I live in hell because I was expelled from heaven

How the world will end

I’ve long been interested in a thought experiment described by philosopher Robert Nozick in 1974.

Suppose there was an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or 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?

Would you plug in?¹ Nozick says he wouldn’t. For him, “someone floating in a tank is an indeterminate blob”—and who wants to live their life as an indeterminate blob? Any reluctance to plug in shows that having pleasurable experiences isn’t the only thing we care about.

I share Nozick’s skepticism about hedonism. In my book The Sweet Spot, I argued that humans have multiple goals. Sure, we want pleasure in all of its many forms. But we also want, among other things, to pursue meaningful goals, have diverse and interesting experiences (not just think we are having diverse and interesting experiences), and be part of the lives of those we love.

Now, the weight given to all of these different and sometimes competing values—pleasure, meaning, variety, and so on—varies from person to person. For some, like the author of this tweet, pleasure dominates. (sorry, I lost the original source):

Philosopher Robert Nozick: “Now this experience machine can perfectly simulate a life in which you get everything you ever want—”
Me: “Sign me up.”
RN: “No, see, it won’t be real; you’ll think it is, but—”
Me, already plugging in: “Bye nerd.”

Research by the philosopher Felipe De Brigard finds that when you ask people if they would plug in, life circumstances also matter. This makes sense. Personally, if I were stuck in a maximum-security prison for the rest of my life, I’d give everything I have to escape to a simulated paradise.

Right now, though, I’ll stay in the real world. I am pretty happy. There are people I love and care about—I want to be in their lives; I don’t just want the illusion of being in their lives. Most of all, if I were to plug in, who would write Small Potatoes?

If we ever build experience machines, it seems certain that some will plug in. But, if their lives are happy enough and meaningful enough, most people will stick around. We don’t have to worry, then, about everyone retreating into the Matrix. This is not how the world will end.