Perhaps you might also discuss Felipe De Brigard’s “Inverted Experience Machine Argument” http://www.unc.edu/~brigard/Xmach.pdf To what extent does our response to Nozick’s Experience Machine Argument typically reflect status quo bias rather than a desire to connect with ultimate reality?
I would argue that the reason people find the experience machine repellant is that under Nozick’s original formulation the machine failed to fulfill several basic human desires for which “staying in touch with reality” is usually instrumental to.
The most obvious of these is social interaction with other people. Most people don’t just want an experience that is sensually identical to interacting with other people, they want to actually interact with other people, form friendships, fall in love, and make a difference in people’s lives. If we made the experience machine multiplayer, so that a person’s friends and relatives can plug into the machine together and interact with each other, I think that a much more significant percentage of the human race would want to plug in.
Other examples of these desires Nozick’s machine doesn’t fulfill include the desire to learn about the world’s history and science, the desire to have children, the desire to have an accurate memory of one’s life, and the desire to engage in contests where it is possible one will lose. If the experience machine was further “defanged” to allow people to engage in these experiences I think most people would take it.
In fact, the history of human progress could be regarded as an attempt to convert the entire universe into a “defanged experience machine.”
I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of dreams where I’ve felt I understood some really cool concept, woke up, told it to someone, and when my head cleared the person told me I’d just spouted gibberish at them. So the feeling of understanding can definitely be simulated without actual understanding, but I’m not sure that’s the same thing as simulating the experience of understanding.
I wonder if thinking you understand mathematics without actually doing so counts as “simulating the understanding of mathematics.” When I was little there was a period of time where I thought I understood quadratic equations, but had it totally wrong, is that “simulating?”
Maybe the reason it’s not really coherent is that many branches of math can be worked out and understood entirely in your head if you have a good enough memory, so an experience machine couldn’t add anything to the experience, (except maybe having virtual paper to make notes on).
I would argue that the reason people find the experience machine repellant is that under Nozick’s original formulation the machine failed to fulfill several basic human desires for which “staying in touch with reality” is usually instrumental to.
The most obvious of these is social interaction with other people. Most people don’t just want an experience that is sensually identical to interacting with other people, they want to actually interact with other people, form friendships, fall in love, and make a difference in people’s lives. If we made the experience machine multiplayer, so that a person’s friends and relatives can plug into the machine together and interact with each other, I think that a much more significant percentage of the human race would want to plug in.
Other examples of these desires Nozick’s machine doesn’t fulfill include the desire to learn about the world’s history and science, the desire to have children, the desire to have an accurate memory of one’s life, and the desire to engage in contests where it is possible one will lose. If the experience machine was further “defanged” to allow people to engage in these experiences I think most people would take it.
In fact, the history of human progress could be regarded as an attempt to convert the entire universe into a “defanged experience machine.”
Is simulating the experience of understanding mathematics a coherent concept?
I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of dreams where I’ve felt I understood some really cool concept, woke up, told it to someone, and when my head cleared the person told me I’d just spouted gibberish at them. So the feeling of understanding can definitely be simulated without actual understanding, but I’m not sure that’s the same thing as simulating the experience of understanding.
I wonder if thinking you understand mathematics without actually doing so counts as “simulating the understanding of mathematics.” When I was little there was a period of time where I thought I understood quadratic equations, but had it totally wrong, is that “simulating?”
Maybe the reason it’s not really coherent is that many branches of math can be worked out and understood entirely in your head if you have a good enough memory, so an experience machine couldn’t add anything to the experience, (except maybe having virtual paper to make notes on).