If you were given the opportunity to plan out your life in a way that would maximize the amount of pleasure in it, would you take it? This question is key to Robert Nozick’s thought experiment which attempts to show that humans are not hedonists. A hedonist is a person who lives and behaves in a way such that they can experience the most pleasure out of life as possible, according to the belief that the pursuit of pleasure it the most important thing in life. Nozick’s thought experiment attempts to refute hedonism through a hypothetical question involving what Nozick likes to call the “experience machine”. This imaginary machine would have the ability to simulate any sort of experiences on a subject and the subject of the experiment would …show more content…
First, we want to do certain things and not just have the experience of having done them. Secondly, plugging in would be a form of suicide and thirdly we are limited to human-created reality. Nozick’s first piece of reasoning which says that we want do certain things and not just experience them is sort of questionable. Based on the assumption that all experiences can be replicated by the machine and that we have no knowledge of our previous lives wouldn’t it make no difference whether or not we actually did these things or not? Since experiences are produced through chemical changes in the brain, it would theoretically have the exact same feeling if an experience really happened or not. People may argue that the fact that these experiences are really happening is crucial in giving it meaning or significance. For example, if someone were to pass away, they would likely want to be remembered or even have an impact on the world for what they have done over the course of their lives. If they were in a simulated environment these actions would simply be of no significance. This is where the idea of subjective reality impels me to believe that is completely unknowable whether or not we are not know in a simulation. This is an important fact because if you chose to plug in, once in the simulation, you would have no way of every finding out that you were in a simulation or not. Since there would be know way …show more content…
If I were given the opportunity to plug-in to the machine I would probably take it. As I mentioned earlier, based on the assumption that we will never know whether our life is a simulation and that the experiences using the “experiment machine” will feel exactly the same, it can be said that there would be no difference in the feeling, authenticity, and significance of our lives if we chose to use the machine or not. You can only gain pleasure out of using it. Although most people may have a different opinion on this topic than me, I believe that if they looked past the artificial nature of the machine, they would definitely use the machine. The instant rejection to Nozick’s hypothetical question which he seeks relies on the fact that life through the “experiment machine” is not authentic and that people want a life where there destiny is not already written. What if Nozick instead asked whether or not you would like to ensure pleasure in your life? Had he worded his question in a way that did not add conditions or an added dimension like this, there is no doubt in my mind that everyone would say yes to the question. By removing the inhibiting condition, the condition of surrendering yourself to a knowingly unreal life and losing your free will, the question becomes much less objectionable in nature. Everyone in life desires pleasure and due to the fact that people may have
In chapter 2, Shafer-Landau proceeds to list the theories that attempt to disprove hedonism by highlight the shortcomings in its logic and hedonism's replies to these objections. The Argument from Autonomy, is one of strongest objections to hedonism listed. Shafer-Landau states that for a theory to pose a serious threat to hedonism, it needs to challenge the idea that happiness is the only thing of intrinsic value (34). Chapter 2 discuses four strong objections that have the potential and support to disprove hedonism. The Argument from Autonomy provides an abundance of strong information to support its claims.
So would people actually choose to log into a total life simulation? Nozick would say that they would not and I agree, however I do not see this as a refutation of hedonism but rather a proof because of the inclusion of meta-pleasure. Recent advancements in technology such as Second Life, though, might prove that humans would be willing to tune out of reality in favour of a virtual life.
The theory of hedonism is the view that pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically valuable, thus making it so that our lives are only truly good to the extent that we are happy. The Argument from False Happiness challenges the view of the hedonist: the hedonist believes that a life is good so long as there is happiness, regardless of where the happiness comes from, whereas critics of hedonism argue that a life filled with false beliefs is worse, despite the fact that the person may still be as equally happy as someone with true beliefs. In this essay, I will show how hedonism is drastically discredited by the following argument as it is clear to see how false happiness makes a life significantly worse for the person living it: If hedonism
Hedonism is a theory of morality. There are several popular philosophers who support hedonism; some of whom offer their own interpretation of the theory. This paper will focus on the Epicurean view. Epicurus, a Greek philosophers born in 341 B.C., generated a significant measure of controversy amongst laymen and philosophical circles in regards to his view of the good life. Philosophers whom teachings predate Epicurus’ tended to focus on the question of “How can human beings live a good, morally sound, life?” Epicurus ruffled feathers and ultimately expanded the scope of philosophy by asking “What makes people happy?”
I also think that one of the most commonly used objections to Nozick, De Brigard’s experiment, doesn’t actually refute his thought
As humans we are constantly in search of understanding the balance between what feels good and what is right. Humans try to take full advantage of experiencing pleasure to its fullest potential. Hedonism claims that pleasure is the highest and only source of essential significance. If the notion of hedonism is truthful, happiness is directly correlated with pleasure. Robert Nozick presented the philosophical world with his though experiment, “The Experience Machine” in order to dispute the existence and validity of hedonism. Nozick’s thought experiment poses the question of whether or not humans would plug into a machine which produces any desired experience. Nozick weakens the notion of hedonism through his thought experiment, claiming humans need more than just pleasure in their lives. Nozick discovers that humans would not hook up to this machine because they would not fully develop as a person and consider it a form of suicide.
Nozick‘s experience machine creates experiences based on selections made by human beings themselves for their own individual. Every two years they are required to make this selection whilst feeling some distress (in reality they exist in a floating tank). Then they submerge into a fake world for another two years and so on (Timmons, 122-123). He believes that rational humans would choose not to plug into the experience machine because they would want the actual experience of life instead of a virtual existence. It is a shallow reality that they are provided which will not satisfy them for long. Especially because it does not allow them to develop their own person, or personality, it strips away their human qualities and turns each of them into an “indeterminate blob” (Timmons, 123). In fact, this is a man-made world that provides nothing but a selection of experiences to choose from, it is not an actual experience an individual can have. It is ...
I believe that it is all real in some way or the other the physical world is of course real, we feel pain, happiness, love how else we would feel those if it was not real. The spiritual world is real in a different way by that way we cannot see. Here is an example at my old house I would be home alone and every so often I would hear noises upstairs like foot steps to this day I could not tell you what the noise was.
Artificial Intelligence is a term not too widely used in today’s society. With today’s technology we haven’t found a way to enable someone to leave their physical body and let their mind survive within a computer. Could it be possible? Maybe someday, but for now it’s just in theory. The novel by William Gibson, Neuromancer, has touched greatly on the idea of artificial intelligence. He describes it as a world where many things are possible. By simply logging on the computer, it opens up a world we could never comprehend. The possibilities are endless in the world of William Gibson.
“In addition to ancestor-simulations, one may also consider the possibility of more selective simulations that include only a small group of humans or a single individual. The rest of humanity would then be zombies or “shadow-people” – humans simulated only at a level sufficient for the fully simulated people not to notice anything suspicious”(Bostrom). The game Sims is where you control one to eight sims and the rest just do what they want on their own with no one controlling them acting as zombies. “There is also the possibility of simulators abridging certain parts of the mental lives of simulated beings and giving them false memories of the sort of experiences that they would typically have had during the omitted interval. If so, one can consider the following solution to the problem of evil: that there is no suffering in the world and all memories of suffering are illusions.”(Bostrom). Your memories that you believe have happened could only just be some simulate version convincing you it did but in reality really did not. “The nerve endings of your brain are connected to a supercomputer that feeds you all the sensations of everyday life.”(D'olimpio). Our brains act like computers storing information, using energy, the comparisons are endless. “Provided a system implements the right sort of computational structures and processes, it can be associated with conscious experiences. It is not an
Mill says “Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.” (541) The pleasure that people choose over a different pleasure, event though they may undergo more discomfort to get it is the pleasure deemed higher. Moreover, Mill states that people will always prefer the pleasure with the highest appeal, “few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for promise of the fullest allowance of the beast’s pleasures” (541). Since the human already has a higher level of pleasure than that of the animal, the human will never choose to go down a level even if they were promised endless amounts of pleasure
If a machine passes the test, then it is clear that for many ordinary people it would be a sufficient reason to say that that is a thinking machine. And, in fact, since it is able to conversate with a human and to actually fool him and convince him that the machine is human, this would seem t...
SIMULATION- In modelling and simulation, simulation is the operation of a computer model which predicts how a system will behave in a set of conditions. It is used in the analysis of the performance of a system.
The Experience Machine is a theory in which one could decide to live a pleasurable life with no significant setbacks and no personal tragedies. In all it is a tunnel of pleasure free of those little things that make our lives as humans “bad”. We would have no regrets, no second thoughts. Sounds pretty enticing, right? With this theory, subjectively your life gets a lot better.
...attainment of happiness is oftentimes difficult, so we are morally justified in searching to essentially reduce the amount of unhappiness and pain experienced by the human beings impacted by some of our actions. According to Mill, the absence of pleasure is only acceptable when it is for the greater good of humanity.