Plugging In To The Experience Machine
I had many excellent philosophy teachers back in the day, and one of the excellentest of the bunch was Robert Nozick (1938-2002).
Perhaps one thing (among many) for which Bob will be well remembered is a thought experiment, called the Experience Machine, which he first outlined in Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974). It begins like this:
Suppose there were an experience machine that would give 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, pre-programming your life’s experiences?
(Fuller text here for those who wish to pursue the experiment in more depth.)
Bob thought it was pretty obvious that you would not want to plug into the machine: it would be “a kind of suicide.” And he and others have drawn various philosophical conclusions — that positive experiences are not what we do or should primarily value, that pleasure is not the (or even a) cardinal good, and so forth. (Sometimes this all gets amusing: watching conservative lawyers like John Finnis wheel out this thought experiment in hopes of banishing forever the Evil Doctrine of Hedonism reminds me of a character in an old movie brandishing a cross to try to ward off Dracula.)
Now the thought experiment of the Experience Machine does not lack for problems. For one, there really are people who just disagree with Nozick’s intuition. I once knew a woman who, when I told her about the Experience Machine, reacted with “Where can I get me one?” I suspect there are readers of this blog who might feel the same way, since precisely because they are readers of blogs like this one, they have a keen appreciation of all the really cool experiences there are to be had.
(This woman was a really fun person, by the way, and… Okay, Faustus, enough daydreamy reminiscence. Back to philosophy class.)
There are deeper and more philosophical objections to be made to Nozick’s thought experiment. At least in so far as it’s meant to attack hedonism, it ignores a subtle but really very important distinction between a machine that would give us any experience we want and one which would give us those experiences we would most enjoy. (A refutation of hedonism would require that we would not want to plug into the latter kind of machine, a point which I might try to explain in a later post).
Given my own interest in these matters, I was greatly pleased to see that George Mason economics professor and Marginal Revolution co-proprietor Tyler Cowen (1962 – Forever I Hope), in his intriguing new book Create Your Own Economy likewise sees fit to address the Experience Machine with a bit of skepticism.
…I’m not quite convinced by Nozick’s critique…. Perhaps my skepticism stems from my background as an economist and my profession’s emphasis on “choice at the margin,” to cite that theme again. The choice is not “Fantasy: yes or no?” but rather “How much fantasy do we want in our lives?”
Cowen is writing to defend the virtues of what he calls “human neurodiversity,” the value created by the differences different people have in their ability to have experiences and process information due to different neurologies. He focuses largely (though not exclusively) on the values and virtues of what he calls “autistic cognitive profiles,” and notes that in an important sense he (and perhaps everyone else) is already plugged into an experience machine: we structure our inner lives with stories about ourselves and benefit in real ways from certain kinds of self-deception. If these issues interest you, the book is very much for you (it was for me). You can also see Tyler Cowen in a Bloggingheads conversation with Fly Bottle blogger Will Wilkinson largely about the book here. Do check it out.
But fundamentally I would love to hear from readers about their intuitions in reaction to Nozick’s though experiment. Would you plug in? And if so, for how long?
Shorter URL for sharing: http://www.erosblog.com/?p=3792
Don’t we have that now? It’s called Video Games.
I wouldn’t want to be plugged in all the time: I like the surprises and adventures the randomness of life can bring. I can, however, see that it would make a great “holiday” or “spa day” experience. It might even be a great tool to clarify goals; give a tangible vision of what you’d like to work towards since the better you are able to visualize a goal, the better you can work on getting there.
However, I also see it as possibly becoming addictive, even escapist, like taking drugs – and, indeed, wouldn’t it be like that, over-stimulating the pleasure centres? Possibly to the point of burn-out?
(link to Fuller text 404’s, btw ;) )
D has pegged it in one. I’ve been using video games this way since my first game of Empire on the college Vax. (I should also point out that reading escapist fiction serves a very similar function for many people.)
I didn’t spend three years chasing Hill Giants around East Karana in pursuit of death — and I didn’t lose my job or my family over it, either, although I know folks who did. Same with the internet spaceship game I’ve been playing for the last three years.
The Experience Machine, if I could get one, would be a precious asset, used to enhance a pretty good life. It’s bizarre to view this as a binary “all or nothing” proposition. I’d want to use it, not submerge myself in it forever.
(And link fixed, thanks Jodie)
Isn’t he describing “The Matrix” only maybe with more control on the experience?
Life itself IS an experience machine. Our thoughts and actions affect how we experience everything around us.
I already have one, but it’s broken and I cannot turn it off and wake up. In this program Faustus is supposed to post pictures of naked people.
Seriously if we had experience machines we would probably be more interested in reliving experiences of each other or of sharing well written experiences. We like to experience things vicariously and with people we know. People we designed from inside the machine would never have the same a appeal as personalities from outside. So I don’t know about the experiences we choose limiting our happiness, but the people we choose certainly does. Also, I do have a machine that makes both people and experiences more enjoyable. It’s called weed. It’s probably a lot cheaper than the above experience machine and there is no question of how addictive it is.
Well, as your first experiences one could experience what it would be like to have used the machine a little, moderately, or extensively – and base future use on those experiences….
Given the reality of previous media – I suspect this machine would be pretty much used for sex and porn – with the ratio of use for sexual/porn experiences to all other uses pretty much like the internet. Not that this would be bad…
The problem I see is how would one learn what experiences exist to have if one has chosen to immerse themself in only what they know to ask for… One would need a “Stumble Upon” experience generator, but I can see some filtering algorithim would be necessary to avoid really unpleasant things. And filtering algoritims have a basic flaw – who decides what is unpleasant to whom?
Holodeck.
Or the Matrix.
Star trek has done holodeck abuse and addiction stories. As I understood the Matrix (and I’m just an average viewer, not a fanatic) everyone is asleep and hooked up to cables and we are ‘moving through’ a shared fantasy of what reality is. The people who fall off the matrix of conventional reality then have to deal with the higher reality where laws such as time and gravity only apply properly to the ‘sleepers’. With the new range of interactive games we do seem to be moving closer to a holodeck type experience in the near future but the idea that the masses are already asleep and engaged in a mundane shared reality is an old philosophical staple. Because I have self awareness I also assume I have great importance. It has taken a lifetime to realize that self awareness doesn’t guarantee anything else. Every wonderful slack jawed four toothed citizen who throws folding chairs on Jerry Springer has self awareness, and believes they are equal to every doctor and king who roams the earth with them.
A high school teacher, who was a rally car driver, entertained a fantasy that driving was essentially sitting in a “magic room’ with a screen. If you pressed the levers and turned the wheel properly you’d guide the ‘screen’ to a new destination. And when you stepped out of the room you’d be somewhere else. (Play the game badly and you end up wearing crunched metal). This was years before personal computers and their driving games.
As a consequence of so many extraordinary experiences the very nature of reality is now in question. I didn’t notice when Rock Hudson, the actor, first died. I never met him and so only experienced him through TV. and movies. For months he was as alive to me as he ever was. I had no great interest in him, no stake in his life or career, but there are a lot of people who presently live vicariously through their TV. sets. (“Friends” was so popular because it made the lonely people watching it feel like they had a group of friends. Like we were the seventh person just sitting quietly on the couch while Joey and Monica kept up the conversation).
I think people are having trouble catching up to the technology we have around us and it is making our perception of ‘reality’ skewed. My elementary school students, who were on the verge of graduating and couldn’t read at a fourth grade level, blithely assumed they’d be doctors or lawyers in a few years. Most of the interesting people they saw on TV were doctors and lawyers. My students were all, I think, self aware and certain of their innate ‘specialness’. People with noble intent keep trying to have Christian ideals taught in public schools. They tend to be against the teaching of logic and philosophy and they are right, in their way, because these things lead to free thinking which leads to skepticism. Galileo was devout; I think that real faith can withstand honest skepticism.
My long winded point is that I think we are already living in an experience experiment. We don’t get a reset and as far as I know once this game is over we go back to how things were for us before we were born. Scary, perhaps, but inevitable. The game gets weird because sometimes when people know it is not going the way they’d like they’ll assassinate someone or blow something up in a futile effort to skew the game back in their favor. The rules of this game we are all playing have become so baroque and arcane that we often just disregard them. I am most acutely aware that I have moved into the stream of everyone else’s fantasies when I am driving, especially on the interstate. It now takes effort for me to drive at the posted speed limit on the highway. Speeding generally serves no real purpose and is just a bad habit. I loathe putting on my blinkers to move into the lane in front of someone because as soon as I signal they are apt to speed up to try to keep me from moving safely into the space. Although his thought wasn’t widely disseminated people clearly believe that my rally car teacher had the right idea about the experience of driving. It’s all great fun until someone loses an eye.
Weed doesn’t cause experience it alters the perception of experience (unless weed has gotten a whole lot better than it was twenty years ago when I last experienced it). Even LSD changes perceptions and not actual experiences. People can be ‘talked down’ from a bad trip with constant reminders of what is actually ‘real’. Taking LSD and then stepping into an experience machine would alter your perception of the experience already set up there. And if you dropped acid and then stepped into an “experience acid” machine then you’d come out Syd Barrett (bless his heart).
Sorry , Jag, I said weed was a machine “that makes both people and experiences more enjoyable.” The point being that there is a big difference between the reality of an experience and the enjoyability of it. Therefore a reality machine might fail to derail us into hedonism because the perfect reality it is designed for is not the same as perfect enjoyment. And that if it were, like weed, that does not imply that it would be addictive.
Also, I don’t think that people watched Friends because they felt like part of an in-group. I think people watched Friends because after so many years of watching Taxi, Cheers, and Seinfeld they thought that surely there was a funny sitcom for them to continue what they had been doing to relax in their down time. After a while they realized they were wrong, and decided to try making the internet into a medium that could convey something for “the water cooler.” I was in high school when Friends began, and even my peer group was annoyed by their stilted and awkward love lives.
For me, it would not be a permanent thing, but definitely a tool for certain purposes. The issue is the time compression of thought. Anyone who has dreamed, knows that time flows differently in the “experience” of the dream. Dreams can last weeks, when in the real world, only a few hours have passed – if that. This, to me, could be the ultimate tutor. This could also be the chance to try something that is impossible as well. Experiencing Kurt Vonnegut’s story of hunting a tyrannosaurus, or experiencing the effects of the event horizon of a black hole, based on the science we know now. Bacchus, I too play that same one, ad use it as my time compression to get away from the reality. To try something new. To extrapolate a new direction without a physical cost to myself. Then of course, there are the hedonistic pleasures that can be tried. Not many, though I am sure some here, have experienced what it would be like to lead (or be part of) a harem, whether it be patriarchal or matriarchal. Medically, I think this also has a great application. Imagine being able to implant an experience that lasts throughout a surgery. Compressing the time it takes to be “programmed” to use a prosthetic. No, just like anything else in human nature, there is always good and bad. The key is having someone to pull the plug when it is too much, whether that be the same person that “plugged in” or someone else.
But definitely I can see me using this to learn new languages, to have first hand experience flying a plane, to experience a pattern shift in mundane day-to-day experiences. Plugging in continuously? No, that I cannot see, for by learning all this information, then never being able to test it outside the program would be a waste of information.
I would plug in. IMO, the debate stems from what people see as ‘the purpose of life’. To those that understand this to be serving God or humanity, or improving themselves, I understand why they might look upon such a machine as an oddity.
I see the purpose of life to have fun. Fortunately I empathise, so this means I don’t have fun at the expense of others’. So, I would plug in, permanently if it proved to be more fun than the real world (whatever that is). It’s another conundrum, as shown by the Matrix, as how can we possibly know what is real? Every external experience is simply what our senses tell us. How accurate are they?
what a delight to browse this site today and see the name of someone I once knew (casually, although I did both (a) get to interview him for a Boston Phoenix profile back in the mid-70s, and (b) share delegate-status (MA) with him at the 1975 Libertarian Party national convention (where he delivered a stirring impromptu nomination speech for a man he didn’t even know before that day – affirming a principle of openness in the process of selecting a VP running-mate) …
I often forget what a brilliant (and open-hearted,in his own way) man he truly was; often wish I’d spent more time getting to know him better.
oops, sorry for the off-topic reminiscence. (My own favorite idea of his was how “clean nukes” of small capacity & destruction might be used to create DMZ’s where no war could ever be waged again! But the experience machine was also up to his usual brilliance)
Two interesting fictional explorations come immediately to mind here:
1) Total Recall http://www.phil....html Wherein, the main character becomes someone else.
2) Pendragon – The Reality Bug. http://www.thep....html – This is a book for teens that examines the complete destruction of a society that becomes so immersed in their fake reality that there’s nobody left to run things in the real world.
The idea of losing myself scares me, but the promise of sex might overwhelm my fears.
“The age of spiritual machines. Ten to fifteen billion years ago, the universe was born” -Raymond Kurzweil
I imagine everyone would want to be plugged into this machine. I would guess by the time a machine like this would come out it will be so socialy acceptable you would rarely question how long or how much you would use it. It’s like the Internet is today. Everyone uses it. If you were to ask the average person back in the early 1900’s if they would like to have a machine (the internet) that can show you millions of people having sex in any way possible whenever you want, or take a trip accrossed the world and see live video from a different country or tell you anything you want to know when you want to know it, than I’m sure you would have a similar reaction from those people as we do of the thougt of an experience machine today. The scary thing is I bet this will someday be more of a reality than we care to imagine and our kids won’t know what is like to have sex for real. And they will prolly say things like “can you believe that our parents didn’t know what ot was like to have sex with a movie star!?”
Someone earlier said the problem stems more from what the purpouse of life is. I’m sure the person from the early 1900’s if sitting in front of a picture box for hours at a time ( for work and pleasure) was how they wanted to spend their lives they would react hesitantly, but can you imagine how shitty life would be without computers and the Internet today?
This sounds similar to the new Bruce Willis movie surrogate btw.
Oops I ment to say I’m sure if you asked the person from the early 1900s…
Typing on the iPhone is hard. where’s my edit post button? :P
In my opinion, we already have that now, with televisision and the internet, as well as books and movies to a lesser extent. And I am already somewhat addicted…
When I turn on the tube, or sit in front of my terminal, my usual goal is to become immersed in a world that is more intensly interesting than my own somewhat humdrum life. I can watch “Pulp Fiction” without the danger of becoming a statistic, or I can watch “Elizabeth”, go to England (I live in the USA), and even time travel.
With such a machine, I would use it for several hours a day. As I do currently….
Note to Peter Grimm: U-Tube already has a “Stumble Upon” experience generator (with it’s “suggested videos”), and my TV does as well (my remote control)…
From RoyB:
“2) Pendragon – The Reality Bug. http://www.thep....html – This is a book for teens that examines the complete destruction of a society that becomes so immersed in their fake reality that there’s nobody left to run things in the real world”
I haven’t actually read this book, but it touches on what I was going to say. If someone wanted to spend the rest of their lives in any kind of experience machine, I’d have no problem with it, its their lives. The problem is that if too many people want to do it, society starts breaking down. And then it does start to become my business. Because without society, who’s going to reproduce, continue technological development, etc.
I may or may not want to spend the rest of my life in an experience machine (although I’d probably say nay, something about the randomness of life excites me) but people of the future (and now) might have a vastly different opinion on the matter. At any rate, if the experience is too enjoyable people will inevitably become addicted, and if too many people become addicted it could doom the human race. And as a human, I have an invested interested in preserving the human race.
I know its a bleak, dystopian picture I’m painting, but it could happen.
On a lighter note though, if we were able to regulate how many people hooked themselves up and for how long, so that it doesn’t significantly disrupt society or progress, then I see absolutely nothing wrong with it. To each their own. As long as someone doesn’t do something that affects me, another person, or the human race, I could care less what they do with their life :)
With the Beatles rock band thing coming out today I’ve been listening to the radio and hearing how with the learning curve lowered air guitar level citizens are now getting plugged in. the kids who are math whizzes have made a platform for the musically inhibited to perform and excel, if only in their own minds. The communal and family aspect seems very inspiring as well. I, for one, welcome these new creative interfaces. I sweat over the creation of my art and music but I think it is wonderful that people can get to some of the juice that people like I feel when it’s going well. McDonalds hasn’t killed gourmet cooking. The Mozart’s and Cobains will keep getting born and keep having a need to reinvent. I’ve always loved that people who couldn’t paint any other way could move colors around with the paint by numbers kits. Creating is great and everyone should be able to play and have fun. Three cheers for people!