Transformative experiences

Methinks I wrote about L.A. Paul's idea of transformative experiences in July or August of last year. Basically, she reckons that some things change an individual so much that he is not the same person afterwards. What's problematic about this is that it questions the rationality of making decisions that would impact that new person when you don't know what that new person will think or want or need.

Part of the transformative experience is an 'epistemic transformation': by virtue of the change one comes to know things (experiences, as a rule) that one could not know without undergoing that experience. One has new knowledge thanks to having that transformation.

The archetypal example is becoming a parent, but you could think of taking a psychedelic or getting Alzheimer's or being violently raped.

This draws attention to my thinking about madness... some experiences of consciousness, well, you just had to be there... or be in it.

And that makes it really hard for scientists - it's not empirically verifiable by objective analysis.

You have to rely on people's stories.

But then, the experience of being a parent or taking Acid or traumatic experiences, are taken seriously... perhaps because a lot of non-mad people share them and talk about them.

Testimonial experience seems to be especially distrusted when the agent has a diagnosis... which puts them in a Catch-22 position: they can't explain their experience because society has no accepted framework for it and society has no accepted framework for it because those with diagnoses don't have the linguistic tools to express it.

Hard to break out of that chrysalis.