Robert Nozick Experience Machine Summary

Robert Nozick’s objection to hedonism creates an experience machine that would give us the pleasure we desire. As we discussed in class, types of pleasures such as unlimited amount of money, or driving that dream car that we always deeply loved would be examples of hedonism. The question is; should you plug into this machine by making somebody unavoidably do something for his or her life experiences? Many would think it would be foolish to plug in, because there’s more to life than pleasure. From a hedonist point of view, they would plug into the machine. We desire things other than simply pleasure, but some people may want to try out this machine, to see how it is to feel pleasured over pain. By plugging into this machine, this means that
pleasure is the only thing that you desire. An anti-hedonist would not plug into the experience machine, because they know that there are other things people own over pleasure that matters.
Robert Nozick’s argues that his Experience Machine can be considered as a successful argument, but it has not been widely discussed.
It’s convincing enough to support the mental-state forms of utilitarianism. Some Hedonist might argue that what is naturally good for us is nothing, but the balance of pleasure over pain. There are many hedonistic explanations of why things work or happen the way they do, all of which claims that pleasure and pain are the only important instructive considerations. Prudential hedonism is the theory that all and only pleasure intrinsically makes people’s lives go better for them and all and only pain intrinsically makes their lives go worse for them (Weijers 2011a). From an anti-hedonist approach, I would not plug into the Experience Machine because with all the pleasure we have, and it’s told our whole lives as we experience it, its an illusion that makes us see all the positives without the negatives. What would it mean to go back to
reality?
Anti-Hedonist rejects hedonism even when most people in society prefer the pleasurable machine life to reality.
I bring it to you asking if you would like to plug in the machine, but warning you that once you plug in, you’re plugged for two years. Plugging into the machine will give you all the rich variety of pleasure rather than experiencing any negative effects, but who wouldn’t want to experience a life without pain? Philebus Plato argues that every human being is given a choice to live a life that is reasonably thoughtful and reasonably pleasant to a life that is entirely thoughtless. Given a life that plugs you into the Experience Machine shows you all the positives in life. It would be impossible to think of plugging out of the machine to experience reality. Money is given as an example for happiness, but how long can money keep you happy? Money is a temporary happiness, which shows you all materialistic you can have; but it does not intrinsically find true happiness within yourself. This correlates with the experience machine by showing us that pleasure is another type of temporary happiness, but in which it does not show any pain. Plugging into the Experience Machine limits us to a synthetic reality. "There is no actual contact with any deeper reality, though the experience of it can be simulated." (Nozick,
43)

Plugging in the experience machine to a world with no deeper or more important than which people can construct means there is no actual contact with any deeper reality. Not plugging in shows us that we want to be a certain way and to be a certain person, as to if some who were to plug into the experience machine would be living in a life full of illusions. Pleasure is a feeling of satisfaction that harmonizes with pain, without pain it would be a well-thought-out feeling that is felt throughout pleasure. Whatever you experience in the experience machine is assumed to be true. The machine focuses on how life should be lived with only knowing what pleasure is.
The two-headed problem is not the asking of whether I want to plug into the machine while I am connected, but whether or not I want to plug myself into the machine before I plug in. Due to the fact that I have yet to plug myself into the experience machine, it questions my judgments on the fulfillment of reality. The resulting negative pre-planning of being unable to satisfy my second desire ultimately reduces the worth of the experience of plugging into the experience machine; this is why I refuse to the plugging in of the machine.