Experience Machine Nozick Summary

I mean- my brother makes his living off of creating clothes for the avatars of people who delve deep into this alter-reality What could be so terrible about a person’s real life that the need to escape into a virtual one is so strong? Truthfully, it wasn’t until I really reflected on my own usage of my computer and iPhone that I realized I’m just as much of an escape artist as the daily Second Life user. Just yesterday, I was tired and cranky as I sat in my English Seminar on the American Frontier. I was annoyed by the content of the course and faraway in my thoughts of the hundreds of other things I could have been doing instead of sitting in that swirly black chair for the next hour and fifteen minutes. What did I do to ease my troubled, distracted mind? I quickly popped open my Nook account and took to reading a book that was due for an upcoming class. Of course, I still threw in my opinion to the class discussion every few minutes; we are the age of the multi-tasker, after all. My point is, as long as people continue to fall victim to a dependency on technology, we are all in some way escaping our reality, even if only for a few seconds.

Robert Nozick’s “The Experience Machine” poses the question: if you had the opportunity to be plugged into a machine that would simulate a life you had prechosen, would you plug in? Nozick describes being in the machine as a type of suicide and there are many reasons as to why this machine would be just that. For example, human beings are inherently creatures that learn by observation, therefore, if you have never observed or practiced what it is to be brave, loving, kind, or honest, you wouldn’t have the capacity in you to possess those traits.

The experience machine makes one feel like you are actually performing or experiencing the things one is doing while plugged in but in reality, as Nozick described, you are “floating in a tank with

Even if living inside a machine wasn’t a possibility, if I as I am could remain the same way for the rest of time as we know it, I would probably drive myself crazy trying to find ways to commit suicide. Its nearly impossible for me to even fathom what it would even remotely be like to be sentenced to life forever. I wouldn’t want to have to be around for all of the terrible and inevitable occurrences that are just right around the corner. Sure I could just cut myself off from society and spend my days in a cave coming up with wacky hypotheses and ideas, but that’s not really how I see my ideal future

The Machine has distorted almost all of the original concepts. The Machine abolished religion, saying that it is unreasonable. However, in fact that a person cannot completely abandon his nature. A person must believe in something. Therefore, the religion, or worship of the Machine, comes back to people’s life again. And this religion is not about faith, it is about fear. It turned out to be the same fear that the Machine was not able to overcome. People need to believe that there is someone who can protect them. Also, the Machine has become their universal assistant taking care of their daily affairs. People were completely dependent on the Machine. And the Machine came to have too much power and very little supervision. People did not realize it and began to worship it. Therefore, when the machine is out of order, it cannot recover by its own. Because of its dominance above all else, people could only worship it, but not work with it. So, when human began to worship the Machine, it is destined to be the end of humanity. Forster shows how the worship of the Machine is unnatural. Therefore, when people raised their dependence and

He also gives an example of this when he describes mental illness, how if someone acts crazy they must be crazy. Therefore, mentally ill people are simulators. Mentally ill individuals are simulating their own reality and are unable to distinguish between reality and

The function of the machine is to stimulate our brains to make us think and feel if that we were actually experience what we desire. However, we are not actually doing it. It is just brain stimulation. In the experience

The Experience machine or Pleasure machine first came into the light by philosopher Robert Nozick in his 1947 book “Anarchy, State, and Utopia”. By being put in the Experience machine or the Pleasure machine, in which your mental state is put into a virtual reality. In which you can live any life you wish, such as becoming a star basketball player, a football player, or even a super spy. Although none of these fantasies will actually matter within the real world, but it will give you pleasure for the time being within your mental state. The use of the pleasure machine is basically a fake reality which you are given pleasure, but does not give you any pleasure once you get out of the machine. As you will never achieve any pleasure or achieve

Sometimes, people will choose to be in the cave or inside the matrix safe from the reality and truth because they are afraid of their life will be changed，and they cannot afford defeat. However, staying in the cave or the matrix is not good for people because they never know what is reality , truth and illusion. If people know that they are living the virtual world, they should find the real world. For example, in the movie, “ Matrix”, it is hard for Neo to accept he is living in the virtual world, the object he can see, feel, touch, and smell is illusion. Not only for Neo, but also for all people are hard to believe the world is not real. Neo is brave and smart, he knows that he should find the truth and reality, and he does not want to

The world as we see it seems real, but we do not know that it is; In "The Experience Machine" everything is handed to you, you are unaware that this isn't real, meanwhile your body lays floating somewhere in a science lab. In order to be human and learn we must experience different types of emotions, whether negative or positive. In my opinion people need to work to get to what they want, there are no handouts in life and that is the reality of it; I want to know that I accomplished graduating college, going to medical school, becoming a psychiatrist, by myself. I want to feel the hardship that I need to go through to make it through all of that, and the outcome will be pure happiness. Also, in this fake world you experience, everything is

One can argue that human creations too have a sense of mortality, due to the fact that they can go from a state of functioning to a state of being broken, and that many of our creations have a so-called “lifecycle” embedded into them. Many of our creations – such as the machines, computers and programs they run – are often characterized by the two states of being functional and non-functional. In many ways, these two states mirror the mortality we are subject to as living creatures. When we are living, we are functional. Our hearts beat and pump blood through our veins, our limbs and extremities serve us to the best of their ability, and our minds operate as they do. When we are dead, our physical bodies are non-functional, therefore lifeless. When a machine is functional, it does its designed tasks. When it is broken, it cannot complete its designed tasks. But can we call it dead? Does it have true mortality? Modern day philosopher Shelly Kagan would say no, and make the argument that our thought process so far is overlooking a crucial missing puzzle piece. Stating, “no mere machine can feel pain, see red, or feel joy. Machines can do the behavioral stuff, but no merely physical object can have this qualitative aspect of experience. But we have it. So we are no mere physical objects. We are no mere machines.” To Kagan, the qualitative aspects define our

The main reason to not plug into the experience machine, for me, would be that it goes against my religious views as a Christian. God has a plan for everyone and I feel like spending two years in a machine that only gives me the pleasure of certain events without affecting the world in any sort of way is not part of that plan. It also seems as if my life would be a waste if I spent even as little as 2 years in the machine. Instead of spending the 2 years meeting real new people or going through a real experience, you would just sit in the machine getting experiences that are solely for your own pleasure and have no actual meaning in the real

The film series, The Matrix Trilogy, raises many interesting dilemmas and questions for humans and especially for philosophers. Julia Driver was intrigued to analyze the issue of morality and immorality in an environment that does not accurately reflect reality while Hubert and Stephen Dreyfus were interested in deciphering which world is a more preferable habitat for human being; a real one or a virtual one? The following will attempt to explain the previous questions using reference to the first film and response articles by both Driver and Dreyfus and Dreyfus.

The virtual reality fulfilled all our fancies and dreams. To feel as heroes and supermen, we became the addicted gamers. Up to this day, I thought that all players in the “Dream World” were like us. But now I realized that there might be other reasons for being in this virtual world. And I, 18 years old teenager, play this game every night not for fulfilling the desires of the game addict but for a completely different

The most important error [generally committed] is the reduction of reality to actuality and virtuality to possibility: as if the actual and the virtual were the given and the pre-given, respectively” (Doel & Clarke, 1999)