Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life experiences?
Nozick’s imaginary experience machine can easily be compared to a dream—which may be quite accurate, as this machine would indeed enable one to experience the fulfillment of his or her aspirations. Should one choose to enter the machine, one would be able to control their imagined life, and control is one facet of existence that humans have limited influence over. Beyond the small realm of factors within our reach, there are numerous other elements that are inaccessible, and a pre-programmed existence within the machine would ensure that life would be free of the various hapless phenomena that plague reality. By entering the machine, one would be able to avoid pain and maximize their contentment, pursuing a variety of pleasurable experiences that may not be as accessible in reality. For instance, one may be reunited with a lost loved one or traverse on an expensive luxury cruise, two opportunities that would have been otherwise impossible. There seems no point in facing the repetitive struggles of reality that will continue with or without one’s interference when one can escape to a world suited to one’s whims. In this time, with over seven billion individuals to populate the Earth, one life would amount to a single drop in the ocean, likely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
However, even as the experience machine seems to be capable of granting one’s every desire, one must consider that, no matter what the brain is convinced to believe, it is not real. “Life” would be an illusion, despite the participant’s lack of awareness. As in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the “reality” provided by the machine would be the shadows watched by chained prisoners—mistaken for truth, yet ultimately false. This leads to a conundrum, as without authenticity, could the experiences begot through the machine be dubbed to be truly meaningful, or is it more likely to be a fad? Would a sense of eudaimonia be possible to obtain in a world fashioned from lies, or would there be a subconscious, underlying sense of discontent, bubbling beneath the surface?
Even as the participant remains blissfully unaware of the truth, those that reside in the real world would have lost a friend or loved one to what could be likened to a coma. Furthermore, as the participant had made the conscious choice to leave behind their friends and family, they would be left to suffer the consequences—both emotional and physical. While entering the machine may have provided pleasure for a single individual, multiple others are made to suffer for it, meaning that from a utilitarian perspective, the lack of maximized happiness produced would deem the machine to be negative.
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