Experience Machine

[Deleted]

Imagine that I have a machine that I could plug you into for the rest of your life. This machine would give you experiences of whatever kind you thought most valuable or enjoyable - writing a great novel, bringing about world peace, attending an early Rolling Stones' gig. You would not know you were on the machine, and there is no worry about its breaking down or whatever. Would you plug in? Would it be wise, from the point of your own well-being, to do so?

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Send me to the Moon, and then to Wembley Stadium in 1986 to watch Queen perform.

[Kasierith]

No. I have too much purpose in my life to be locked away in a machine

[Beavis]

Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Oh, missed the "rest of your life". Ask me when I'm 80.

[Deleted]

I have been asked and thought about this before, and this answer is yes, 100%, definitely.

As an atheist, I don't believe there is an afterlife, I believe you should enjoy this current life as much as possible, so if you could live your life and eventually die living in an artificial reality within a machine; but have no idea you're actually in a machine, it's an easy yes from me. Once you're in the machine, that would feel like real life, you would spend all of your years doing whatever you wanted and die having lived a happy life.

[Riidii]

Isn't this basically Total Recall?

[Deleted]

Isn't this basically Total Recall?

The experience machine is a thought experiment put forward by philosopher Robert Nozick in his Anarchy, State, and Utopia. 1974

[vizzle]

I wouldn't be able to do it, no. As wonderful as it may sound, I could never strap myself to it.

[Deleted]

Without hesitation.

[ptwonline]

Just strap me in without telling me!

[Beavis]

The experience machine is a thought experiment put forward by philosopher Robert Nozick in his Anarchy, State, and Utopia. 1974

"We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," the basis for Total Recall, was written in 1966. Let's just say the idea was kind of bouncing around at the time.

[ptwonline]

"We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," the basis for Total Recall, was written in 1966. Let's just say the idea was kind of bouncing around at the time.

It's actually a very, very old question in philosophy about the basis of reality.

[Unoriginal]

how do you know you arent already strapped to a more advanced form of this machine?

[Beavis]

It's actually a very, very old question in philosophy about the basis of reality.

I don't know shit about philosophy, but I imagine the specific notion of plugging your brain into a machine was relatively novel at the time. But, like I said, I don't know shit about philosophy.

[Deleted]

how do you know you arent already strapped to a more advanced form of this machine?

Think about this:

If we were able to create a virtual reality here on earth, and inside this virtual reality it was possible to create another virtual reality: what is the probability that what we call reality here on earth is in fact another virtual reality inside another...?

[Beavis]

Think about this:

If we were able to create a virtual reality here on earth, and inside this virtual reality it was possible to create another virtual reality: what is the probability that what we call reality here on earth is in fact another virtual reality inside another...?

Divide by zero?

[Deleted]

Think about this:

If we were able to create a virtual reality here on earth, and inside this virtual reality it was possible to create another virtual reality: what is the probability that what we call reality here on earth is in fact another virtual reality inside another...?

Is everything in your life still hard? If yes, then it's reality...Or a really crappy simulator!

[Baradur]

Yes, I would plug in, No, it would not be wise.

[Caiada]

No. It's a terrible idea. Constant highs without context aren't highs at all.