Nozick's Experience Machine

**This is from guest blogger, David C.**

Robert Nozick seems to be making two points with his thought experiment of the experience machine. The first point is to negatively refute Hedonism. The second is a positive point, which argues that people put intrinsic value on “really doing”, “really being” and to “live ourselves, in contact with reality”. I think that Nozick’s first point relies on an invalid argument, while his second point has a lot of ambiguity, which raises more problems then it actually solves.

Nozick’s first point of refuting Hedonism would rely on an argument somewhat along these lines:

1.      If Hedonism is true then the only thing that people should care about is maximize happiness (pleasure).

2.      Defined by the set up of the thought experiment, entering the experience machine would maximize one’s happiness (pleasure).

3.      If one only cares about maximizing one’s happiness (pleasure) one would enter the experience machine.

4.      Plenty of people choice not to enter the experience machine.

5.      For plenty of people, it is not the case that they only care about maximizing their happiness (pleasure).

6.      Hedonism is false.

There are several problems with this argument.

This first problem is that the conclusion (6.) “Hedonism is false” does not validly follow from the premises. Although it seems that premise (1.) and premise (5.) would lead to (6.), but this is logically invalid. The reason is that the key claim in premise (1.), the Hedonism claim that “the only thing that people should care about is maximize happiness (pleasure)”, is a prescriptive claim, not a descriptive claim. It is a claim that suggests what people “should” care about, not a claim that purports to accurately describe what people “actually” care about. What people “actually” care about cannot prove or disprove the prescriptive claim. It is totally consistent that “I actually care about A”, but “I should care about B”, for maybe I’m just being irrational. Thus, premise (5.), which describes what people actually care about, cannot be sufficient to falsify Hedonism. In order to refute this prescriptive claim of Hedonism, we would need an argument that proves: one should not only care about maximizing happiness (pleasure).

Maybe Nozick’s second point, which is positive, does try to argument for why people “should not” enter the experience machine. If Nozick’s second point does prove this point, then he would have a good argument of refuting Hedonism. I will address his second point later. But nonetheless, if my argument in the above paragraph is correct, Nozick’s argument would, at least, loss some power. Much of Nozick’s power of proof comes from people’s intuitive approval of premise (4.), which states: “Plenty of people choice not to enter the experience machine”. But if I am right in pointing out the invalidness of the argument, then I have prove premise (4.) does not contribute to refuting Hedonism. Hence, the most powerful premise in this argument would be useless.

Of course, some may think that Hedonism is not just a prescriptive claim, and that Nozick’s argument has successfully proven that the descriptive claims of Hedonism is false. Surely, if we change the key claim in premise (1.) into a descriptive claim, which would be something like: “If Hedonism is true then the only thing that people would care about is maximize happiness (pleasure)”, the argument above would become a valid argument. But does that mean this argument has successfully proven the descriptive claims of Hedonism to be false? No, because there are still other problems in this argument.

Another problem for this argument is that premise (3.) does not follow from premise (2.). This may seem counter-intuitive at first, but it is perfectly constant that one may only care about maximizing one’s happiness (pleasure) but choices not to enter the experience machine. How can this be? Since the experience machine is, by definition, a happiness (pleasure) maximizer.

It can be possible and consistent because the experience machine can only promise to be a happiness (pleasure) maximizer after you enter the machine in the future. But you are making the choice of whether to enter the machine at the present moment. This can make a huge difference because since you are making the choice at the present moment, you are making judgment based on the happiness (pleasure) maximizing calculation at the present moment, not after you enter the machine in the future (or the two combined). A machine that promise to maximize your happiness (pleasure) in the future does not promise to maximize your happiness (pleasure) at this present moment (or the two combined). And if it does not maximize your happiness (pleasure) at this present moment (or the two combined), it is perfectly consistent that you choice not to enter it.

What I just said would probably sound quite confusing. So let me clarify two points:

1. How could the machine be a happiness (pleasure) maximizer after you enter the machine in the future, but not so at the present moment? The answer is that one might put a huge amount of happiness (pleasure) in knowing and believing he is living in the “real world”. Therefore, this would make a huge difference for him, because after he enters the machine he will not know he is in it, and thus the huge amount of happiness (pleasure) in knowing and believing he is living in the “real world” is satisfied. But at the present moment, while he has not yet entered the machine, he knows the world will be a “fake world”, and thus the huge amount of happiness (pleasure) in knowing and believing he is living in the “real world” is not satisfied.

2. Wouldn’t the dissatisfaction of “knowing the ugly truth” only last for a very short time, and therefore would bond to be overweighed by the “happiness (pleasure) maximized” rest of your life in the machine? There are two ways of replying to this doubt. One is by arguing that people just put much more weight on the present happiness (pleasure) than the future happiness (pleasure) when making decisions. The other is by arguing that people just put a really huge amount of happiness (pleasure) in knowing and believing he is living in the “real world”. So much that even a tinny time of dissatisfaction caused by its truth would overweight a whole lifetime of ignorant happiness.

I think Nozick would actually agree with the second way of replying. For his positive point is just to argue that people value “really doing”, “really being” and living in the “real world” so much that there are actually intrinsic value in them. But I think this positive point of his has a lot of ambiguity, and raises more problems then it actually solves. I will talk about it later in the post.