympathetic joy and lovingkindness along the day for all beings and spend most of my free time meditating to develop presence and insight. I gained skills to meet the deepest sufferings, simple skills which have proven so effective and transformative. I stopped to entertain the content of the mental states in the mind and being fascinated by it, content is content, content is endless quicksand. Life's not where we were looking for it all those years.
In her book, Laurie Paul describes transformative experience which are (a) epistemically transformative experience : you gain knowledge which you could not have without having this experience, typically the knowledge of a phenomenal concept, "what it feels like" to have this experience" (b) personally transformative experience : as a result of having this experience, your perspective deeply changes, your core desires changes and eventually your self changes.
The last part got me really intrigued, as I'm currently on a path with tremendous compassion to deepeen and deepen the awakening to the emptiness, the no-self nature of reality. The last journey if you want, not the one I desperately longed for many years, to die physically, but the one where selfhood is ultimately transcended at the core of experience, to let go of the fundamental process base of suffering.
All of that is really puzzling if I would get into those stories.
On one hand, the deep major depressive episodes, hallucinations, psychotic experiences and hypomanic episodes I've known since I'm 14 are no fun. But each time they led me to a higher and higher purpose. They changed my values positively and led me to live a fascinating life. They led to knowledges of what it feels like to have your personal identity destroyed and rebuild and many other experiences associated with this kind of experience. This was epistemically transformative. They also led to core changes of my core drives, preferences, world views and perspectives.
Me rambling now :
On the other hand, so much healing is still to happen. I had to give up all my previous goals and aspirations because I was deeply unable to "create, build" a life for myself. It would be dishonest to say philosophy has left my heart. But philosophy deeply wounded my heart as I was unable to face the demands of the process of becoming great at it. Today, I face a bizarre situation. I graduated in philosophy with excellent grades last year. And I got to a master program. (all of this in a top 25 world ranked institution in philosophy). I write the papers, including one on this book. Grades are decent, I majored a few class. Yet the sparkle is still there and not there at the time. Ok, philosophy is fascinating intellectually. But does the existential implications of philosophy really holds up ? I don't believe so, and I never got into philosophy for that reason. It was all a dream, a mirage, a misplaced locus of life into the mind, into the intellect. Between this intellectual curiosity and realization, there will be integration some day probably.
Meanwhile, let's follow the new self, the new set of values, let's follow what worked for the first time of my human since since I am a child, not anything external, not any relations, not any achievments, not any mind stuff, not psychotherapy, no, pure and simple spiritual practices, so let's follow this way !
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
June 3, 2024I stopped reading after the god-awful Chapter 3, where Paul keeps rehearsing the same formula without making it any more appealing: you never experienced something, so you can't know what it would be like. Her argument is unsatisfactory. First, she improperly discards testimonial evidence (I agree that it is not exceptionally reliable, but a rational agent should follow it IF THEY HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO GO WITH). Second, she does not really provide a serious metaphysics of what should count as a new kind of experience as opposed to a token of the same kind of experience. She briefly (too briefly, given how many pages she wastes on examples) addresses this concern, but her appeal to intuition is unconvincing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 21, 2019
Skimmed most of it.
The key point of this book isade.in the first few pages. The rest of it is very repetitive. I understand the author is trying to prove her claims to the satisfaction of her academic community and defend a.pdori all questions and push backs that may cine along the way.
It's more like a doctoral thesis than a book for a general audience.
The key point of this book isade.in the first few pages. The rest of it is very repetitive. I understand the author is trying to prove her claims to the satisfaction of her academic community and defend a.pdori all questions and push backs that may cine along the way.
It's more like a doctoral thesis than a book for a general audience.
April 13, 2020
L.A. Paul has a great insight that is overwhelmed tedious exposition. She belabors her points; constantly, repeatedly, and excessively. So much so that it seriously reduces the enjoyment of the book. The entirety, I mean the entirety of chapter 3 can be skipped. And it is the longest chapter in the book! It is just her repeatedly coming up with examples of "transformative experiences" and then trying to convince you in agonizing detail that it is, in fact, a transformative experience under her criteria. When, in fact, no normal reader is going to disagree.
If you go from being deaf to being able to hear -- via a Cochlear implant -- is that a transformative experience? I haven't even told you what a "transformative experience" is and you're already agreeing, "Yep, that sure sounds like a big experience!" Paul spends 14 pages(!!), pages 56-70, on this. The book is only 123 pages long, so this is 11% of the entire book.
Not satisfied, she then immediately spends 23 pages(!!), pages 71-94 (18% of the entire book!), trying to convince you that becoming a parent is also a transformative experience. Like, duh. No kidding. Seriously, skip the entire 3rd chapter. It is terrible and adds nothing to her point.
It is a shame because her key insight is a very good one: there is a wide-spread normative standard that our choices should be "rational", which means some kind of utility-maximizing by picking "the best" choice from the options in front of us. We know that people don't always live up to this standard but even those who say we don't live up to it, don't really argue that we shouldn't even try to live up to it.
But there are some experiences in our lives that are "transformative experiences". They are simultaneously personal transformations and epistemic transformations. Because both change simultaneously, we don't know what our future set of preferences will be, so we can't make a "rational choice". There are some things that we can't know whether we enjoy until we try them. And maybe the me-before doesn't like it but the me-after does like it? Which version of you has the preferences that matter?
Becoming a parent is a classic, obvious example. Trauma is another one (think of the common "you can't possibly understand how I feel" reply from many grieving people). Paul's insight seems intuitively obvious once it is pointed out, which makes her later tedious explanations seem all the more pointless.
All of this seems to undermine, or at least call into question, the ideal of "rational choice" as a normative sense. Much of Paul's book is taken up trying to "rescue" rational choice. This part was also underwhelming. She doesn't provide an especially compelling case for why rational choice should be rescued. And her solution in the end is, in her own words, deeply unsatisfying.
When we are faced with a transformative experience we run the risk that (because it is personal and transformative and because we cannot predict the outcome) the most core of our values will change, undermining our own sense of self. Given that, is it any wonder that people are as conservative as they are? Why would anyone choose a transformative experience in Paul's model? You can't measure the potential positives but your entire sense of self is at risk. Why would you make the choice to have a transformative experience?
It is hard to imagine how unsatisfied you must be with your current self to "plunge into the unknown jungle of a new self" with (in Paul's model) no real idea what that future self might be.
Paul's book ends on that note, fairly abruptly. It felt under-explored. I wish the author had spent less time convincing me that her examples were transformative experiences and more page count exploring the consequences.
If you go from being deaf to being able to hear -- via a Cochlear implant -- is that a transformative experience? I haven't even told you what a "transformative experience" is and you're already agreeing, "Yep, that sure sounds like a big experience!" Paul spends 14 pages(!!), pages 56-70, on this. The book is only 123 pages long, so this is 11% of the entire book.
Not satisfied, she then immediately spends 23 pages(!!), pages 71-94 (18% of the entire book!), trying to convince you that becoming a parent is also a transformative experience. Like, duh. No kidding. Seriously, skip the entire 3rd chapter. It is terrible and adds nothing to her point.
It is a shame because her key insight is a very good one: there is a wide-spread normative standard that our choices should be "rational", which means some kind of utility-maximizing by picking "the best" choice from the options in front of us. We know that people don't always live up to this standard but even those who say we don't live up to it, don't really argue that we shouldn't even try to live up to it.
But there are some experiences in our lives that are "transformative experiences". They are simultaneously personal transformations and epistemic transformations. Because both change simultaneously, we don't know what our future set of preferences will be, so we can't make a "rational choice". There are some things that we can't know whether we enjoy until we try them. And maybe the me-before doesn't like it but the me-after does like it? Which version of you has the preferences that matter?
Becoming a parent is a classic, obvious example. Trauma is another one (think of the common "you can't possibly understand how I feel" reply from many grieving people). Paul's insight seems intuitively obvious once it is pointed out, which makes her later tedious explanations seem all the more pointless.
All of this seems to undermine, or at least call into question, the ideal of "rational choice" as a normative sense. Much of Paul's book is taken up trying to "rescue" rational choice. This part was also underwhelming. She doesn't provide an especially compelling case for why rational choice should be rescued. And her solution in the end is, in her own words, deeply unsatisfying.
We must embrace the epistemic fact that, in real-life cases of making major life decisions in transformative contexts, we have very little to go on. To the extent that our choice depends on our subjective preferences, we choose between the alternatives of discovering what it is like to have the new preferences and experiences involved, or keeping the status quo
When we are faced with a transformative experience we run the risk that (because it is personal and transformative and because we cannot predict the outcome) the most core of our values will change, undermining our own sense of self. Given that, is it any wonder that people are as conservative as they are? Why would anyone choose a transformative experience in Paul's model? You can't measure the potential positives but your entire sense of self is at risk. Why would you make the choice to have a transformative experience?
that is, we choose to become the kind of person—without knowing what that will be like—that these experiences will make us into. [...]
When faced with each of life’s transformative choices, you must ask yourself: do I plunge into the unknown jungle of a new self? Or do I stay on the ship?
It is hard to imagine how unsatisfied you must be with your current self to "plunge into the unknown jungle of a new self" with (in Paul's model) no real idea what that future self might be.
Paul's book ends on that note, fairly abruptly. It felt under-explored. I wish the author had spent less time convincing me that her examples were transformative experiences and more page count exploring the consequences.
September 8, 2025
It's a book written by the scientist to be read by other scientists.
The starting of the book is quite well, but as you proceed on, the no. of words : the no. of new stuff increased exponentially. All in all, the 100+ pages book would worth a 4 star if the author shrink it to just 20 pages, because that's how repetitive it is. To use the author's favorite phrase: "In other words": In other words, he could have compressed everything down by cancelling out the repetitive stuffs that we became too tired of reading after 3 times, and it would make the book cleaner.
That's the main problem. There are other smaller problems. For example, some of the sentences clearly start itself that you'd predict to be a (something) OR (something else). Instead, author wrote it like this: (Something) (full stop). (Useless explanations that could be cut out, put in only because it satiate the author's will to explain, but his explanation weren't appreciated by any other readers than whoever had the same mind as his). OR (something else). The useless part makes it so redundant that it reminds me of how annoying it is to hear someone who cannot stop explaining not because they really want to explain, but because they feel the need to explain. "In other words", they think you're an idiot that can't figure things out yourself, and they need to spoon-feed you with the details. They need to treat you as a puppet handing on the strings controlled by them. They need to dominate over you, fellow NPCs, who don't have a brain as clever as theirs because they'd figured it out and you don't.
As one changed from reading to skimming through the books, skipping all the 'because' to the 'in other words', eyeing for new stuffs that're no longer repeated, and missing out stuffs that're buried between all the becauses because one can no longer concentrate the longer one focuses on it, one reduced the book's rating from 3 stars to 2 stars 'because' one could no longer find the things that could help me. Sure, one came for what the author had to say when he introduced one to what he'll speak about when we're faced with a transformative experience, but gradually, one gave up. In the end, one concluded that you can just skip everything AFTER you read the initial part (which is the first few pages, or first 10 pages, one don't remember) and go to the conclusion (the last few paragraphs before the Afterword), and go to the conclusion in the Afterword, and you'd get what you want to know that's useful in the whole book. The other stuffs are just pure jargons for scientists to research on, but not for layman to use. In the end, we engineers cannot understand those scientists not because we don't want to understand them, but they're standing on theoretical edge that don't put their research to practical use in the world. And yes, I'm a scientists myself, studying physicist, and one can now know why engineers don't like us when one was studying physics. The lack of meaningful practical that one can use in one's life means too detached from the real world. It's just like how useless are the study of economics are to what you can use in the real world markets. Entirely useless, wasting money, wasting time, wasting people's attention.
If you're a scientist that want to research more on the topic, read on. If you're a layman that come for something useful to apply in your life, I have told you what to read, and you can leave the rest out. The conclusion is all you need. Use your time to read something better, like the previous books one read written by Theodore Zeldin on having a conversation with strangers. They're more worthy of your time.
The starting of the book is quite well, but as you proceed on, the no. of words : the no. of new stuff increased exponentially. All in all, the 100+ pages book would worth a 4 star if the author shrink it to just 20 pages, because that's how repetitive it is. To use the author's favorite phrase: "In other words": In other words, he could have compressed everything down by cancelling out the repetitive stuffs that we became too tired of reading after 3 times, and it would make the book cleaner.
That's the main problem. There are other smaller problems. For example, some of the sentences clearly start itself that you'd predict to be a (something) OR (something else). Instead, author wrote it like this: (Something) (full stop). (Useless explanations that could be cut out, put in only because it satiate the author's will to explain, but his explanation weren't appreciated by any other readers than whoever had the same mind as his). OR (something else). The useless part makes it so redundant that it reminds me of how annoying it is to hear someone who cannot stop explaining not because they really want to explain, but because they feel the need to explain. "In other words", they think you're an idiot that can't figure things out yourself, and they need to spoon-feed you with the details. They need to treat you as a puppet handing on the strings controlled by them. They need to dominate over you, fellow NPCs, who don't have a brain as clever as theirs because they'd figured it out and you don't.
As one changed from reading to skimming through the books, skipping all the 'because' to the 'in other words', eyeing for new stuffs that're no longer repeated, and missing out stuffs that're buried between all the becauses because one can no longer concentrate the longer one focuses on it, one reduced the book's rating from 3 stars to 2 stars 'because' one could no longer find the things that could help me. Sure, one came for what the author had to say when he introduced one to what he'll speak about when we're faced with a transformative experience, but gradually, one gave up. In the end, one concluded that you can just skip everything AFTER you read the initial part (which is the first few pages, or first 10 pages, one don't remember) and go to the conclusion (the last few paragraphs before the Afterword), and go to the conclusion in the Afterword, and you'd get what you want to know that's useful in the whole book. The other stuffs are just pure jargons for scientists to research on, but not for layman to use. In the end, we engineers cannot understand those scientists not because we don't want to understand them, but they're standing on theoretical edge that don't put their research to practical use in the world. And yes, I'm a scientists myself, studying physicist, and one can now know why engineers don't like us when one was studying physics. The lack of meaningful practical that one can use in one's life means too detached from the real world. It's just like how useless are the study of economics are to what you can use in the real world markets. Entirely useless, wasting money, wasting time, wasting people's attention.
If you're a scientist that want to research more on the topic, read on. If you're a layman that come for something useful to apply in your life, I have told you what to read, and you can leave the rest out. The conclusion is all you need. Use your time to read something better, like the previous books one read written by Theodore Zeldin on having a conversation with strangers. They're more worthy of your time.
September 17, 2023
If you know that pushing a button will transform you into a forever happy couch potato, would you do it?
Most likely not, if you value your present identity more than your future happiness. Even if knowing that you-as-a-forever-happy-couch-potato would be 100 times happier than you-as-the-poor-college-student or you-as-the-burn-out-worker now, you are likely not value the simple happiness from eating chips and watching TV more than keeping your present identity.
Or will you? After pushing the button, you will become a fundamentally different being. You will not look down on couch potatoes anymore, and you will be happy. Your present value judgement would no longer apply in that future, so why not just choose to be a forever happy couch potato?
This hypothetical scenario will never actually happen, and the point here is that there are no right or wrong decisions. We only know how it is like to be a forever-happy-couch-potato by being one ourselves. However, once we become one, we will lose our present identity, and the question we asked as a poor-college-student "how does it feel to be a forever-happy-couch potato" loses it's meaning, since we have become a fundamentally different being. There are no counterfactuals in life, so there is never a parallel universe to compare whether we liked option 1 or option 2 more. Once a decision is made, we have become a new being, and the right-or-wrongness of that decision becomes meaningless.
We face this type of decisions everyday -- from big decisions like which career should I pick? should I have kids? do I want to marry? to small decisions like stay home or go to this social event? should I enroll in this meditation class or painting class? The author calls this type of decisions transformative decisions, but I think to some extent every decision is a transformative decision.
While there are no right-or-wrong decisions, as the present being, we still have to make decisions. Surely there are infinite factors outside of our control, but we experience the world as a conscious being with autonomy, and an agent with control over who we want to become. So, how should we as the present self make these type of transformative decision then? The author proposed an answer, which I found to be very insightful: make transformative decisions base on whether you want to discover who you'll become. There is intrinsic value in exploring the unknown and discovering new sensations and dimensions in life. If a decision will transform our life in unknown ways, we cannot make this decision rationally by imagining future states and assign each state utility value and probabilities. But we could make this decision based on whether we want to discover who we will become. For example, deciding to move to a new city is a transformative decision because our future self will become significantly different from who we are now, and we don't know if our future self will like this move. In this sense, it is not possible to rationally decide to move or not. However, if you know that you want to discover new possibilities and if you are curious about who you will become, then going to a different city might be the right decision for you as the present self.
All in all, I think everything in this book makes a lot of common sense, but it's nicely written for us to think more deeply about how we make decisions and how our decision transform who we are.
Most likely not, if you value your present identity more than your future happiness. Even if knowing that you-as-a-forever-happy-couch-potato would be 100 times happier than you-as-the-poor-college-student or you-as-the-burn-out-worker now, you are likely not value the simple happiness from eating chips and watching TV more than keeping your present identity.
Or will you? After pushing the button, you will become a fundamentally different being. You will not look down on couch potatoes anymore, and you will be happy. Your present value judgement would no longer apply in that future, so why not just choose to be a forever happy couch potato?
This hypothetical scenario will never actually happen, and the point here is that there are no right or wrong decisions. We only know how it is like to be a forever-happy-couch-potato by being one ourselves. However, once we become one, we will lose our present identity, and the question we asked as a poor-college-student "how does it feel to be a forever-happy-couch potato" loses it's meaning, since we have become a fundamentally different being. There are no counterfactuals in life, so there is never a parallel universe to compare whether we liked option 1 or option 2 more. Once a decision is made, we have become a new being, and the right-or-wrongness of that decision becomes meaningless.
We face this type of decisions everyday -- from big decisions like which career should I pick? should I have kids? do I want to marry? to small decisions like stay home or go to this social event? should I enroll in this meditation class or painting class? The author calls this type of decisions transformative decisions, but I think to some extent every decision is a transformative decision.
While there are no right-or-wrong decisions, as the present being, we still have to make decisions. Surely there are infinite factors outside of our control, but we experience the world as a conscious being with autonomy, and an agent with control over who we want to become. So, how should we as the present self make these type of transformative decision then? The author proposed an answer, which I found to be very insightful: make transformative decisions base on whether you want to discover who you'll become. There is intrinsic value in exploring the unknown and discovering new sensations and dimensions in life. If a decision will transform our life in unknown ways, we cannot make this decision rationally by imagining future states and assign each state utility value and probabilities. But we could make this decision based on whether we want to discover who we will become. For example, deciding to move to a new city is a transformative decision because our future self will become significantly different from who we are now, and we don't know if our future self will like this move. In this sense, it is not possible to rationally decide to move or not. However, if you know that you want to discover new possibilities and if you are curious about who you will become, then going to a different city might be the right decision for you as the present self.
All in all, I think everything in this book makes a lot of common sense, but it's nicely written for us to think more deeply about how we make decisions and how our decision transform who we are.
May 9, 2021
I bought this book after hearing the author on Russ Roberts’ EconTalk podcast. The thought experiment about becoming a vampire, gaining immortal strength, speed, and power, but also having to drink blood and avoid sunlight—an irreversible decision. How would you make this decision? Traditional, rational, normative decision theory is woefully insufficient. So is asking relatives and friends what it’s like. You don’t know what you’re getting into, nor what you are missing. You can’t understand what it’s like to be blind by simply closing your eyes. Essentially, the author says the best response is to choose based on whether we want to discover who we’ll become. She defines an epistemic transformation: “When a person has a new and different kind of experience, a kind of experience that teaches her something she could not have learned without having that kind of experience, she has an epistemic transformation.” Such as tasting a new type of food. Then there are personally transformative experiences: “The sorts of experiences that can change who you are, in the sense of radically changing your point of view (rather than only slightly modifying your preferences), are experiences that are personally transformative.”
It’s the personally transformative experience that so challenging: undergoing major surgery, getting a cochlear implant if your deaf (or born deaf, of which deaf parents are less likely to choose), religious conversion, having a child, the death of a child, etc., all change what it is like to be you. “You don’t choose it because you know what it will be like—you choose it in order to discover who you’ll become.” Our own death is the ultimate transformative experience, and thought we might be able to choose it, we are ill-equipped to understand it rationally. This was a profound summation:
“The lesson of transformative experience, then, is that if you want to choose rationally, you are forced to face your future like Marlow, in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, as he sails along the coast of Africa. ‘Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you—smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, ‘Come and find out.’” Do you go, or stay on the ship?
It is a bit redundant in places, but I found it an enjoyable and thought-provoking read.
It’s the personally transformative experience that so challenging: undergoing major surgery, getting a cochlear implant if your deaf (or born deaf, of which deaf parents are less likely to choose), religious conversion, having a child, the death of a child, etc., all change what it is like to be you. “You don’t choose it because you know what it will be like—you choose it in order to discover who you’ll become.” Our own death is the ultimate transformative experience, and thought we might be able to choose it, we are ill-equipped to understand it rationally. This was a profound summation:
“The lesson of transformative experience, then, is that if you want to choose rationally, you are forced to face your future like Marlow, in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, as he sails along the coast of Africa. ‘Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you—smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, ‘Come and find out.’” Do you go, or stay on the ship?
It is a bit redundant in places, but I found it an enjoyable and thought-provoking read.
June 25, 2020
There are decisions that we cannot make through reason. These are, for example, decisions that change us in such a way that we cannot imagine the situation after the decision. Should I have a child? Should I join the church? Or, to quote an example from a book I recently finished: Should I accept the inheritance or not? L.A. Paul speaks of transformative experiences and sheds light on the problems that a rational, reason-based approach entails:
1. Is the information available on the consequences of the decision applicable to me?
2. Problems of merging information: "There might be a mistake in trying to reduce the richness and quality and character of human experience to numbers".
3. Diachronic decision-making: "Which self matters: the self making the decision, or the self that would result?"
It's about the value of first-hand experience. There is a difference between getting explained what "red" is and seeing red. It is worth pursuing this value of self-made experiences and not relying or not relying solely on the views of others. "There's a role for first-person experience for evaluating quality of life".
The book by L.A. Paul is for me an example where reason shows limits to reason. "I want us to recognize what we can do and what we can't do. What we can know, and what we can't know. Not set ourselves impossible tasks. So, take a stance involving epistemic humility; and then, from that stance, look at what kinds of decision models we might be able to build". I like that. Other examples for me are Karl Popper on truth and Noam Chomsky on the limits of knowledge that follow from language.
Actually, I didn't read the book at all, but heard an interview (https://www.econtalk.org/l-a-paul-on-...) about the book. From her voice, the author seems to have found peace in reason. I am not planning to read this book, but am waiting for her next book, "Transformative Religious Experience and the Paradox of Empathy", expected 2021.
1. Is the information available on the consequences of the decision applicable to me?
2. Problems of merging information: "There might be a mistake in trying to reduce the richness and quality and character of human experience to numbers".
3. Diachronic decision-making: "Which self matters: the self making the decision, or the self that would result?"
It's about the value of first-hand experience. There is a difference between getting explained what "red" is and seeing red. It is worth pursuing this value of self-made experiences and not relying or not relying solely on the views of others. "There's a role for first-person experience for evaluating quality of life".
The book by L.A. Paul is for me an example where reason shows limits to reason. "I want us to recognize what we can do and what we can't do. What we can know, and what we can't know. Not set ourselves impossible tasks. So, take a stance involving epistemic humility; and then, from that stance, look at what kinds of decision models we might be able to build". I like that. Other examples for me are Karl Popper on truth and Noam Chomsky on the limits of knowledge that follow from language.
Actually, I didn't read the book at all, but heard an interview (https://www.econtalk.org/l-a-paul-on-...) about the book. From her voice, the author seems to have found peace in reason. I am not planning to read this book, but am waiting for her next book, "Transformative Religious Experience and the Paradox of Empathy", expected 2021.
September 2, 2023
Is This An Overview?
There are many choices in life in which it would be best to consider as much information about them before making a decision. Choices of what to experience, or not experience. The problem is that informed decisions can be impossible. As life presents many choices without being able to understand the different options, how they would impact the future of the individual. These are transformative experiences, that fundamentally change the individual. Changing what it would be like to live. There is no way of knowing how the change would affect the individual, until the individual has the experience. An experience in which the individual has an epistemic transformation given the new information. An experience that changes how the individual understands and processes information.
Information limitations prevents knowing what to expect and make an informed choice. Lived experiences cannot inform what it would be like to undergo the change because the change would alter values attached to previous and new information. Different individuals have different reactions to the same change, therefore testimonies of others about their experience cannot be relied upon, especially because their experiences transformed the way they think. The only source of information about the experience, is the experience itself. The choice needs to be based on what the individual wants to discover. To discover how the change will affect them, or a life without the change.
Caveats?
The book is a systematic analysis of transformative experiences, providing various theoretic and practical examples. The examples and explanations tend to be self-similar and repeated.
There are many choices in life in which it would be best to consider as much information about them before making a decision. Choices of what to experience, or not experience. The problem is that informed decisions can be impossible. As life presents many choices without being able to understand the different options, how they would impact the future of the individual. These are transformative experiences, that fundamentally change the individual. Changing what it would be like to live. There is no way of knowing how the change would affect the individual, until the individual has the experience. An experience in which the individual has an epistemic transformation given the new information. An experience that changes how the individual understands and processes information.
Information limitations prevents knowing what to expect and make an informed choice. Lived experiences cannot inform what it would be like to undergo the change because the change would alter values attached to previous and new information. Different individuals have different reactions to the same change, therefore testimonies of others about their experience cannot be relied upon, especially because their experiences transformed the way they think. The only source of information about the experience, is the experience itself. The choice needs to be based on what the individual wants to discover. To discover how the change will affect them, or a life without the change.
Caveats?
The book is a systematic analysis of transformative experiences, providing various theoretic and practical examples. The examples and explanations tend to be self-similar and repeated.
October 20, 2024
Paul picks out a really cool philosophical puzzle that I’ve never heard articulated quite as well as she has done. Transformative experience is such a cool topic that really reaches the sorts of questions that philosophy does a really good job at articulating and thinking deeply about. The examples she provides, both the wild thought experiments to real life examples, do a very good job at articulating exactly the sort of distinction she means to make and makes reading her not as difficult as other contemporary philosophy books I’ve come across.
Paul is, at times, incredibly redundant when reading her unfortunately. Frequently when reading yet another (very well said) example, I can’t help but think I’m rereading something I’ve already read 3 times before. She makes her point and then makes it again, making the book a slight slog to get through towards the end of the book. And while I think you really shouldn’t critique a philosophy book too much on how the arguments convince you (as compared to how well the arguments are logically valid or novel in some interesting way), I found that her solution to rationalizing transformative experiences left much to be desired. If we rationalize based off discovery, then we also need an explanation as to rationalizing moving to a new country is different from rationalizing becoming a mother. My review is potentially slightly skewed, however, because I have read works inspired by Paul before ever reading this book (like Aspiration). So I can’t fault Paul too much for the slew of literature produced in response to her.
Paul is, at times, incredibly redundant when reading her unfortunately. Frequently when reading yet another (very well said) example, I can’t help but think I’m rereading something I’ve already read 3 times before. She makes her point and then makes it again, making the book a slight slog to get through towards the end of the book. And while I think you really shouldn’t critique a philosophy book too much on how the arguments convince you (as compared to how well the arguments are logically valid or novel in some interesting way), I found that her solution to rationalizing transformative experiences left much to be desired. If we rationalize based off discovery, then we also need an explanation as to rationalizing moving to a new country is different from rationalizing becoming a mother. My review is potentially slightly skewed, however, because I have read works inspired by Paul before ever reading this book (like Aspiration). So I can’t fault Paul too much for the slew of literature produced in response to her.
June 21, 2021
Short review: If you are facing a life-altering decision, there is a TedTalk called How to make hard choices, that will sum up, in the last 3 minutes, this whole book.
Long review: Last week, one of the speakers at a Father's Day conference cited this book as the basis of his decision to get a vasectomy. He argued that being a parent is the epitome of what L.A. Paul calls an epistemologically transformative experience, aka a life-changing moment. For such experiences, the person that emerges from such an experience is totally different (has "different preferences" to put it in terms of rational decision-making theory) from the person that went into it. Therefore, one cannot decide to have a child in the way we make many other rational decisions, where our preferences seem to stay pretty consistent along the way.
Therefore, you should decide to have a child, or get a hearing aid, or become a vampire, not by making a list of pros and cons, not by thinking of yourself in 20 years, not by asking everyone for their opinion, and most definitely by reading scientific papers on the best choice. LIFE ALTERING DECISIONS SHOULD BE MADE IN TERMS OF THE REVELATION. You should take into account what such experience will teach you, what will it make manifest to the world about the kind of person you are, what you stand for, and what sacrifices you deem worthy. And to figure that out, you need a much different book than this.
Long review: Last week, one of the speakers at a Father's Day conference cited this book as the basis of his decision to get a vasectomy. He argued that being a parent is the epitome of what L.A. Paul calls an epistemologically transformative experience, aka a life-changing moment. For such experiences, the person that emerges from such an experience is totally different (has "different preferences" to put it in terms of rational decision-making theory) from the person that went into it. Therefore, one cannot decide to have a child in the way we make many other rational decisions, where our preferences seem to stay pretty consistent along the way.
Therefore, you should decide to have a child, or get a hearing aid, or become a vampire, not by making a list of pros and cons, not by thinking of yourself in 20 years, not by asking everyone for their opinion, and most definitely by reading scientific papers on the best choice. LIFE ALTERING DECISIONS SHOULD BE MADE IN TERMS OF THE REVELATION. You should take into account what such experience will teach you, what will it make manifest to the world about the kind of person you are, what you stand for, and what sacrifices you deem worthy. And to figure that out, you need a much different book than this.
September 21, 2021
Although repetitive, had many useful analogies. Transformative experience: something that both gives us new knowledge and changes us as a person.
Core: either we value the revelation of discovering the new person or not before we make a choice. But fails to sufficiently cover the high stakes of the issue - because we have to stay that person. So I would amend it to both a revelation and a new state, which substantially changes the question. In some sense, although I know what it is like to be a new person, I wouldn't say that this makes a rational decision any easier. It's a bit like a pineapple - although I have had pineapple before, this new pineapple may be distinctly different, and because it will change me in ways I cannot anticipate, I must really really value eating that pineapple.
Paul did a thorough job convincing me that the usual rational way of making decisions - anticipating how we would feel and picking the best weighted option - is insufficient for transformative experiences, but she simply redefines the new thing we are looking at to return to the rational experience. I'm not sure if there is a rational way to take the plunge.
Core: either we value the revelation of discovering the new person or not before we make a choice. But fails to sufficiently cover the high stakes of the issue - because we have to stay that person. So I would amend it to both a revelation and a new state, which substantially changes the question. In some sense, although I know what it is like to be a new person, I wouldn't say that this makes a rational decision any easier. It's a bit like a pineapple - although I have had pineapple before, this new pineapple may be distinctly different, and because it will change me in ways I cannot anticipate, I must really really value eating that pineapple.
Paul did a thorough job convincing me that the usual rational way of making decisions - anticipating how we would feel and picking the best weighted option - is insufficient for transformative experiences, but she simply redefines the new thing we are looking at to return to the rational experience. I'm not sure if there is a rational way to take the plunge.
August 10, 2021
This book is ultimately about Decision Theory and how the Normative Rational Standard is an insufficient model when applied to the decision to undergo or avoid transformative experience. Descriptively, I think Paul does wonderful work here.
Prescriptively, however, she falls far short. In stripping transformative experience down to its theoretical core, Paul exposes the issue, but in putting its flesh back on, she arbitrarily establishes a new standard for rational action, which (as you may expect) is arbitrary. Technically rational, perhaps, but not as agentially significant as I think she thinks it is.
I just don't see how her rudimentary theory can engage the nuance of lived experience. It is a fine academic tool, but not the basis of a sound living philosophy.
Further, her default modern scientific/secular worldview makes some of her basic social commentary laughably ridiculous or elementary. Further still, perhaps in all her repetition she was explicating important particulars to her expert audience, but to this layman, it just felt repetitive.
Prescriptively, however, she falls far short. In stripping transformative experience down to its theoretical core, Paul exposes the issue, but in putting its flesh back on, she arbitrarily establishes a new standard for rational action, which (as you may expect) is arbitrary. Technically rational, perhaps, but not as agentially significant as I think she thinks it is.
I just don't see how her rudimentary theory can engage the nuance of lived experience. It is a fine academic tool, but not the basis of a sound living philosophy.
Further, her default modern scientific/secular worldview makes some of her basic social commentary laughably ridiculous or elementary. Further still, perhaps in all her repetition she was explicating important particulars to her expert audience, but to this layman, it just felt repetitive.
April 8, 2022
I really wanted to like this book. I really tried to like this book. I first heard about it from the Mindscape podcast where Paul sold her book very well. There are a couple of things that make it unreadable. First, she repeats the same ideas over and over like a broken record. This is the result of stretching what should be an (interesting) 8 page research paper into a 200 page book. Second, some passages are straight up unreadable. Here's a gem: "In this way, you experience yourself as a located, conscious self with control over who you are and how you evolve by making choices at each experienced present, to perform of avoid particular acts". Just using a lot of useless words to convey what should be a simple idea.
Nevertheless, I think the premise of the book is interesting hence the 3 stars: how can we provide a normative account of decision making when the utility function of the agent is expected to change as a result of the decision? I just wish she skipped all the meandering and actually addressed this question head on.
Nevertheless, I think the premise of the book is interesting hence the 3 stars: how can we provide a normative account of decision making when the utility function of the agent is expected to change as a result of the decision? I just wish she skipped all the meandering and actually addressed this question head on.
February 1, 2025
How do we make rational decisions in the face of life-changing choices? It’s that in usual cases, to decide rationally, we consider our preferences and select a path that will maximize future subjective value. The issue with life-changing decisions is that they change our very preferences and so we have no means of determine future subjective value.
L.A. Paul uses the metaphor of deciding whether or not to become a vampire to capture a decision of this magnitude. In this case, as you’ll be a completely different person, you don’t know what your future preferences will be and therefore can’t maximize future subjective value.
If we remain attached to consulting our preferences we can’t make rational decisions. What L.A. Paul argues is that the the best response to this dilemma is to choose a line of action based on discovering who we’ll become.
And this resonates with me. Life is all about change, and there are no greater and more exciting changes than the ones we’re meant to experience personally.
L.A. Paul uses the metaphor of deciding whether or not to become a vampire to capture a decision of this magnitude. In this case, as you’ll be a completely different person, you don’t know what your future preferences will be and therefore can’t maximize future subjective value.
If we remain attached to consulting our preferences we can’t make rational decisions. What L.A. Paul argues is that the the best response to this dilemma is to choose a line of action based on discovering who we’ll become.
And this resonates with me. Life is all about change, and there are no greater and more exciting changes than the ones we’re meant to experience personally.
September 18, 2022
A short but very interesting philosophy book about the difficulty of making rational decisions when faced with epistemic transformation and/or personal transformation. In other words, how can you make a logical decision about doing action X, when you have no subjective knowledge of what it would be like to do action X and/or when doing action X would transform you into someone with different preferences? Most of the book is about the problem, but the author does also define an alternative decision-making method, one that considers the subjective revelatory value of doing action X. It's heavy stuff,but on the upside there are vampires throughout the book!
April 28, 2023
While Paul undoubtedly has brillant ideas and uses imaginative ways to explain them, i can’t help but feel like this book is just separate papers glued together. It is completely over explained. Having a child is a transformative experience? Girl, I believed you the first time you said it. How many times do I have to hear the same introduction about not being able to imagine what an experience is going to be like? about every 20-30 pages. Overall it was worth the read because of how fascinating the subject was, I loved how she discussed rational choice theory.
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