The Experience Machine By Robert Nozick Anarchy, State, And Utopia

Reflection Paper – The Experience Machine

In Robert Nozick Anarchy, State, and Utopia, he describes a machine that could stimulate any programmed experience when attached to the machine. With this experience machine a person could program the next two years of their life, not realizing they are floating in a tank attached to a machine. The experiences that are stimulated seem so real that person will actually perceive it as reality. After the two years have passed, the person will then have ten minutes to ten hours out of the tanks to reprogram the next experience for the next two years (Nozick 43). As a result, the experience machine is the greatest and only stimulus for their experience for the rest of their life. Nozick uses the experience

machine to questions whether attaining experiences in and of itself is important or whether the process of attaining experience in the realm of reality is important. He touches on the idea of hedonism and uses the Experience Machine as analogy. With this in mind, Nozick refutes the ideal of hedonism and argues that most people would value the actual experiences of life rather than being stimulated continuously pleasured by a synthetic reality.
The question of whether I agree with Nozick’s argument that I wouldn’t use the experience machine in two-year intervals, also questions the belief in hedonism.

Nozick presents a strong argument, in regards to whether someone would want to spend time or not spend in the experience machine. I believe that when faced with the choice of experiencing a life only by stimulation in the Experience Machine or attained by the presence in reality, most people would choose reality. Most people would prefer to experience the journey, rather than just the destination. This experience and journey is crucial as it helps to develop one’s values and beliefs. One cannot truly develop genuine values in a superficial programmed machine. Hence, the experience through reality is more valuable than the hedonic artificial experience of the Experience

Machine.
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, hedonism states that pleasure and pain are the only motivators and the pursuit of pleasure is the ultimate goal in life (Moore, “Hedonism”). Hedonism believes that pleasure is the greatest thing that life has to offer. As a result, the best choice in life are the ones that ultimately bring you the most pleasure. For that reason, the Experience Machine would be undoubtedly the choice. Nozick suggest that when confronted with the choice of a life experienced only by stimulation in the Experience Machine or attained by the presence in reality, most people would prefer the latter. He disputes that this idea is false as “we want to do certain things, and not just have the experience doing them” (Nozick 43). An example of this could be wanting to be healthier. One could accomplish this by running a marathon. Most participant of marathons don’t just wake up and run 26.2 miles. It takes months of training to then reach their goal of finishing the marathon, and most of the energy used and miles ran are not in the actual marathon, but the training itself.
Hedonism argues that pleasure is what motivates our actions. Which is not false, but not completely true. For example the hedonist may argue that the main reason of running a marathon is to finish it. However, this ignores the reasoning behind why the person wanted to run a marathon. Nozick says, that we “want to do the actions that we want the experience of” (43). Some may argue why not just program the experience the marathon? Nozick would argue that a reason for not just plugging in “finish a marathon” would be because, “we want to be a certain way, to be a certain sort of person” (43). As previous stated, the person’s goal to become healthy. With that reason, the experience, effort and energy put into training is more important that just having the experience of finishing a marathon.
In addition to experiencing the reality of life, Nozick argues that the Experience Machine “limits us to a man-made reality, to a world no deeper or more important than that which people can construct” (43). Going along with the example of the marathon runner, it would be very unproductive to just plug in “finish a marathon”, rather than training for one in reality. It would be like having the idea of running a marathon and just watching one of the TV. Firstly, that would be extremely boring. Secondly, just watching the marathon would not provide any real benefits to your physical health. Though the experience machine is far complex than a TV, you only get the genuine achievement in reality.
Hedonism states that the only motivations we have in life are pain and pleasure. Pleasure being the ultimate motivator of life (Crisp “Well-Being”). A hedonistic stance of the experience machine would be to use the machine for two years at a time, for the rest of your life. In simpler terms, the experience machine is a device that stimulates pleasure, thusly it is the better option as it provide the guaranteed pleasure for its duration. According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, pleasure can be broadly defined in pleasant experiences such as ecstasy, euphoria, satisfaction, joy. This is likewise for pain as it can be broadly defined as agony, anxiety, depression and discomfort (Moore, “Hedonism”). So what is the problem with choosing to be happy? It is obvious that agony, anxiety, depression are not, for a lack of better words, uncomfortable and painful. So the obvious choice is to choose the experience that create pleasure, right? If you had the choice to eat a delicious apple pie made by a chef trained at a famous French bakery or McDonalds apple pies, I’m fairly certain the major of people would chose the actual apple pie. That would be the hedonistic approach.
Although pleasure is positive compared to pain, it is not always the most positive and the best motivator. For instance, when a person uses methamphetamine they have feeling of ecstasy, euphoria, satisfaction and joy. But as science has shown, meth is not good and detrimental to one’s life. One could say that the experience machine is like meth. When you are meth or in the machine you feel pleasure and satisfied and amazing. However, when you are coming out of the two years in machine you’ll go through withdrawals as if you were going through meth withdrawals. You will feel agony, anxiety, depression and discomfort. Unfortunate you cannot prevent the withdrawals from meth because there isn’t an endless supply of meth, and if there was you’d would die from an overdose. This applies to the experience machine, it is only programmed for two years of experience. But “what’s a few moments of distress compared to a lifetime of bliss” (Nozick 43)? For obvious and biological reason, meth is not a good. Some may argue that it is an avenue to “to a deeper reality” (44). However, then it goes into the topic of the eye of the beholder. It is possible that the life of a person could be so terrible that the experience machine or drugs are the only outlet to pleasure. It is obvious that a pleasurable experience are better compared to painful memories. In philosopher Dan Haybron article about Happiness he says, “experience alone may be the greater psychological depth of the former: its impact on our mental lives, physiology, and behavior is arguably deeper and more pervasive” (Haybron, “Happiness”). One may argue that the experience machine isn’t a drug and isn’t doing any harm on the person. However, most things although good are only good in moderation. Even oxygen we need to breathe and water which is crucial for life is dangerous in high amounts.
Nozick third premise against the idea of hedonism and the experience machine is that it is simply not a reality and thus one cannot truly experience on a deeper level, especially in a span of two years. He says, the “experience machine limits us to a man-made reality, to a world no deeper or more important than that which people can construct” (43). We cannot achieve a genuine experiences or values in the experience machine as it just limits us to that which is constructed and does not offer anything be superficial stimulation. For example, one of the greatest pleasures in my life is making music. As any devoted musician will know, music is not something you just pick up and are magically good at. It take years of practice and dedication to that certain instrument or piece. One things that any good musician or artist will tell you is that when they go back and look at that piece written hundreds of years ago, there is always something new to learn. Just the interpretation of music provides an infinite results ( Kania,“The Philosophy of Music”). Musicians who devote their life to their instrument have the “desire to live an active verb ourselves” (45). If one wanted to program themselves into an experience where they became a famous clarinetist, it would take more than two years. Sure there is the possible chance of programing a speedy-fast track to be a world class musician, however that would play along a “ transformation machine” (44) which would be a different topic tangent to experience. The difference between plugging in or going through reality is that it is in “the power and experiences of achievement” (Zimmerman, “Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Value”). In short, you are only limited to experience that within the span of two years and ultimately not your own experience but generated experiences not important than those experience that are constructed by others. After you are unplugged the experiences are invalidated as they were merely simulations and not “aesthetic experiences” (Zimmerman, "Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Value.").
When confronted with the choice of a life experienced only by stimulation in the experience machine or attained by the presence in reality, most people would prefer the latter. Reality is where one actually chooses to do certain thing to experience the journey with all its’ pleasures and pain. Through reality’s experience one can develops one’s values and belief which is important because we all want to be a certain way, thusly we must do certain things. We cannot achieve a genuine experiences or values in the experience machine as it just limits us to that which is constructed and does not offer anything be superficial stimulation. Hence, the experience gain through reality is more valuable than hedonic experiences. Waking up and running a marathon and becoming a world class musician in two years would awesome, but not extraordinary as they will not be your experiences, but your stimulated perceptions. Though the idea of the experience machine is one of just bliss, one cannot really tell pleasure if there is no pain to distinguish it.