Some life choices cannot be understood from the outside. Yale philosopher L.A. Paul argues that transformative experiences — parenthood, divorce, war, and other identity-defining decisions — can change the person who makes them. Data and testimony may show what happened to others, but they cannot fully reveal what a new life will mean to you.
Paul compares this shift to Flatland, where a two-dimensional being discovers a third dimension, and to Copernicus, whose model replaced one entire way of understanding our universe. Personal transformation, she argues, can work the same way: a revolution of one that reconfigures how we think, value, and understand who we are.
This video How one decision can create “a new self” is featured on Big Think.