A central issue about happiness is whether its value depends on how it is achieved. Suppose someone could be made happy by having illusory experiences. Would anyone welcome that possibility?
This question lies at the heart of a frequently cited and widely admired thought experiment offered by Robert Nozick. He conceives the following hypothetical situation: “Suppose there were 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…. Would you plug in?”
Nozick presumes that no one would choose this option and offers three reasons. First, “we want to
do certain things, and not just have the experience of doing them.” Second, “we want to
be a certain way, to be a certain sort of person.” Third, “plugging in … limits us to a man-made reality.” He concludes that because we would not use an experience machine “something matters to us in addition to experience.”
1In the decades since Nozick posed this puzzle and presented his solution, virtually all philosophers have taken his treatment as conclusive. Almost no one has argued that people would choose the experience machine.
2To find such unanimity is unexpected, but the situation is especially surprising because Nozick’s conclusion appears mistaken. In support of this view, we shall offer various reasons why an individual might be inclined to choose the experience machine. We illustrate these by the use of examples at least as plausible as the experience machine itself.
First, consider cases in which people may not desire to
do certain things but instead want to have the experience of doing them. For example, one of the pleasures of going to the movies is having the opportunity to experience adventures we would not risk in reality. While safe in our plush seats, we can feel the excitement of skiing precipitously down a steep mountain, participating in dangerous international intrigue, or battling a typhoon. Yet how many of us actually wish to
do any of these things?
3 Such cases demonstrate that using an experience machine is not in principle objectionable. The only controversial issue is the length of time for which you would be willing to employ it.
The cinema, however, is not the only case in which we seek appearance rather than reality. Consider the popularity of bungee jumping, roller coasters, aggressive computer games, or reenactments of Civil War battles. All these activities offer participants the experience of pursuing thrilling adventures without facing the possible consequences of the real-life activities they simulate.
Another sort of escape from reality is offered by psychedelic drugs. Nozick notes that these are viewed by some “as mere local experience machines,” but he does not draw the inference that their widespread use suggests that many would welcome the opportunity not only to drop out but also to plug in.
4 A similar point could be made about the widespread use of alcohol to distort reality.
5Granted, the examples we have discussed so far involve individuals who might use the machine only occasionally. And in a later discussion Nozick reformulates his challenge: “The question is not whether to try the machine temporarily, but whether to enter it for the rest of your life.”
6In response, let us turn to cases in which people, to change who they are, might choose the experience machine for the rest of their lives. Consider golf enthusiasts who struggle to master this most intractable of games. Doing so at a professional level necessitates spending innumerable hours hitting thousands of golf balls day after day over a period of at least a decade. Not many of us would choose to spend our lives in such tiresome training (even if we had the needed ability to excel, as most of us do not). Suppose, however, that without any preparation you could experience hitting massive drives, pinpoint iron shots, and precision putts, all while hearing the roars of the crowd as you win major championships. Wouldn’t many amateur golfers want that life? Wouldn’t they be willing to trade their frustration on the fairways for a lifetime of golfing triumphs?
Or consider the ardent music lover who dreams of becoming a concert violinist. Few persons, even if they had the necessary talent, would choose to exhaust their energy and patience in such a strenuous effort. Suppose, though, that without any exertion they could have the experience of performing recitals in great halls and appearing as soloist with the world’s leading symphony orchestras, each time receiving adulation from a cheering audience. Might some not be willing to trade their lives to undergo such experiences?
Imagine that instead of living your own life, you could choose to live the life of Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, or Babe Ruth. Do you suppose no one willingly would make that trade, even though the experience machine could be programmed to omit a life’s tribulations and focus on its triumphs? Or perhaps you prefer the cinematic adventures of Clark Gable, Katharine Hepburn or Humphrey Bogart. Would no one choose those? How about living the life of secret agent James Bond? Wouldn’t that option tempt some?
Another sort of case concerns individuals who would wish to change their characters. For example, how would you feel if you possessed the moral and intellectual virtues of the Buddha? The experience machine could provide the answer.
Or suppose you wish to have been present at the trial of Socrates, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, or the riot at the Paris premiere of Stravinsky’s
Le Sacre du printemps. The experience machine could make you a spectator at those events. Of course, you wouldn’t actually be there. Your experience, however, would be indistinguishable from reality.
The experience machine would also enable you to have experiences of inestimable personal value. For example, you could experience a world inhabited by your loved ones who have died. In our dreams we often imagine such a scenario and, when awakened, are disappointed that the dream did not continue. Suppose, however, you could opt for the vision to endure. Wouldn’t many do so?
Or imagine living again in the time and place of your younger days. Such is the plot of “Walking Distance,” an early episode of
The Twilight Zone written by the program’s creator, Rod Serling, with evocative music by the famed composer Bernard Hermann.
7 Considered by many the finest show of the entire series, this nostalgic story captures the poignant tale of world-weary advertising executive Martin Sloan, who returns to his hometown only to find it exactly as it was at the time of his youth. He confronts his parents, who believe he is a lunatic, and tries to converse with himself as a child, but the frightened boy runs away. Martin, though, cannot remain there. As his father, who at last understands the situation, insists, “only one summer to every customer.” In a moving voice-over at the conclusion, Serling observes,
Martin Sloan, age thirty-six, vice president in charge of media. Successful in most things, but not in the one effort that all men try at some time in their lives—trying to go home again. And also like all men perhaps there’ll be an occasion—maybe a summer night sometime—when he’ll look up from what he’s doing and listen to the distant music of a calliope, and hear the voices and the laughter of his past. And perhaps across his mind there’ll flit a little errant wish, that a man might not have to become old, never outgrow the parks and the merry-go-rounds of his youth. And he’ll smile then too because he’ll know it is just an errant wish, some wisp of memory not too important really, some laughing ghosts that cross a man’s mind.
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But the experience machine could fulfill that wish. Would no one choose to do so?
Let us return to the present and recognize another reason why people might choose the experience machine: a desire to escape a life of sorrow or even agony. Nozick, when revisiting the idea of the experience machine, declares such cases irrelevant, perhaps because he presumes that they occur infrequently.
9 The truth, however, is otherwise. The plight of so many unfortunate people is captured in this verse of William Blake:
Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn & every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight.
Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night.
10Those born in the latter circumstances would surely choose the delights of the experience machine in place of their dreadful lives on earth.
How many unfortunates are in this position? Consider Schopenhauer’s view: “Life with its hourly, daily, weekly, yearly, little, greater, and great misfortunes, with its deluded hopes and its accidents destroying all our calculations, bears so distinctly the impression of something with which we must become disgusted, that it is hard to conceive how one has been able to mistake this and allow oneself to be persuaded that life is there in order to be thankfully enjoyed, and that man exists in order to be happy.”
11One need not be as pessimistic as Schopenhauer to sympathize with his outlook. If the experience machine offers joys in place of tortures of mind and body, the burden of argument would surely rest on those who would urge against its use.
After all, we evade the pain of surgery by the use of anesthesia; we thereby avoid reality. If one’s life itself is little more than a succession of pains, why not opt for the delights of the experience machine?
Nozick asserts that “plugging into the machine is a kind of suicide.” He says, however, that the machine enables one to choose a “lifetime of bliss.” Hence wouldn’t plugging in be the closest we could come to heaven on earth? After all, what is heaven supposed to be if not eternal bliss?
Nozick concludes that we desire to be “in contact with reality.”
12 Knowing what we do of reality, though, why assume that remaining in touch with it is invariably preferable to a lifetime of bliss?
The array of cases we have presented demonstrates the implausibility of the assumption that no one would use the experience machine. Indeed, were such a machine on the market, a smart investor would seek to purchase it, or at least buy stock in the company that manufactured it.
But what lessons are we supposed to learn from the claim that no one would choose the machine? Jonathan Glover believes Nozick’s thought experiment demonstrates that “we care about more than our own experience.”
13 No doubt some do, and some don’t. We shouldn’t, however, confuse caring about something with being unwilling to trade it under appropriate circumstances. Epidural anesthesia is chosen by many women to ease the pain of labor and delivery, but doing so does not imply that they devalue the reality of childbirth. Similarly, choosing to plug into the experience machine does not imply a lack of concern for reality. Such concern may simply be overridden.
James Griffin presumes that rejecting the experience machine demonstrates that knowing the truth rather than being comforted by delusions makes for “a better life.”
14 That conclusion is easier to reach, however, if one’s life is deeply satisfying. But for those suffering in “endless night,” the value of delusions should not be so quickly dismissed. In any case, would you want to know the truth regarding the time and circumstances of your death? Indeed, grasping more of the truth does not always lead to a better life. Who would wish to discern the deepest thoughts of all others? The truth matters but it may be traded for something more valuable.
We don’t doubt that some people would prefer reality to the experience machine. Does that supposition imply, as L. W. Sumner claims, that “being in touch with reality makes for a better life”?
15 The conclusion doesn’t follow unless we assume that following one’s preferences always leads to a better life. Yet while some of our choices are wise, others are not. Whether we choose to plug into the experience machine does not prove the good sense of doing so.
Nozick believes that we value reality over the mere experience of it. As our cases demonstrate, though, sometimes we don’t value reality highly or even at all. As David Hume in his
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion puts the point in the mouth of the orthodox believer Demea: “The whole earth … is cursed and polluted. A perpetual war is kindled amongst all living creatures. Necessity, hunger, want, stimulate the strong and courageous; Fear, anxiety, terror agitate the weak and infirm. The first entrance into life gives anguish to the new-born infant and to its wretched parent; Weakness, impotence, distress, attend each stage of that life; And it is at last finished in agony and horror.”
16Such is our world, and for good reason some would wish to explore other possibilities. They may still value aspects of reality but would be willing to trade them for something they believe more valuable. Whether such exchanges would be wise depends on the circumstances. To suppose, however, that regardless of the attractiveness of the alternatives such a choice would never be made is unwarranted. Once that error is recognized, Nozick’s experience machine can be seen as what it is: a dream many may yearn for, but not evidence that mere experience is insufficient for happiness.
