Poll: The Experience Machine.

[FalloutJack]

I'm sorry, but I'll have to pass on the grounds of not wanting to vegetate. I will explain why.

Better Than Life - because this is TOTALLY like Red Dwarf - would be addictively fun and I've never want to give it up because I'm not the sort of guy who can't imagine happiness in some form or another. I would create whole new worlds and realities and play with them to my heart's content. It would be ecstacy...

But...on the outside...there would be a certain girl who's cries for me to snap out of it would fall on deaf ears. The tragedy of it would be that I would be blissfully unaware that she could easily succumb to a bad deppression and...I don't want to think about it.

The reality is that I love her more than enough to take the responsible answer and say no. Besides, my life ain't so bad.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I wouldn't want to be happy all the time, but I'd absolutely be up for a duplicate virtual reality where you just do or create anything. As in, the entire world is exactly the same except you're Neo and in Inception. Maybe everyone else is too, or maybe you're on your own server. The only issues I have are that we can't simulate what we don't understand, so no research could take place, being able to do anything would devalue the ability to do things, and you'd need people to maintain you while you weren't in the real world. But for people like me who aren't going to mean anything to the human race?

Actually no, I reconsider. As cool as being Neo would be, there's a sort of inherent value to knowing the truth and being able to influence things due to understanding, not to mention the few skills I do have would mean nothing. Nope, real world for me.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I'd prefer a real life. That and life has ups and downs. Life comes with pain and struggle, it is what makes life worth living and makes the happy moments all the better.

 

[Darken12]

Would you consider yourself a utilitarian hedonist? I.e. You think that what is morally good is producing the maximum happiness for the maximum number of people (and the same but opposite for pain)?

I wouldn't call that philosophy hedonism (utilitarian or not). Hedonism implies that the person themselves will enjoy the happiness they are providing, and that's not my concern.

My views definitely have strong undercurrents of utilitarianism, yes, but I would consider them deontological more than anything else. After all, I consider that not only is the utilitarian part important, but it's also important to lead by example and inspire others into perpetuating altruism (and explaining to enquiring minds why altruism is important).

I consider Ayn Rand's core philosophy (enlightened self-interest) to be fundamentally flawed, at least in the large scale of things: self-interest, enlightened or not, only encourages one to do up to a certain point. Doing good is not one's goal, but an incidental byproduct of self-interest, and that limits the amount of good one can do. The way I see it, the only way profound, long-lasting, large-scale progress can be achieved is by prioritising doing good above all else (altruism).

 

[Arakasi]

Would you consider yourself a utilitarian hedonist? I.e. You think that what is morally good is producing the maximum happiness for the maximum number of people (and the same but opposite for pain)?

I wouldn't call that philosophy hedonism (utilitarian or not). Hedonism implies that the person themselves will enjoy the happiness they are providing, and that's not my concern.

My views definitely have strong undercurrents of utilitarianism, yes, but I would consider them deontological more than anything else. After all, I consider that not only is the utilitarian part important, but it's also important to lead by example and inspire others into perpetuating altruism (and explaining to enquiring minds why altruism is important).

I consider Ayn Rand's core philosophy (enlightened self-interest) to be fundamentally flawed, at least in the large scale of things: self-interest, enlightened or not, only encourages one to do up to a certain point. Doing good is not one's goal, but an incidental byproduct of self-interest, and that limits the amount of good one can do. The way I see it, the only way profound, long-lasting, large-scale progress can be achieved is by prioritising doing good above all else (altruism).

I would have thought so too, until I delved further into Ayn Rand's philosophy. I find it a shame that people write her off as evil these days without giving her ideas a rational and fair trial.

There is one particular notion I like and it is the following:
You trade goods by one of the following codes:
-By the gun (law)
-By the virtue (guilt, charity, whatever)
-By trade between two conscenting parties

The problem I have is that I see it as immoral to use the gun, or the guilt.

 

[Darken12]

I would have thought so too, until I delved further into Ayn Rand's philosophy. I find it a shame that people write her off as evil these days without giving her ideas a rational and fair trial.

There is one particular notion I like and it is the following:
You trade goods by one of the following codes:
-By the gun (law)
-By the virtue (guilt, charity, whatever)
-By trade between two conscenting parties

The problem I have is that I see it as immoral to use the gun, or the guilt.

Well, I want to believe that I gave Ayn Rand a fair chance. I wouldn't write her off as evil, just flawed. She is building a philosophy around the core of human nature (self-interest) and instead of saying "we can do more, we can rise above it" she says "so long as you do it right, that's all you need" which does not really satisfy my personal ethics.

While I do understand your point, I think that all three have their places (according to my personal views, of course). The gun exists to stop those who are born with advantages (those who inherit companies or are born into the upper class) from exploiting those who are born disadvantaged (the lower class, minorities) in order to perpetuate the status quo. We saw many examples in history, with the aristocracy exploiting the peasantry because of the innate inequality in their advantages. The virtue exists as an extension of your right to do with your goods as you see fit. After all, if I would condone an unscrupulous wealthy businessman exploiting the needs of a poor family because they're both consenting parties, I have to condone an organisation that uses guilt to obtain free goods from equally consenting parties. They are both forms of exploitation, and if I accept one, I must accept the other.

I personally found Bioshock's exploration of Ayn Rand to be surprisingly deep for a video game, especially since it does its best to portray the philosophy as fairly as possible.

 

[boradam]

EDIT for further insight: There's happiness to be had in enduring hard labor, pain, and fighting through struggles or oppression in your life, not because of those things themselves, but because if I press through those things I will have achieved something greater than I would have had before, something which I would never be able to do if I was just given 'happiness'.

In that case you woudn't be happy, and the machine wouldn't be 'The Experience Machine' it would be a failed experience machine. If you thought that hard work was the only way to achieve happiness, and you were right, the machine would account for that, and make you work for your happiness. Only unlike real life, it would be for maximum possible happiness, and you wouldn't risk premature death.

I wouldn't choose to be put into a machine like that whatever the case, I enjoy my life no matter how hard it is and I would never allow myself to be put into something like that is a supposed happiness dispensing machine. I'm fine with my life as is, and my belief in what I put my faith in is all I need -- I wouldn't need a machine to substitute for what life is. Human interaction is something a machine will never replace, no matter how much better it seems or how realistic it is, a machine will always be a machine -- soulless -- while humans are not.

 

[Gormech]

I'd have to say no. There's an old saying that goes as follows:
Pleasure unearned destroys.

Think of it this way, by giving up everything around you to go on the electric version of a drug binge, you essentially would become nothing but a sensation sponge. There would no longer be any real thought, no risk, just hollow (from a third person perspective) sensation of pleasure that would slowly corrupt yourself as an individual.

So you live in fear of the judgement of others instead of doing what you want?
And if you enjoyed thought and risk, the machine would create an environment in which those things flourished. I suppose the key word there is 'real'. What is the difference between real thought and unreal thought? Is there unreal thought?

Fair enough then, that's more in line with the question.

May I ask you though, what is the point in living other than happiness?

I think every person defines what the point of living is (for themselves) and I have no problems with people who decide to live a life of happiness and are okay with that. My reasoning was solely applied at my own life.

Personally, I think the meaning of existence is to do good.

Would you consider yourself a utilitarian hedonist? I.e. You think that what is morally good is producing the maximum happiness for the maximum number of people (and the same but opposite for pain)?

To leave the world in a better states than you left it.

What's the point of it being better if no one uses it for their happiness?

Either way, I consider my life to be worthwhile only if it has adequately fulfilled my self-imposed duty to do good. The meaning of my life is altruism. I exist only to better the lives of people and nature in general. Anything else is frivolity.

I'd like to hear your reasoning behind this, you seem to have thought this out fairly well. The more I analyse if the more I come to altruism being pointless and even bad.

The thing isn't that I worry about other's thoughts on my decision. It's that in order for me to take an accepting stance, I would have to have already been put inside the machine prior to making my decision. Seeing as that I would be making it before having experienced it for myself, I would still have my current mindset and refuse for better or worse.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

If I become a millionaire and am perfectly happy with real life then yes but thus far my real life has found a way of being pretty shit so yeah, I'd probably hook up to the machine. Well, so long as it was lucid, I could make decisions within the dream... Like should I fuck Anne Hathaway while she's dressed as a maid or dressed as Catwoman? Also considering my ideal life, at least the way I vision, involves going through pain to get a feeling of accomplish that'd be all good...

Wait... Would it be like Source Code? Where since you consciously inhabit the virtual world and people can react to your choices it essentially just becomes a parallel universe?

 

[Darken12]

Oops, only when I read Gormech's post I realised you had quoted me more than once! Sorry, I thought those quote blocks were aimed at different people.

What's the point of it being better if no one uses it for their happiness?

Well, since I am living proof that happiness is not the end-goal of all humans, I have to accept that there might be others who might think the same too, so "better" in this case means "giving as many tool as possible for others to achieve their self-imposed goals". Also I'm an environmentalist, so better also means "minimising and, if possible, reverting the harm we inflict on the universe" which has nothing to do with human happiness (in my opinion that is. We should care for the environment not because it better serves our happiness, but because we have the sufficient intelligence and technology to perpetuate our existence without harming our surroundings. If we can avoid harm, we should).

I'd like to hear your reasoning behind this, you seem to have thought this out fairly well. The more I analyse if the more I come to altruism being pointless and even bad.

I uh... I cannot even fathom how altruism could be bad. I get "pointless", sure, but I fail to see how it would be bad. Surely if you are not satisfied being altruistic, altruism is not your thing and you should not do it. If hedonism suits you better, go ahead, I won't mind.

The way I see it, a life of pleasure/happiness is empty and meaningless. What's the point of being alive if all I can say about it when I die is "I had fun"? What did I do? What did I achieve? What did I do with the time, energy and resources I was given throughout my life? Oh, I spent them all chasing a fleeting, ephemeral sensation? Well, wow, what a complete waste of a life I was. I squandered every advantage and resource I had, which I could have used to better the world and people around me, and instead spent them all on myself. Wow, just wow. I would be horrendously ashamed if I was close to death and that was the entire sum of my life. I would have displayed no empathy, no compassion for the suffering of others. I would have closed my eyes to the world and allowed it to decay, I would have closed my ears to the suffering others, and for what? For base animalistic gratification?

I would not be satisfied with a life like that. I choose to believe that my life exists only for the betterment of others and the world at large. Happiness is a trap.

 

[Johnny Impact]

Says it better than I ever could. First minute or so covers it:

 

[thesilentman]

No.

I will not have it. For me, happiness must exist alongside pain to show how much lucky we all are. A win at a tournament wouldn't mean a damn thing unless you worked your ass off and put yourself under some pain (not in the way that most people are thinking).

It's also a matter of context. If I'm happy all of the time, what's to say that I'll enjoy it? I've been tired of being happy as I know that I did nothing to deserve my happiness.

So there's my answer.

You will enjoy it otherwise you wouldn't have been happy and the machine would have failed, breaking the hypothetical. If it were true that you needed pain too in order to be truely happy, the machine would account for that and include it. Only it would be the minimal amount of pain possible to get the maximum amount of happiness.

Even then, I won't be truly happy as there was no context for me to 'be' happy. It would just be fed to me, day after day...

 

[Arakasi]

No.

I will not have it. For me, happiness must exist alongside pain to show how much lucky we all are. A win at a tournament wouldn't mean a damn thing unless you worked your ass off and put yourself under some pain (not in the way that most people are thinking).

It's also a matter of context. If I'm happy all of the time, what's to say that I'll enjoy it? I've been tired of being happy as I know that I did nothing to deserve my happiness.

So there's my answer.

You will enjoy it otherwise you wouldn't have been happy and the machine would have failed, breaking the hypothetical. If it were true that you needed pain too in order to be truely happy, the machine would account for that and include it. Only it would be the minimal amount of pain possible to get the maximum amount of happiness.

Even then, I won't be truly happy as there was no context for me to 'be' happy. It would just be fed to me, day after day...

You really don't understand how the scenario works do you? Look, the machine will practically create an alternate reality for you, where there would be 'context for you to be happy'. Otherwise it wouldn't be the experience machine. There is one thing you can't do with this hypothetical and that is assert that you would not be happy with what the machine creates for you.

Oops, only when I read Gormech's post I realised you had quoted me more than once! Sorry, I thought those quote blocks were aimed at different people.

What's the point of it being better if no one uses it for their happiness?

Well, since I am living proof that happiness is not the end-goal of all humans, I have to accept that there might be others who might think the same too, so "better" in this case means "giving as many tool as possible for others to achieve their self-imposed goals". Also I'm an environmentalist, so better also means "minimising and, if possible, reverting the harm we inflict on the universe" which has nothing to do with human happiness (in my opinion that is. We should care for the environment not because it better serves our happiness, but because we have the sufficient intelligence and technology to perpetuate our existence without harming our surroundings. If we can avoid harm, we should).

I'd like to hear your reasoning behind this, you seem to have thought this out fairly well. The more I analyse if the more I come to altruism being pointless and even bad.

I uh... I cannot even fathom how altruism could be bad. I get "pointless", sure, but I fail to see how it would be bad. Surely if you are not satisfied being altruistic, altruism is not your thing and you should not do it. If hedonism suits you better, go ahead, I won't mind.

The way I see it, a life of pleasure/happiness is empty and meaningless. What's the point of being alive if all I can say about it when I die is "I had fun"? What did I do? What did I achieve? What did I do with the time, energy and resources I was given throughout my life? Oh, I spent them all chasing a fleeting, ephemeral sensation? Well, wow, what a complete waste of a life I was. I squandered every advantage and resource I had, which I could have used to better the world and people around me, and instead spent them all on myself. Wow, just wow. I would be horrendously ashamed if I was close to death and that was the entire sum of my life. I would have displayed no empathy, no compassion for the suffering of others. I would have closed my eyes to the world and allowed it to decay, I would have closed my ears to the suffering others, and for what? For base animalistic gratification?

I would not be satisfied with a life like that. I choose to believe that my life exists only for the betterment of others and the world at large. Happiness is a trap.

Happiness is nothing more than an evolutionary adaption meant to encourage you to go in certain directions. By helping people alone via altruism you allow the weak to produce more weak, which increases the amount of effort the strong expend helping them. Over time the weak will outnumber the strong, soicety will rest on the back of naught but a few slaves while the rest leech their work. Evolution is a *****, it will not reward society for altruism.

But aside from the evolutionary perspective, I'd consider a life lived without happiness as empty, pointless. I cannot see an end in itself other than it, as it is what evolution has given us to work for.

EDIT for further insight: There's happiness to be had in enduring hard labor, pain, and fighting through struggles or oppression in your life, not because of those things themselves, but because if I press through those things I will have achieved something greater than I would have had before, something which I would never be able to do if I was just given 'happiness'.

In that case you woudn't be happy, and the machine wouldn't be 'The Experience Machine' it would be a failed experience machine. If you thought that hard work was the only way to achieve happiness, and you were right, the machine would account for that, and make you work for your happiness. Only unlike real life, it would be for maximum possible happiness, and you wouldn't risk premature death.

I wouldn't choose to be put into a machine like that whatever the case, I enjoy my life no matter how hard it is and I would never allow myself to be put into something like that is a supposed happiness dispensing machine. I'm fine with my life as is, and my belief in what I put my faith in is all I need -- I wouldn't need a machine to substitute for what life is. Human interaction is something a machine will never replace, no matter how much better it seems or how realistic it is, a machine will always be a machine -- soulless -- while humans are not.

People are nothing more than biological machines. Very, very complex ones, but it still stands, they could, should technology improve to a sufficient degree, create something very close. And even if they can't get something close, they can easily get the front end (what you would see in the machine) perfect.

 

[Arakasi]

Says it better than I ever could. First minute or so covers it:

There is no evidence that would be the case. Either way, the simulation would account for that, it would ensure that you were as happy as possibe, even if that included some pain, even if it included the pain of those around you, it would incude it. Of course, I think that is highly wrong, pain and happiness are two different experiences and hardly rely on eachother, sure they can affect eachother, but that's about the extent of it.

If I become a millionaire and am perfectly happy with real life then yes but thus far my real life has found a way of being pretty shit so yeah, I'd probably hook up to the machine. Well, so long as it was lucid, I could make decisions within the dream... Like should I fuck Anne Hathaway while she's dressed as a maid or dressed as Catwoman? Also considering my ideal life, at least the way I vision, involves going through pain to get a feeling of accomplish that'd be all good...

Wait... Would it be like Source Code? Where since you consciously inhabit the virtual world and people can react to your choices it essentially just becomes a parallel universe?

If that is what would make you maximally happy, yes. But I have no idea.

 

[Darken12]

Happiness is nothing more than an evolutionary adaption meant to encourage you to go in certain directions. By helping people alone via altruism you allow the weak to produce more weak, which increases the amount of effort the strong expend helping them. Over time the weak will outnumber the strong, soicety will rest on the back of naught but a few slaves while the rest leech their work. Evolution is a *****, it will not reward society for altruism.

But aside from the evolutionary perspective, I'd consider a life lived without happiness as empty, pointless. I cannot see an end in itself other than it, as it is what evolution has given us to work for.

Oh! Social Darwinism, of course, I should have suspected it.

I am not going to criticise your views, but in my professional opinion as a scientist, evolution is not a sentient thing with intelligent designs for all lifeforms. Evolution is merely the process where some biological traits get passed on because everything else dies. On a human scale, it is purposeless. And as I see it, it has nothing to do with psychology, sociology, philosophy or ethics. Those things exist beyond mere biology and therefore should not be constrained by it.

To envision the worth and purpose of human existence as exactly identical as every other life form on Earth, when we have the intelligence and capacity to be so much more, strikes me as a depressing waste of potential.

 

[spartan231490]

What's the fucking point? Congratulations, you're happy. You also accomplished nothing with your small pathetic life and no one will remember you or care that you're gone.

 

[Flatfrog]

Experience is all there is. If we were in the machine and that was our life from then on, and it's a perfect simulation that is essentially the same level of experience as we have of reality, then I can't see any reason not to do it. It's just giving up one life and exchanging it for a better one - or at least a happier one.

Of course, there are many, many arguments to show why such a thing isn't possible, but accepting your hypothetical scenario as it is, then sure, why not.

And conversely, in the Matrix, I'd take the blue pill every time. Why on earth would I want to exchange this life for one where I'm a creature living in goo? My current life is just as 'real' in the sense that it's an internally consistent universe with arbitrary levels of detail, so I can't see any argument for switching it for another one that's crappier.

Ugh, these captchas are so nasty. I really hate the way they've been turned into marketing.

 

[Arakasi]

Happiness is nothing more than an evolutionary adaption meant to encourage you to go in certain directions. By helping people alone via altruism you allow the weak to produce more weak, which increases the amount of effort the strong expend helping them. Over time the weak will outnumber the strong, soicety will rest on the back of naught but a few slaves while the rest leech their work. Evolution is a *****, it will not reward society for altruism.

But aside from the evolutionary perspective, I'd consider a life lived without happiness as empty, pointless. I cannot see an end in itself other than it, as it is what evolution has given us to work for.

Oh! Social Darwinism, of course, I should have suspected it.

I am not going to criticise your views, but in my professional opinion as a scientist, evolution is not a sentient thing with intelligent designs for all lifeforms. Evolution is merely the process where some biological traits get passed on because everything else dies. On a human scale, it is purposeless. And as I see it, it has nothing to do with psychology, sociology, philosophy or ethics. Those things exist beyond mere biology and therefore should not be constrained by it.

To envision the worth and purpose of human existence as exactly identical as every other life form on Earth, when we have the intelligence and capacity to be so much more, strikes me as a depressing waste of potential.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not a Social Darwinist, at least not as it is understood.

I agree that evolution is not a sentient thing with intelligent designs for all lifeforms, I didn't think I implied that. But it has so very much to do with psychology, sociology, philosophy and ethics. Humans are machines, so evolution created how the brain works, which includes all of psychology, sociology, and ethics. Of course I'm not saying that nurture plays no role, it's just that it was more successful to allow for nurture to change some things in our psychology to allow for greater adaptability.

This argument is difficult, it taps into the core of people's emotions and unchallenged assumptions which is frankly dangerous territory. I do not support a kind of society that exploits the weak, or simply does nothing while they starve, I support a society in which anyone is free to do as they wish provided it does not harm another. I guess I really don't have to worry about the future of the human race, because I simply don't care as I don't have any stakes in it, but it is an interesting discussion. If I were to have stakes in the future in the human race I would want it to improve human happiness, that would be the endgoal, and I don't think society provides for that as it is, we aren't improving, we are stagnating.

 

[Arakasi]

What's the fucking point? Congratulations, you're happy. You also accomplished nothing with your small pathetic life and no one will remember you or care that you're gone.

What's the point of accomplishing anything or anyone caring that you are gone?

 

[Darken12]

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not a Social Darwinist, at least not as it is understood.

I agree that evolution is not a sentient thing with intelligent designs for all lifeforms, I didn't think I implied that. But it has so very much to do with psychology, sociology, philosophy and ethics. Humans are machines, so evolution created how the brain works, which includes all of psychology, sociology, and ethics. Of course I'm not saying that nurture plays no role, it's just that it was more successful to allow for nurture to change some things in our psychology to allow for greater adaptability.

This argument is difficult, it taps into the core of people's emotions and unchallenged assumptions which is frankly dangerous territory. I do not support a kind of society that exploits the weak, or simply does nothing while they starve, I support a society in which anyone is free to do as they wish provided it does not harm another. I guess I really don't have to worry about the future of the human race, because I simply don't care as I don't have any stakes in it, but it is an interesting discussion. If I were to have stakes in the future in the human race I would want it to improve human happiness, that would be the endgoal, and I don't think society provides for that as it is, we aren't improving, we are stagnating.

The reason I stated you might consider evolution as a sentient thing with intelligent designs is because you keep speaking of it as if it was a person ("evolution wants..." and "evolution created..." and so on and so forth).

Personally, I believe that necessity is not the be all and end all of something. Those fields need biology to exist (as our minds need brains to exist), but that doesn't mean we are constrained by them. Though you are quite right, it does stray into personal beliefs that are, in the end, under no obligation to align. I respect your beliefs and would not try to change them, even if I heartily disagree.