Life: There is Nothing Else Like It

5 Pages 1369 Words

People desire to experience the reality of living rather than a life made up of illusions and lies. However is feeling good the only thing that has value in itself? The question of whether only conscious experience can ultimately matter is one that has been explored in depth by Robert Nozick. 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, 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 desires? Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there; you'll think it's all actually happening. Others can also plug in to have the experiences they want, so there's no need to stay unplugged to serve them. For, what else can matter to us, other than how our lives feel from the inside?
Nozick argues that other things do matter to us. For instance, that we actually do certain things as opposed to simply have the experience of doing them. Also, he points out that we value being and becoming certain kinds of people. That people do not just want to have the experience of being a decent person, but wanting to actually be a decent person. Finally, Nozick argues that we value contact with reality in itself as people want to know they are experiencing the real thing. Plugging into the machine limits us to a world no deeper or more important that that which people can construct. Overall, Nozick implies that it matters to most of us, in a deep self conscious way, that we are the authors of our lives and that our lives involve interacting with the world. As well as the fact that most people would not choose to enter into such an experience machine demonstrates that people do value these other things. We learn that so...