This is Technology Ethics

10MERGING WITH THE MACHINE: THE FUTURE OF HUMAN–TECHNOLOGY RELATIONS

10.1 The Experience Machine

10.1 In 1974, in his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, the American philosopher Robert Nozick imagined something that he called “the experience machine.” This machine was part of a thought experiment, i.e., an imaginary example that we are asked to think about in order to try to prove a point or test a hypothesis. In this particular thought experiment, you are offered the option of being connected to a machine that can simulate any experience you might be interested in having. Being “hooked up” to the machine will give you more pleasant experiences than you would be having in real life. And once connected to the machine, you would not realize that you were so connected. Nozick described this idea in several of his writings. Here is how he described the idea in his 1989 book The Examined Life:

Imagine a machine that could give you any experience (or sequence of experiences) you might desire. When connected to this experience machine, you can have the experience of writing a great poem or bringing about world peace or loving someone and being loved in return. You can experience the felt pleasures of these things, how they “feel from the inside”. You can program your experiences for … the rest of your life. If your imagination is impoverished, you can use the library of suggestions extracted from biographies and enhanced by novelists and psychologists. You can live your fondest dreams ...