#experience machine

[stellarskull]

Nozick was wrong, i do want to be an indeterminate blob

[topaziuss]

not to be a weirdo or a freak but there's a 50/50 chance I would go in the experience machine if it was an option

[feathershy]

personalized utopia

That is a universe that is nicer than ours but still offers all the same stuff and doesn't feel self-indulgent or hedonistic.

The world is the same as ours except:

All the properties that you like about yourself are more in demand and shorter in supply. Thus, if you want to be a California-Thai fusion restaurant chef, this world needs such chefs more so you will find a job easier and pay better and if you start a restaurant, it will be more successful. This is also true of your personal life. If you want a big titty goth girlfriend, then there is ample supply of those and few people want to marry them, so you can easily find a match.

In your aesthetic and moral preferences, more people agree with you. Thus, society tends towards being shaped like you want it. Things are prettier on average, and people are more moral (according to you) on average. This conflicts with principle 1 sometimes, but some compromise can be found and neither principle 1 or 2 are pushed to their max extent anyway, so it is not big deal.

Note that all these changes would be fixed at the creation of the world, based on a prediction of your properties and desires. You are not ruler of this world, nor does the world bend to your desires. It is merely that it has a hole shaped like you, and doesn't fight against you so much. Consequences matter just as much in this world as it does in ours. An action now has permanent effects for ever after that no one can undo.

Lest you think that this world is too hedonistic or meaningless or something, consider that some real life lucky people find themselves in such a world. They agree with the majority on most issues of morality and aesthetics, and are highly in demand economically and socially, just by luck. And these people have presumably meaningful lives.

This is the sort of experience the Experience Machine could offer to people who like our world and worry that Experience Machine only offers fake things meaningless things.

[phileye]

When Ignorance Truly Isn’t Bliss

When Ignorance Truly Isn’t Bliss

When Ignorance Truly Isn’t Bliss Lessons from We Happy Few By Brandon Packard

  We’ve heard it a million times, “Ignorance is Bliss.” It’s a phrase that has echoed through time, but where did it start? The phrase dates back to 1742 and a poem in which Thomas Gray states, “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.” In other words, ignorance of certain issues makes you happy, and what’s the…

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[domjordanillustration]

The Lotus-eater Machine

From “Funlosophy”, a series of articles for a newsletter.

Sitting around in lockdown, staring at the same ten walls (or however many interior walls your house has), escapism can be a very appealing pursuit. There are many forms of escapism, but here we’ll be looking at a theoretical, sitting-in-one-place, ultimate method of escaping the humdrum or suffering of life in this world.

In the Homeric epic the Odyssey, Odysseus and his intrepid chums stumble across a land populated by the ‘lotus-eaters’. These guys do nothing more than sitting around eating from the Lotus plants that grow there, which puts them in a continual blissful state where the problems and cares of the world melt away into total insignificance. Odysseus was a stick-in-the-mud and stopped his men from partaking in the local culture, whisking them away to the next land, where they would be eaten by a cyclops.

Imbibing narcotics as a form of escapism is clearly something people have been enjoying for thousands of years, but the idea of ‘lotus-eating’ has been applied to philosophical discussion: to what extent would people choose to escape real life?

Robert Nozick put forward the idea of a lotus-eater machine, which he termed the ‘Experience machine’, a device that people could plug into that would simulate a perfect and happy existence. He was using the thought experiment to refute the philosophical concept of hedonism, especially in classical utilitarianism, but we’re going to focus on the aspect of escapism. The concept didn’t originate with Nozick, of course; the idea of an experience machine that simulates a better existence to real life has been the topic of science fiction at least as far back as the 1920s, and the conclusions drawn are often reflective of society at the time.

The main thrust of the thought experiment is, would you choose to plug in?

Our lotus-eater machine will perfectly simulate a blissful and wonderful life, with enough realism that you won’t be aware of its artificiality while you’re plugged in. Life will be exactly what you want it to be – the lotus-eater machine will be programmed to precisely your desires, and you will be ‘pulled out’ at ten-year intervals to check you’re still happy with the program. Each time you are plugged back in, you will have no memory of these checks, or indeed the outside world at all. The simulated life will be a perfect and fulfilling existence, free from regret or real-world-homesickness at least while you’re plugged in. You won’t see your friends or family, or interact with anything that actually exists, but the facsimiles in the simulation will be completely believable, quite possibly improved.

So, by indulging our escapism, exchanging the harsh realities of life for an ideal existence, are we losing anything? The world within is simulated, but as real to our minds as the actual world. Since the only thing we can be sure of in this life is our own experience, would this life actually be any less ‘real’, despite its artificial beginnings?

Consider whether you would choose to plug in. Would your choice be different if you were aware it was a simulation, and that the real world waited outside? If you object to the idea of living in a false reality, can you pinpoint what exactly you would be missing? If it’s “real interactions” or “real struggle and achievements”, are you sure this would matter if your mind was convinced all experiences in the machine were real?

Finally, imagine if, as you were reading this, you were suddenly woken, to find yourself sat in a machine, a technician standing before you. They explain that you have spent the past X years in their simulation machine, presenting a better world than the real one. They give you the option of leaving and heading into a world that would presumably be far less pleasant than the one you’ve been experiencing, the one you thought was the ‘real one’. Or, the technician says, you can plug back in, and continue to enjoy the life of the lotus-eater. What would you do?

[philosophyofenjoyment]

A Way To Self-understanding and Enjoyment

A Way To Self-understanding and Enjoyment

On the path of life we walk, stagger, jog or roll—as animated organisms: 99% oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus (who may or may not enjoy the song “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”)—we are called upon to take action or not to take action.

We must make yes and nodecisions the results of which determine how we live, think, feel and behave individually and collectively as a…

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[evolvefaster]

(EF3) Evolution Knows What it is Doing...Hopefully: (EF3) Imagine evolution to be the programmer and our mind is the software this great programmer is trying to create through algorithms — The Evolve Faster Podcast (Season One, Episode One)

[evolvefaster]

EF3 (S1-E1): All Aboard the Experience Machine: Destination...Unknown: The big question driving Episode EF3 is… What am I supposed to do? You can’t say we get to choose if we want to live this life or not. One day you’re born, and that’s it–your journey starts with zero preparation. Thus, it’s natural we don’t know what the hell we’re doing, and we get lost. Should I go to college? Should I leave everything behind and start fresh? Because really, what are you supposed to do? In EF3, Jonathan finds himself forced between two paths: a meaningful life filled with risky choices, or a safe life full of regret. If only there were a way to make everything simple, like the life equivalent of an autopilot that steers the train through a secure, happy and perfect journey. He has just half a day, however, to find the solution to the puzzle we all face on a daily basis—What’s the right decision? 12 hours, millions of questions and no clear answer.