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    #1

    The Matrix question

    Thought question of the day:

    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. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life experiences?...Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there; you'll think that it's all actually happening...Would you plug in?


    (Proposed by Robert Nozick)
    Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

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    #2
    Re: The Matrix question

    Assuming it's free of charge and all on the level (Scientists aren't gonna do anything dodgy to me or make me experience anything I haven't requested), absolutely. I already spend most of my life immersed in fiction, why not make my brain think it's real?

    On the other hand, if there's even the slightest doubt in my mind that anything could go wrong...Well, it could very easily go all "I have no mouth and I must scream". I ain't gettin' plugged in to AM, thanks.
    Yikes, all that cultural appropriation that used to be here tho

    Comment

      #3
      Re: The Matrix question

      Nope......

      Way too many ways a system that complex can glitch, at which point inhabitants are thoroughly screwed and I don't mean that in a good way.
      life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

      Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

      "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

      John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

      "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

      Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


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        #4
        Re: The Matrix question

        Originally posted by B. de Corbin View Post
        Thought question of the day:

        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. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life experiences?...Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there; you'll think that it's all actually happening...Would you plug in?


        (Proposed by Robert Nozick)
        I'm pretty sure I'm there now. :=I:
        Satan is my spirit animal

        Comment

          #5
          Re: The Matrix question

          Nope. Not letting anybody take away my free will, not even me.

          "No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical." -- Niels Bohr

          Comment

            #6
            Re: The Matrix question

            Originally posted by B. de Corbin View Post
            Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there
            That's the bit that would keep me from doing it. If I'm living the dream I want to know it, if that makes sense.
            Hearth and Hedge

            Comment

              #7
              Re: The Matrix question

              For both reasons mentioned:

              A. There is nothing that humans do that has a less than 100% chance of either developing glitches, or being misused by humans in control.

              B. It would require me to surrender every thought and every experience I would ever remember having to humans in control.
              ---------------------------------
              Therefore, it would be dumb, because it is doomed.
              Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

              Comment

                #8
                Nah, I'm quite fond of making mistakes, in hindsight...
                ThorSon's milkshake brings all the PF girls to the yard - Volcaniclastic

                RIP

                I have never been across the way
                Seen the desert and the birds
                You cut your hair short
                Like a shush to an insult
                The world had been yelling
                Since the day you were born
                Revolting with anger
                While it smiled like it was cute
                That everything was shit.
                - J. Wylder

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                  #9
                  Re: The Matrix question

                  No, but I wouldn't mind having something like that to use upon occasion...like, for an hour or so a week, as a de-stress sort of thing.

                  ....more holodeck from star trek, less matrix
                  Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
                  sigpic

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                    #10
                    Re: The Matrix question

                    At first I thought, "hell yes, I'd do it" - but then I thought about the fact that I'd have no control. So, no - not for me.

                    The only "unless" I would add is unless I'd lost everything I want to live for - then I'd consider it.

                    Comment

                      #11
                      Re: The Matrix question

                      Originally posted by thalassa View Post
                      No, but I wouldn't mind having something like that to use upon occasion...like, for an hour or so a week, as a de-stress sort of thing.

                      ....more holodeck from star trek, less matrix
                      The trouble is that there's the whole "Total Recall" thing where once you went in, how would you really know whether you had come out?

                      "No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical." -- Niels Bohr

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