#796: L.A. Paul — On Becoming a Vampire, Whether or Not to Have Kids, Getting Incredible Mentorship for $250, Transformative Experiences, and More

The Tim Ferriss Show

Tim Ferriss: Bestselling Author, Human Guinea Pig

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4.6 • 17.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2025

⏱️ 102 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

L.A. Paul is the Millstone Family Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Cognitive Science at Yale University. She is also the author of Transformative Experience. Her work on transformative experience has been covered by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, NPR, and the BBC, among others. And in 2024, she was profiled by The New Yorker.

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Timestamps:

[00:00;00] Start

[00:05:55] The role of Quentin Smith.

[00:09:56] Early philosophy class disasters.

[00:13:34] How is philosophy relevant to the average person?

[00:20:17] A correspondence experiment with philosophers.

[00:25:29] The role of philosophy in modern times.

[00:27:50] The vampire problem.

[00:39:31] What you can't expect when you're expecting.

[00:42:36] When transformative experiences happen without our consent.

[00:48:12] Choosing between potentially transformative experiences.

[00:52:09] How Laurie made the choice to have children.

[00:56:34] What galvanized Laurie's trajectory from hard sciences to philosophy?

[01:01:14] Recommended reading for the novice philosopher.

[01:02:59] An aside defining counterfactuals.

[01:07:15] What makes understanding analytic philosophy a worthwhile endeavor?

[01:10:29] What readers can expect of Laurie's book, Transformative Experience.

[01:12:30] Epistemology.

[01:13:15] How to maintain a passion for philosophy.

[01:17:21] Commonly misrepresented philosophical concepts.

[01:19:59] Continental philosophy.

[01:21:48] Philosophy beyond the academic.

[01:23:46] Laurie vs. Agnes Callard.

[01:25:34] Aristotle vs. drugs.

[01:32:01] Thoughts on life's final transformative experience: death.

[01:35:48] Forgiving the philosophers and other parting thoughts.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show.
0:05.3	Where does my job to deconstruct and investigate world-class performers in many different disciplines?
0:11.5	My guest today is L.A. Paul. L.A. Paul is the Milestone family professor of philosophy and professor of cognitive science at Yale University,
0:19.9	where she leads the self and society
0:22.3	initiative for the Wu-Sai Institute. Her research explores questions about the nature of the self
0:27.7	and decision-making and the metaphysics and cognitive science of time, cause, and experience.
0:32.9	Now, that's a mouthful, but we also get into vampire thought experiments, how to decide or how to think about
0:39.0	deciding whether or not to have a kid, that is children, and many other things you can apply
0:44.9	to your own lives. L.A. Paul is also the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation,
0:50.3	the National Humanity Center, and the Australian National University. She is the author of
0:54.7	Transformative Experience, that's how I was introduced to her work, and co-author of Causation,
0:59.6	A Users Guide, which was awarded the American Philosophical Association Sanders Book Prize.
1:05.1	Her work on transformative experience has been covered by the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,
1:09.2	The Guardian, NPR, and the BBC, among others. And in 2024, she was profiled by the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, MPR, and the BBC, among
1:11.5	others. And in 2024, she was profiled by The New Yorker, which is also an amazing read that I recommend.
1:17.6	She's currently working on a book about self-construction, transformative experience, humility, and fear of mental corruption.
1:24.7	Fundamentally, this conversation focuses on how you can make decisions or think
1:29.9	about making decisions where the person you are now is not the same person you are afterwards.
1:35.7	And the most resonant example of that is deciding whether or not to have children.
1:42.6	So please enjoy a very wide-ranging conversation with
1:45.8	none other than L.A. Paul. But first, just a few quick words from our fine podcast sponsors,
1:52.7	and only maybe 15%, 20% at most of the people who want to be sponsors for the show become
	...

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