Would you plug into 'the experience machine'??
Nozick put this thought experiment forward to determine what truly drives us as humans:
Suppose there is an experience machine that can give you any experience you want, which you can programme yourself. When you are plugged in it feels like you are experiencing what you have programmed the machine to do: eg) making a friend, hugging a loved one, reading a good book... All of this time you are plugged in you are floating in a tank, unaware that you are in there and thinking this is all actually happening.
Do you plug in, and get all the experiences you could want, or do you continue living your life?
If you're driven by pleasure, surely you would choose to plug in. Me myself, I wouldn't plug in. I think this is because I desire an objective existence with a connection to deeper lasting reality.
Would you plug in? Why?
Suppose there is an experience machine that can give you any experience you want, which you can programme yourself. When you are plugged in it feels like you are experiencing what you have programmed the machine to do: eg) making a friend, hugging a loved one, reading a good book... All of this time you are plugged in you are floating in a tank, unaware that you are in there and thinking this is all actually happening.
Do you plug in, and get all the experiences you could want, or do you continue living your life?
If you're driven by pleasure, surely you would choose to plug in. Me myself, I wouldn't plug in. I think this is because I desire an objective existence with a connection to deeper lasting reality.
Would you plug in? Why?
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Strange that so many years later, we're still catching up with Total Recall.
Who's to say we're all not using that machine already? 
Original post by SeanFM
Who's to say we're all not using that machine already?
cos I know I would never plug in I guess...
Original post by picklescamp
Nozick put this thought experiment forward to determine what truly drives us as humans:
Suppose there is an experience machine that can give you any experience you want, which you can programme yourself. When you are plugged in it feels like you are experiencing what you have programmed the machine to do: eg) making a friend, hugging a loved one, reading a good book... All of this time you are plugged in you are floating in a tank, unaware that you are in there and thinking this is all actually happening.
Do you plug in, and get all the experiences you could want, or do you continue living your life?
If you're driven by pleasure, surely you would choose to plug in. Me myself, I wouldn't plug in. I think this is because I desire an objective existence with a connection to deeper lasting reality.
Would you plug in? Why?
Suppose there is an experience machine that can give you any experience you want, which you can programme yourself. When you are plugged in it feels like you are experiencing what you have programmed the machine to do: eg) making a friend, hugging a loved one, reading a good book... All of this time you are plugged in you are floating in a tank, unaware that you are in there and thinking this is all actually happening.
Do you plug in, and get all the experiences you could want, or do you continue living your life?
If you're driven by pleasure, surely you would choose to plug in. Me myself, I wouldn't plug in. I think this is because I desire an objective existence with a connection to deeper lasting reality.
Would you plug in? Why?
Great question. Classical, hedonistic utilitarians obviously would, and Nozick was banking on people saying 'no' to such a question in order to back up his view that utilitarianism was flawed.
As a preference utilitarian, I'm not sure whether I would - I certainly wouldn't be obligated to.
Nonetheless, if Nozick thought this was a knock-down argument against classical utilitarianism, he should have thought again.
Firstly, our intuitive judgment that we would not enter the experience machine could be influenced by the status quo bias. As Peter Singer writes, "most people have a preference for something they already possess or a state they are in now, even when they are offered something better."
And, as Joshua Greene points out, what if the situation were reversed: what if we are in an experience machine now? Would we choose to exit it, and abandon what we know as our life, as well as our friends and family?
In fact, Felipe De Brigard found that, if we assumed our lives as we know it were the product of an experience machine, 87% would choose to stay in the experience machine if in reality we were a prisoner in a maximum security prison. Even if, in reality, we were a multi-millionaire living in Monaco, 50% chose to stay in the experience machine.
So, overall, I don't know what I would pick, but any intuitive aversion I may have to getting in is likely to be irrational.
Interesting one, I suppose logically if it's so damn real that my brain is tricked into believing it is real (which is what you seem to imply) then...yeah I would, If I know deep down it isn't real but it feels just as it is, it would probably be used as an entertainment/pleasure medium.
Original post by picklescamp
cos I know I would never plug in I guess...
You could have been forced in, however. The question would then be: if you are in an experience machine now, would you leave it in order to go back to reality? I wouldn't - I'm fairly fond of this life.
Original post by picklescamp
Nozick put this thought experiment forward to determine what truly drives us as humans:
Suppose there is an experience machine that can give you any experience you want, which you can programme yourself. When you are plugged in it feels like you are experiencing what you have programmed the machine to do: eg) making a friend, hugging a loved one, reading a good book... All of this time you are plugged in you are floating in a tank, unaware that you are in there and thinking this is all actually happening.
Do you plug in, and get all the experiences you could want, or do you continue living your life?
If you're driven by pleasure, surely you would choose to plug in. Me myself, I wouldn't plug in. I think this is because I desire an objective existence with a connection to deeper lasting reality.
Would you plug in? Why?
Suppose there is an experience machine that can give you any experience you want, which you can programme yourself. When you are plugged in it feels like you are experiencing what you have programmed the machine to do: eg) making a friend, hugging a loved one, reading a good book... All of this time you are plugged in you are floating in a tank, unaware that you are in there and thinking this is all actually happening.
Do you plug in, and get all the experiences you could want, or do you continue living your life?
If you're driven by pleasure, surely you would choose to plug in. Me myself, I wouldn't plug in. I think this is because I desire an objective existence with a connection to deeper lasting reality.
Would you plug in? Why?
As others have touched on, how do you know your life now isn't the product of another experience machine? The phrase "objective existence with a connection to deeper lasting reality" is actually incredibly ambiguous ontologically speaking. What even is "reality" actually?
Practically speaking, you're asking whether people would choose between their existence as it is now (which they have limited control over), or an existence where they have unlimited control (i.e. they are God)? Why not be God for a day....or even a lifetime.
(edited 8 years ago)
It's a bit like spending the rest of our lives asleep having pleasant dreams, right? Nah, life is too short for that.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by WoodyMKC
Strange that so many years later, we're still catching up with Total Recall.
Exactly my thought as well.
Original post by MAINE.
As others have touched on, how do you know your life now isn't the product of another experience machine? The phrase "objective existence with a connection to deeper lasting reality" is actually incredibly ambiguous ontologically speaking. What even is "reality" actually?
Practically speaking, you're asking whether people would choose between their existence as it is now (which they have limited control over), or an existence where they have unlimited control (i.e. they are God)? Why not be God for a day....or even a lifetime.
Practically speaking, you're asking whether people would choose between their existence as it is now (which they have limited control over), or an existence where they have unlimited control (i.e. they are God)? Why not be God for a day....or even a lifetime.
And now we have the Matrix.
Such a machine would almost certainly dominate many peoples existence.
Why go and do a mundane job when you cna plug into VR and live in a world where your Captain America?
Original post by picklescamp
cos I know I would never plug in I guess...
cos I know I would never plug in I guess...
But you also know that once you'd plugged in you wouldn't remember making the decision.
Original post by zhog
It's a bit like spending the rest of our lives asleep having pleasant dreams, right? Nah, life is too short for that.
As I understand it what you just said is a complete contradiction.
"Life is short" so make the most of it and try to make it the best it can be, right? But in the experience machine your life would literally be the best it could possibly be. So what you've said doesnt make sense if that's how you interpret it.
Original post by RayApparently
But you also know that once you'd plugged in you wouldn't remember making the decision.
what?
Why wouldnt you remember the decision?
Original post by MAINE.
what?
Why wouldnt you remember the decision?
Why wouldnt you remember the decision?
I assume in the experiment you think everything is real (so you don't think its a simulation you've allowed yourself to be in):
Original post by picklescamp
All of this time you are plugged in you are floating in a tank, unaware that you are in there and thinking this is all actually happening.
Original post by MAINE.
As I understand it what you just said is a complete contradiction.
"Life is short" so make the most of it and try to make it the best it can be, right? But in the experience machine your life would literally be the best it could possibly be. So what you've said doesn't make sense if that's how you interpret it.
"Life is short" so make the most of it and try to make it the best it can be, right? But in the experience machine your life would literally be the best it could possibly be. So what you've said doesn't make sense if that's how you interpret it.
It makes sense if we assume that spending life asleep or plugged into a machine is not the best possible life experience. Where would the world end if everyone did that?
Studied this in philosophy. My answer was a straight no.
Original post by zhog
It makes sense if we assume that spending life asleep or plugged into a machine is not the best possible life experience. Where would the world end if everyone did that?
But it is. That's the point. This machine will give you an experience of life as good as you can possibly imagine it. The life you'll have in this machine will far exceed any life you could possibly have in reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz
Read the first line of the article. This machine would solve that problem.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by picklescamp
Nozick put this thought experiment forward to determine what truly drives us as humans:
Suppose there is an experience machine that can give you any experience you want, which you can programme yourself. When you are plugged in it feels like you are experiencing what you have programmed the machine to do: eg) making a friend, hugging a loved one, reading a good book... All of this time you are plugged in you are floating in a tank, unaware that you are in there and thinking this is all actually happening.
Do you plug in, and get all the experiences you could want, or do you continue living your life?
If you're driven by pleasure, surely you would choose to plug in. Me myself, I wouldn't plug in. I think this is because I desire an objective existence with a connection to deeper lasting reality.
Would you plug in? Why?
Suppose there is an experience machine that can give you any experience you want, which you can programme yourself. When you are plugged in it feels like you are experiencing what you have programmed the machine to do: eg) making a friend, hugging a loved one, reading a good book... All of this time you are plugged in you are floating in a tank, unaware that you are in there and thinking this is all actually happening.
Do you plug in, and get all the experiences you could want, or do you continue living your life?
If you're driven by pleasure, surely you would choose to plug in. Me myself, I wouldn't plug in. I think this is because I desire an objective existence with a connection to deeper lasting reality.
Would you plug in? Why?
Yes. The physical word does not give you a high ratio of pleasure/time compared to a pleasure machine.
"The physical world does not give you a high ratio of pleasure/time compared to a pleasure machine."
The major point raised by OP is "IF you are driven by pleasure you would plug in...". Ultimately, reality is not defined by 'pleasure' so it makes no sense to plug in. It's the equivalent of sticking your head in the sand.
Why are you using pleasure as a paradigm for reality?
You might enjoy playing and immersing yourself in a video-game but you know that inevitably at some point you will need to log off, go to the toilet and get something to eat. These are quotidian factors of reality that are easy to overlook but are important. 'Real life' is distinct from a 'pleasure machine' in this regard - there are so many things wrong with plugging in to the floatation tank. They would take far too long to cover at length on a Sunday afternoon.
The major point raised by OP is "IF you are driven by pleasure you would plug in...". Ultimately, reality is not defined by 'pleasure' so it makes no sense to plug in. It's the equivalent of sticking your head in the sand.
Why are you using pleasure as a paradigm for reality?
You might enjoy playing and immersing yourself in a video-game but you know that inevitably at some point you will need to log off, go to the toilet and get something to eat. These are quotidian factors of reality that are easy to overlook but are important. 'Real life' is distinct from a 'pleasure machine' in this regard - there are so many things wrong with plugging in to the floatation tank. They would take far too long to cover at length on a Sunday afternoon.
(edited 8 years ago)
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