Often in life, we find ourselves wrestling with a decision. But in running these mental calculations, there's something we rarely consider about the future: we might not be the same person when we get there. This week, philosopher L.A. Paul explores how life-altering events reshape who we are.Want more of our work on understanding your future self? Give these Hidden Brain episodes a listen: https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/you-2-0-how-to-see-yourself-clearly/https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/you-2-0-decide-already/https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/you-2-0-your-future-is-now/https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/the-ventilator/And for the latest insights about human behavior, delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for the weekly Hidden Brain newsletter! Each issue brings you the latest research, along with a brain teaser and a moment of joy. You can read and subscribe here: https://news.hiddenbrain.org/
Full Episode
This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Often in life, we find ourselves wrestling with a decision. And when we do, we tend to focus on the outcome of that decision. How we'll feel once all is said and done. Will I love my new job or will I miss my old one? Should I move to a new city or stay close to friends and family? Will having children bring me joy or will they feel like a burden?
We do this with smaller decisions too. Is this expensive vacation going to be worth the cost? Should I find a new preschool for my child? What major should I pursue in college? Our minds fill with questions as we try to predict the best paths to take. We make lists of pros and cons, weigh our options, get advice from friends. All this to make our future selves happy.
But in running these mental calculations, there's something we rarely consider about the future. We might not be the same person when we get there. Our future selves might think, feel, and value things differently than we do right now. This week on Hidden Brain, we explore one of life's trickiest questions.
How do we make decisions about the future when we cannot anticipate who we'll be when we get there? Our lives are made up of experiences big and small. Some of these experiences flutter by, never to be thought of again, while others make lasting impressions. At Yale University, the philosopher Laurie Ann Paul, who is known as L.A. Paul, studies these experiences.
She's interested in how they inform and transform who we are. L.A. Paul, welcome to Hidden Brain. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Laurie, in the middle of the 18th century, there was a young man named John Newton in England. His life story captures one aspect of this idea that you've been studying for a while. I understand he had a rather difficult upbringing. He was seen as a difficult child.
Yes. And an important thing is that his mother died when he was very young. And I think this made him feel very unhappy and very alone, especially when his father remarried and basically sidelined John. Yeah.
So his mother was religious, but after she died, John soon found himself not just turning away from religion, but turning against it. He became what you might call a militant atheist. Was his father a source of support, Laurie?
No. Well, his father was distant and unemotional and was focused heavily on self-discipline. So I suppose this was his father's way of supporting him, but John did not find it helpful. In fact, it alienated him both from his father and from other people. And his character also then started to deteriorate. He behaved badly. He was arrested. He was rebellious. He was publicly flogged.
And he also, importantly, I think, had this kind of experience of despair where he blamed others and wasn't able to kind of take responsibility for who he was and how he was behaving.
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