Emil Asplund & Erik Gustavsson try to find the truth about medication.
To plug into the experience machine will provide you with the greatest possible amount of happiness. Yet there is something deeply counter-intuitive about the idea that plugging into the machine is the best life you can have. Perhaps the debate is captured best in the argument between Trinity and Cypher in The Matrix (1999), when Cypher claims, “If I had to choose between that [the depressing real world] and the Matrix… I choose the Matrix.” Trinity then stresses the fact that “The Matrix isn’t real.” This seems also to be Nozick’s guiding thought as he gives us three reasons why we would not plug into his experience machine. First, he says that people want to do things, not only have the experience of doing them. For example, most people would agree that something is lost if you are only experiencing what it is like to make a friend without actually making one. Second, we want to be a certain way. Once you’ve plugged in, there is no reality to who the person in the machine is; it’s just a brain floating in a tank experiencing pleasant things. You have turned into an “indeterminate blob” as Nozick puts it. Third, if you plug into the machine you would only be able to experience a man-made reality. As a blob in the machine you have “no actual contact with any deeper reality” (p.44, 3rd Edition) as Nozick puts it. These three points explain why it would be deeply counter-intuitive to plug into the machine.
Esta historia es de la edición October/November 2017 de Philosophy Now.
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Esta historia es de la edición October/November 2017 de Philosophy Now.
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The Two Dennises
Hannah Mortimer observes a close encounter of the same kind.
Heraclitus (c.500 BC)
Harry Keith lets flow a stream of ideas about permanence and change.
Does the Cosmos Have a Purpose?
Raymond Tallis argues intently against universal intention.
Is Driving Fossil-Fuelled Cars Immoral?
Rufus Duits asks when we can justify driving our carbon contributors.
Abelard & Carneades Yes & No
Frank Breslin says 'yes and no' to presenting both sides of an argument.
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray, now ninety-two years old, was, among many other things, one of the most impactful feminists of the 1970s liberation movements - before she was marginalised, then ostracised, from the francophone intellectual sphere.
Significance
Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.
The Present Is Not All There Is To Happiness
Rob Glacier says don’t just live in the now.
Philosophers Exploring The Good Life
Jim Mepham quests with philosophers to discover what makes a life good.