The Experience Machine
Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Super duper neurophysiologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, designing a beautiful structure, 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, preprogramming your life’s experiences? If you are worried about missing out on desirable experiences, we can suppose that business enterprises have researched thoroughly the lives of many others. You can pick and chose from their huge library or smorgasbord of such experiences, selecting your life’s experiences for say, the next two years. After two years have passed, you will have ten minutes or ten hours out of the tank, to select the experiences of your next two years. Of course, while in the tank you won’t know that you’re there; you’ll think it’s actually happening. Others can also plug in to have the experiences they want, so there’s no need to stay unplugged to be with your friends/family. (Ignore problems such as who will service the machines if everyone plugs in.) Would you plug in?   -roughly based on Robert Nozick's idea of the Experience Machine


Post below in Reverse Chronological Order , please

January 15, 2005

i think that all that your stated conditions manage to do is over-dramatize a pre-existing phenomenon.  although our time spent in such "experience machines" may not be as long as two years, and we don't "plug in" to them from within a tank, the setting you have created is real.  millions of people "plug-in" for an hour or half hour at a time, sometimes for hours on end.  and from the comfort of their own homes.  television, movies, even books create experiences which, although not directly tacit, override our first hand experiences at the moment.  after reading a book or watching a movie or television show, the memories of our own life experiences that occurred outside of the "experience machines" are secondary to those second/third hand accounts we were engaged in observing.  yes, i would and do plug in, but i don't think i would under the conditions you have outlined.  overriding one experience with another is not necessarily bad, what about those who override ignorance for knowledge, foolishness for wisdom, and apathy for understanding?sean carter
December 20, 2004

Think about how the wiki works: as we edit, our desire grows through our experiences. We ask wikibudda? to find a method to meet our desires (discussion edits on recent changes) or create them for ourselves AU gallery?. So would the programmers create more options based on feed back or by tapping into our minds? That sounds like Bruce's "emergent collective." What is the life expectency like? Can we choose our death or "live" forever? Who chooses the first experiences of a child? Afterall, that is our most impressionable time. Do families still exist? What is the goo we "sleep" in composed of? Can microorganisms invade it and us? Kathleen Simpson

December 19, 2004

JT- Nice to have you back in the computer world. Yes, the Experience Machine would be limited. But, not limited to only your past experiences. The scientists have studied many other people's lives... so, you have tons to choose from. Actually, our true lives are pretty damned limited. Examples: I would really like to have gills and webbed hands/feet or say someone wanted to rule over a huge empire of dwarfs for two years? We can't do that in real life... but, you could program that into the ExpMach (that's the hip new lingo for the Experience Machine). Yes, I am getting tired of the word "experience." Rusty... you just want gills... you'll sell out to anything that will grant you gills. The Chamber of Falling Objects seemed pretty lame. Maria Sykes

December 18, 2004

How much of "real" life is limited to past experiences?  How many people think, "I want to be an architect just like Meier, or Gehry, or Wright."_jm

In what ways would this experience machine differ from the real world?  Granted some experiences are necessary for long-term survival i.e. eating.  Also the experience machine would be limited to past experiences.  the only things one can desire are those experiences of which the individual is aware.  sure one can extrapolate from their own experiences or ask for experiences which others have related.  but the experience machine is limited.  Whereas i like to view the world as an inexhaustable cistern of stimuli.  one difference between the machine and a life the prompt seems to imply is the ability to choose experiences.  we make our choices based on past experiences (assuming no synthetic a prior knowledge).  it seems if one were to choose experiences based on past experiences it would lead to stagnation.  for instance, i would have never asked for some of my most enlightening experiences.  So maria my answer is no; i would not plug in.  ( have you ever experienced reading "experience" so many times in such a short experience?) john tyler young

December 17, 2004

No.  I don't like the idea of escapism.  If I couldn't design a beautiful structure or write a great novel without marinating in saline, or whatever, with electrodes all over my body, then I wouldn't want to design structures or write novels at all.  I'd rather know my limitations, deal with them in some fashion, and be good at something wholly on my own...yadda yadda, idealistic bullshit, etc. 

Beside, being plugged in would remove all the satisfaction derived from accomplishments realized through hard work.  And we all love hard work, right?_jm

December 17, 2004

How do we know that's not how it works already? How do we know we know or not? If it were, how would you rate your choices? Kathleen Simpson

December 16, 2004
Is it the future? does it involve genetic modification? If so then count me in! Will it be more fun than the Chamber of Falling Objects ever was?. But I don't guess you know anything about that, now do you?  That was way back when you were but a mere glimmer in the wiki's eye.... error in _me.cfm:General SQL Error:Database reported: Table 'seedwiki.Account' doesn't exist