The Experience Machine Revisited

1
The Experience Machine Revisited

• Dan Turton
• July 2008

2
Plan

• The Experience Machine
• How it (supposedly) refutes hedonism
• Being precise about the argument
• Counter-thought experiment
• A better explanation of our reaction to the idea
  of getting in to the Experience Machine

3
The Experience Machine

• Nozick (1974)
• Aimed to show that more matters to us than how
  our experiences feel from the inside
• Reality matters

4
Hedonism

• Hedonism only pleasure is good, only pain is bad
• pleasure and not pain happiness (or positive
  well-being)
• Pleasure mental state
• Internalism about pleasure (traditional)
• E.g. Bentham, Crisp
• Externalism about pleasure
• E.g. Mill, Feldman

5
The Experience Machine vs. Hedonism

• P1) Because we prefer our current life to a life
  in the Experience Machine, pleasurable
  experiences based on reality contribute more
  positively to well-being than those which are not
• P2) Traditional hedonism states that only how
  pleasurable and painful our experiences feel to
  us on the inside affects our well-being
• c) Therefore, traditional hedonism is false

6
The Target (for Refutation)

• The Experience Machine thought experiment gives
  us good reason to think that pleasures based on
  reality contribute more positively to our
  well-being than those which are not
• We chose not to get into the Experience Machine
  because real experiences matter more to us than
  fake ones

7
The Trip to Reality

• Turton (2008)
• Aims to show that how real our experiences are
  does not really matter to us
• By producing a different intuition about getting
  into an experience machine
• Intuitions are easily biased

8
Intuitions as Evidence

• Woodward and Allman (2007)
• One-dimensional visceral sensation (Gut feeling)
• Result of probabilistic pattern recognition
  between current stimuli and past experiences
• Susceptible to biases
• Cant introspect
• Reconstruction is tough

9
Status Quo Bias

• Irrational preference for an option that
  preserves the status quo
• Endowment bias, familiarity bias, implicit
  egotism, risk aversion, loss aversion
• The Mug Experiment
• In both thought experiments we go for the status
  quo (not what is real)

10
Machine Failure

• Nozick stipulates against machine failure
• Our intuitive cognition doesnt listen
• In the Trip to Reality, it is much easier for our
  intuitive cognition to imagine that the machine
  works perfectly

11
Imaginative Resistance

• Nozick doesnt go out of his way to make the
  machine sound great
• What did you imagine being in the Experience
  Machine to be like?
• In the Trip to Reality, it is much easier to
  imagine how much better being in the machine is
• But we still cant imagine improving our most
  pleasurable experience

12
Moral Responsibility

• Nozick stipulates against this being a factor
• Our intuitive cognition doesnt listen
• In the Trip to Reality, most of our moral
  obligations are eliminated
• A hedonist could rationally choose not to get
  into a machine for this reason anyway

13
The Experience Machine vs. Hedonism (Revisited)

• If the realness of our experiences doesnt stop
  up from getting in the machine in the Trip to
  reality thought experiment, then how can it in
  Nozicks Experience Machine thought experiment?
• Alternate reasons (irrelevant and irrational
  biases) were given that explain choices in both
  scenarios
• The original intuition is undermined

14
Conclusion

• Hedonists who reluctantly changed or gave up
  their well-being related inclinations because of
  the Experience Machine can now safely return
• Staunch opponents will ask for a new test, in
  which reality is more precisely isolated
• E.g. Deceived businessman (also dealt with in my
  thesis)