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

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 . Sponsors: MUD\WTR energy-boosting coffee alternative—without the jitters: https://MUDWTR.com/Tim (between 15% and 43% off) Eight Sleep’s Pod 4 Ultra sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating: https://eightsleep.com/tim (save $350 on the Pod 4 Ultra) LinkedIn Ads , the go-to tool for B2B marketers and advertisers who want to drive brand awareness and generate leads: LinkedIn.com/TFS ($100 LinkedIn ad credit) 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. * For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show , please visit tim.blog/podcast . For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show , please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter ( 5-Bullet Friday ) at tim.blog/friday . For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts . Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books . Follow Tim: Twitter : twitter.com/tferriss Instagram : instagram.com/timferriss YouTube : youtube.com/timferriss Facebook : facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferriss Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld , Hugh Jackman , Dr. Jane Goodall , LeBron James , Kevin Hart , Doris Kearns Goodwin , Jamie Foxx , Matthew McConaughey , Esther Perel , Elizabeth Gilbert , Terry Crews , Sia , Yuval Noah Harari , Malcolm Gladwell , Madeleine Albright , Cheryl Strayed , Jim Collins , Mary Karr, Maria Popova , Sam Harris , Michael Phelps , Bob Iger , Edward Norton , Arnold Schwarzenegger , Neil Strauss , Ken Burns , Maria Sharapova , Marc Andreessen , Neil Gaiman , Neil de Grasse Tyson , Jocko Willink , Daniel Ek , Kelly Slater , Dr. Peter Attia , Seth Godin , Howard Marks , Dr. Brené Brown , Eric Schmidt , Michael Lewis , Joe Gebbia , Michael Pollan , Dr. Jordan Peterson , Vince Vaughn , Brian Koppelman , Ramit Sethi , Dax Shepard , Tony Robbins , Jim Dethmer , Dan Harris , Ray Dalio , Naval Ravikant , Vitalik Buterin , Elizabeth Lesser , Amanda Palmer , Katie Haun , Sir Richard Branson , Chuck Palahniuk , Arianna Huffington , Reid Hoffman , Bill Burr , Whitney Cummings , Rick Rubin , Dr. Vivek Murthy , Darren Aronofsky , Margaret Atwood , Mark Zuckerberg , Peter Thiel , Dr. Gabor Maté , Anne Lamott , Sarah Silverman , Dr. Andrew Huberman , and many more. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .