L. A. Paul
@lapaul.bsky.social
Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science
Yale University
author of Transformative Experience and coauthor of Causation: A User’s Guide
Yale University
author of Transformative Experience and coauthor of Causation: A User’s Guide
Transformative Experience is now available on Audible (narrated by yours truly) mysoundwise.com/soundcasts/1...
Transformative Experience
L.A. Paul’s Transformative Experience explores how life-changing choices—like becoming a parent or changing careers—defy rational decision-making, since we can’t know or value these experiences until ...
mysoundwise.com
November 11, 2025 at 12:23 AM
Transformative Experience is now available on Audible (narrated by yours truly) mysoundwise.com/soundcasts/1...
Reposted by L. A. Paul
10. We argue that kids are more likely than adults to think that radical transformation is possible. They think someone can be a "bad" person with a "bad" essence & that some social experiences can be so transformative that the person is fundamentally different on the other side.
January 1, 2025 at 10:19 PM
10. We argue that kids are more likely than adults to think that radical transformation is possible. They think someone can be a "bad" person with a "bad" essence & that some social experiences can be so transformative that the person is fundamentally different on the other side.
thinking about this right now
Primer: Decision-Theoretic Paralysis
In decision theory, ‘paralysis’ refers to a state of affairs where all options in a decision problem wash out to the same level of choiceworthiness.
substack.com
July 4, 2025 at 6:45 PM
thinking about this right now
Guardian op ed by the brilliant MJ Crockett:
AI is ‘beating’ humans at empathy and creativity. But these games are rigged | MJ Crockett
Research pitting people against AI systems gives AI an edge by asking us to perform in machine-like ways
www.theguardian.com
March 1, 2025 at 2:26 AM
Guardian op ed by the brilliant MJ Crockett:
New Yorker profile is out...
The Philosopher L. A. Paul Wants Us to Think About Our Selves
To whom should we have allegiance—the version of ourself making choices, or the version of ourself who will be affected by them?
www.newyorker.com
December 2, 2024 at 10:03 PM
New Yorker profile is out...
Another interesting new paper on TE: "The Psychology of Life’s Most Important Decisions," in American Psychologist, by Shahar Hechtlinger, Christin Schulze, Christina Leuker, and Ralph Hertwig.
APA PsycNet
psycnet.apa.org
November 18, 2024 at 7:23 PM
Another interesting new paper on TE: "The Psychology of Life’s Most Important Decisions," in American Psychologist, by Shahar Hechtlinger, Christin Schulze, Christina Leuker, and Ralph Hertwig.
New paper on a computational approach to epistemic transformation:
When New Experience Leads to New Knowledge: A Computational Framework for Formalizing Epistemically Transformative Experiences
Abstract. The discovery of a new kind of experience can teach an agent what that kind of experience is like. Such a discovery can be epistemically transformative, teaching an agent something they coul...
direct.mit.edu
November 18, 2024 at 7:07 PM
New paper on a computational approach to epistemic transformation:
Reposted by L. A. Paul
SPP abstracts for the 50th Anniversary Meeting are due in one month, with a great lineup of speakers and events!
December 31, 2023 at 5:26 PM
SPP abstracts for the 50th Anniversary Meeting are due in one month, with a great lineup of speakers and events!