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+--- Thread: Article Revisiting the "Experience Machine" thought experiment (/thread-15652.html)
Revisiting the "Experience Machine" thought experiment - C C - Mar 28, 2024
https://theness.com/neurologicablog/the-experience-machine-thought-experiment/
INTRO: In 1974 Robert Nozick published the book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, in which he posed the following thought experiment: If you could be plugged into an “experience machine” (what we would likely call today a virtual reality or “Matrix”) that could perfectly replicate real-life experiences, but was 100% fake, would you do it? The question was whether you would do this irreversibly for the rest of your life. What if, in this virtual reality, you could live an amazing life – perfect health and fitness, wealth and resources, and unlimited opportunity for adventure and fun?
Nozick hypothesized that people generally would not elect to do this (as summarized in a recent BBC article). He gave three reasons – we want to actual do certain things, and not just have the experience of doing them, we want to be a certain kind of person and that can only happen in reality, and we want meaning and purpose in our lives, which is only possible in reality.
A lot has happened in the last 50 years and it is interesting to revisit Nozick’s thought experiment. I would say I basically disagree with Nozick, but there is a lot of nuance that needs to be explored... (MORE - details)
RE: Revisiting the "Experience Machine" thought experiment - Magical Realist - Mar 28, 2024
Agree with the author. I would rather live in the fulfilling VR and not know it rather than wake up in some AI hellscape where everything was ruled by our AI taskmasters. I kinda feel like we do this already, embracing our culturally programmed lives in this world with zero interest in opting for some value-neutral reality behind it all. We all settle for the degree of illusion we can handle and adapt to and end up becoming who we are based on that ground state of meaning. Knowing and living in the truth is a luxury many can't afford.