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The Experience Machine
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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Hiya Everyone!
I was pondering this while sitting here wishing I could dull the pain, so I thought I would drag you all down the rabbit hole with me 
There is a famous thought-experiment by Rober Nozick called the Experience Machine. Its purpose is to refute ethical hedonism, but for the purposes of this thread I'm just interested in your honest views for fun.
So, if you could imagine a machine that you could plug into and you could experience all that you consider pleasurable (not just sexually, you dirty people!) would you choose that machine over living your actual life? Is there something intrinsically valuable to life, or would you give it all up to live great experiences through a synthetic medium? Assume that your experiences in the machine would feel the same as real life.
What do you guys think?
-Courtney |
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If the experiences you felt on the machine were EXACTLY like real life then I would happily hook myself up it. My real life is and has been a bit of a drag up to this point. I'd quite happily take some relief from it for a while. |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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"If the experiences you felt on the machine were EXACTLY like real life then I would happily hook myself up it. My real life is and has been a bit of a drag up to this point. I'd quite happily take some relief from it for a while."
So you don't think there is any intrinsic value to the real experiences, even if they aren't perfect? |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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Well if hooking yourself up to it is permanent then I probably wouldn't.Because even though your virtual life is great you'd be taking yourself out of the lives that care for you. And maybe that thought would stick with you throughout your virtual experience. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Hiya Everyone!
I was pondering this while sitting here wishing I could dull the pain, so I thought I would drag you all down the rabbit hole with me
There is a famous thought-experiment by Rober Nozick called the Experience Machine. Its purpose is to refute ethical hedonism, but for the purposes of this thread I'm just interested in your honest views for fun.
So, if you could imagine a machine that you could plug into and you could experience all that you consider pleasurable (not just sexually, you dirty people!) would you choose that machine over living your actual life? Is there something intrinsically valuable to life, or would you give it all up to live great experiences through a synthetic medium? Assume that your experiences in the machine would feel the same as real life.
What do you guys think?
-Courtney "
Not a chance, I love being with people too much and doing things that have meaning. The machine could never replicate it. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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If anyone knows the red dwarf shows then they are aware of the "better than life" game.
This game is sooooo good that people forget to eat and drink, and end up dead.
We would all like to escape real life now and then, but would the alternative be so good that some will not want to leave????
answers on a postage stamp please, lolz |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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"Hiya Everyone!
I was pondering this while sitting here wishing I could dull the pain, so I thought I would drag you all down the rabbit hole with me
There is a famous thought-experiment by Rober Nozick called the Experience Machine. Its purpose is to refute ethical hedonism, but for the purposes of this thread I'm just interested in your honest views for fun.
So, if you could imagine a machine that you could plug into and you could experience all that you consider pleasurable (not just sexually, you dirty people!) would you choose that machine over living your actual life? Is there something intrinsically valuable to life, or would you give it all up to live great experiences through a synthetic medium? Assume that your experiences in the machine would feel the same as real life.
What do you guys think?
-Courtney
Not a chance, I love being with people too much and doing things that have meaning. The machine could never replicate it."
But other people can be in the machine as well. So for you, they would be there. Its just that it wouldn't really be them, but rather a fake them.....if you get my meaning. You don't have to be alone in the machine... |
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"If the experiences you felt on the machine were EXACTLY like real life then I would happily hook myself up it. My real life is and has been a bit of a drag up to this point. I'd quite happily take some relief from it for a while.
So you don't think there is any intrinsic value to the real experiences, even if they aren't perfect?"
There's certainly great value in the not-so-perfect things we experience. We learn much more about life and ourselves from the bad experiences than the good. But trust me, from a purely personal perspective I've experienced enough shit to last me a lifetime. Stop the world I'm getting off! Plug me into the machine please! |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Hiya Everyone!
I was pondering this while sitting here wishing I could dull the pain, so I thought I would drag you all down the rabbit hole with me
There is a famous thought-experiment by Rober Nozick called the Experience Machine. Its purpose is to refute ethical hedonism, but for the purposes of this thread I'm just interested in your honest views for fun.
So, if you could imagine a machine that you could plug into and you could experience all that you consider pleasurable (not just sexually, you dirty people!) would you choose that machine over living your actual life? Is there something intrinsically valuable to life, or would you give it all up to live great experiences through a synthetic medium? Assume that your experiences in the machine would feel the same as real life.
What do you guys think?
-Courtney
Not a chance, I love being with people too much and doing things that have meaning. The machine could never replicate it.
But other people can be in the machine as well. So for you, they would be there. Its just that it wouldn't really be them, but rather a fake them.....if you get my meaning. You don't have to be alone in the machine..."
Wouldn't be real and authentic and I'd know that and therefore wouldn't feel the same pleasure |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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No because to experience life is to experience the bad side of life. Things such as grief, loss, anger make the pleasurable experiences more meaningful.
Just to live a life of pleasure would be great at the start but as the novelty worn off you'd probably have to push those experiences to new extremes to generate any pleasure as everything became mundane. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Hiya Everyone!
I was pondering this while sitting here wishing I could dull the pain, so I thought I would drag you all down the rabbit hole with me
There is a famous thought-experiment by Rober Nozick called the Experience Machine. Its purpose is to refute ethical hedonism, but for the purposes of this thread I'm just interested in your honest views for fun.
So, if you could imagine a machine that you could plug into and you could experience all that you consider pleasurable (not just sexually, you dirty people!) would you choose that machine over living your actual life? Is there something intrinsically valuable to life, or would you give it all up to live great experiences through a synthetic medium? Assume that your experiences in the machine would feel the same as real life.
What do you guys think?
-Courtney "
I personally am sick of technology not some much technology that saves life although preserving a life for the sake of breathing I find ridiculous,I mean cameras that watch your every move from almost every street corner ,satellite watching us from above ,computers ,computers games mobile phones etc its ruining life for our children and their children ,people are losing the ability to interact with eachother to think for themselves ( let's google it ) in the future people won't need to think and being individual will be frowned upon .this site and sites like it along with porn are ruining sex for future generation's ruining relationships by showing kids you have to live up to this or look like this or you won't appeal others ,I think the cultures in the world that have the simplest lifestyles are the happiest and most social and sometimes the healthiest    |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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Ooh a great topic. So many positive and negative points to consider. Overall though I think I will take life as it is. I never did understand The Matrix. |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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"Red Pill / Blue Pill"
Yes, the Matrix did put a twist on Nozick's thought-experiment, but it deals with a different issue. The nature of the Matrix was much more negative - its purpose more destructive - than what I am asking here... |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Pleasurable experiences are only classified as such because they stand out from the mundane. Without contrast there is no context so give me real life every time."
a perfect life would be boring, but soooooo less stressful, lolz |
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"Hiya Everyone!
I was pondering this while sitting here wishing I could dull the pain, so I thought I would drag you all down the rabbit hole with me
There is a famous thought-experiment by Rober Nozick called the Experience Machine. Its purpose is to refute ethical hedonism, but for the purposes of this thread I'm just interested in your honest views for fun.
So, if you could imagine a machine that you could plug into and you could experience all that you consider pleasurable (not just sexually, you dirty people!) would you choose that machine over living your actual life? Is there something intrinsically valuable to life, or would you give it all up to live great experiences through a synthetic medium? Assume that your experiences in the machine would feel the same as real life.
What do you guys think?
-Courtney "
I wouldn't. I enjoy moaning about life too much to have great experiences constantly! |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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To everyone who is saying that pleasure has to be contrasted against pain:
1-How very Platonic of you!
2- If you have already experienced real life, with its pleasures and pain, surely you have already experienced the pain to contrast with the pleasure in the simulator?
-Courtney |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"To everyone who is saying that pleasure has to be contrasted against pain:
1-How very Platonic of you!
2- If you have already experienced real life, with its pleasures and pain, surely you have already experienced the pain to contrast with the pleasure in the simulator?
-Courtney"
Yes but most experiences fade with time... |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"To everyone who is saying that pleasure has to be contrasted against pain:
1-How very Platonic of you!
2- If you have already experienced real life, with its pleasures and pain, surely you have already experienced the pain to contrast with the pleasure in the simulator?
-Courtney"
It's something that you would still need as a constant though
is misery in your life to fully stimulate your mind and senses. The only way it could work for any length of time is if the person had not experienced much in the way of joy and pleasure before. Even then there would come a point where life would lack a challenge and boredom would set in. |
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"Have found that some of the most horrible things that have happened, have truly shaped my life and who I am."
This is so very true. A bad experience is like a dose of reality. The good times are meaningless, almost dreamlike if you haven't sampled the ugly side of life. Like bad medicine, it tastes terrible but it'll ultimately do you good. You come out the other side a better person if you don't allow yourself to be swallowed up in the process.
I'll happily take all I've learnt in this world and take that with me into 'the machine'. The human mind can only stand so much. I'll happily take an eternity of good times right now please. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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So to clarify... Were plugging ourselves into a machine that we invent to escape a reality which we made.... And in this new reality we'll probably have to invent another machine to escape the new reality because we'll fuck that up to!...
Sounds a bit like well... Taking heroin.
I prefer to channel my energies into changing the reality of which I'm currently in!  |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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"So to clarify... Were plugging ourselves into a machine that we invent to escape a reality which we made.... And in this new reality we'll probably have to invent another machine to escape the new reality because we'll fuck that up to!...
Sounds a bit like well... Taking heroin.
I prefer to channel my energies into changing the reality of which I'm currently in! "
But we didn't make this reality (from which we are escaping). Unless you're god? |
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Whilst I love pleasure, I think I'm too much of a control freak to abdicate myself into the machine. It can sometimes be preferable to have the stuff happen that I'd probably never select via a machine's control panel, than just to take a journey that's not dictated by life.
|
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"So to clarify... Were plugging ourselves into a machine that we invent to escape a reality which we made.... And in this new reality we'll probably have to invent another machine to escape the new reality because we'll fuck that up to!...
Sounds a bit like well... Taking heroin.
I prefer to channel my energies into changing the reality of which I'm currently in!
But we didn't make this reality (from which we are escaping). Unless you're god? "
.
I'm not God.... I'm just a gas engineer!
Having said that I've worked more miracles than God on old boilers past there sell by date! |
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"Hiya Everyone!
I was pondering this while sitting here wishing I could dull the pain, so I thought I would drag you all down the rabbit hole with me
There is a famous thought-experiment by Rober Nozick called the Experience Machine. Its purpose is to refute ethical hedonism, but for the purposes of this thread I'm just interested in your honest views for fun.
So, if you could imagine a machine that you could plug into and you could experience all that you consider pleasurable (not just sexually, you dirty people!) would you choose that machine over living your actual life? Is there something intrinsically valuable to life, or would you give it all up to live great experiences through a synthetic medium? Assume that your experiences in the machine would feel the same as real life.
What do you guys think?
-Courtney "
I think there was really something in your water, apart from minerals
You see we live to get emotions, feelings, sensations. This is what makes us alive. People use drugs, get d*unk, engange in multiple sexual relationships to feel something, or try to. In some period of my life I would have used this kind of machine yes. It is a sort of mind-sex toy |
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