Twilight | |
Its Fitting SomehowSo there's this huge opulent dinner planned to celebrate the Pope's visit to the White House. Only the Pope won't be there; he'll be in Church. There's something appropriate about this, I just can't put it into words.BTW, the menu: morel-encrusted diver scallops, spatzle, angel hair asparagus bisque, veal, white truffle-potato dumplings, carrots and mushrooms, lettuces and candied pumpkin seeds, squash carpaccio, pumpkin oil vinaigrette, raspberry crisp and mint coulis. I'm sure it must be good but sounds awful to me (mint coulis, lettuces and candied pumpkin seeds?). Nozick and The Experience MachineI've chosen the topic for my first philosophy paper: Nozick's experience machine from Anarchy, State and Utopia. Hedonists claim that in life all of our decisions are made to maximize pleasure and minimize pain (form of egoism). Nozick proposes a hypothetical experience machine which a person can plug into and though it experience a virtual world. In that world they will live whatever life is most ideal/desirable to them; ie depending on personal preference you could "become" a famous actor, powerful politician etc...And the instant you're in the machine you will forget you ever made the choice so that you believe all of your experiences are real. In reality though, you're body will be hooked up to a machine in a room until you die, you will never see/speak to friends or family ever again, and your success will be fake. But because the person will never be aware of it, hedonism appears to support plugging into the experience machine. It is the path to maximum pleasure. And yet the clear consensus among people is that they would choose not to use the machine, which proves that motivation must be pluralistic.There have been countless responses to Nozick and responses to the responses with everyone arguing about what decisions people really make and why. My philosophy prof even gave me a "The Matrix and Philosophy" book which discusses the parallels of the experience machine and The Matrix (there are significant differences). I've narrowed my material down to about six good articles. Now I have to choose one and write six to seven pages about it. |
About Me My Profile Archives Friends My Photo Album LinksCategoriesRecent EntriesIts Fitting SomehowNozick and The Experience Machine Friends |
RSS Feed