In the book I say that I think we need to recognize the value of revelation. We should never assume that just because someone said a terrible accident and then testifies to the value of their new life is somehow confused or has experience in cognitive dissonance, he says. He also wants us to take a stance involving epistemic humility and then from that stance look at what kinds of decision models we might be able to build. In addition I'm a huge fan of like the psychological and social sciencesI'm doing a lot of collaborative work with people at Yale and Harvard and MIT on problems that have come out of this discussion of transformative experience.
Philosopher and author L.A. Paul talks about her book Transformative Experience with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Paul explores the uncertainties that surround the transformative experiences that we choose and that happen to us without choosing. How should we think about the morality and personal impact of these kinds of experiences, especially when some decisions are very hard or impossible to reverse? Examples include becoming a vampire, having children, religion, and other life experiences and choices.