Nozick's Experience Machine - Flashcards

A set of Q&A flashcards covering Nozick's Experience Machine: what it is, how it works, and the common objections and responses from your notes.

What is an 'experience machine' as described by Nozick?

An imaginary device that would perfectly stimulate your brain with believable experiences while your body lies dormant, making you feel like you are living a real life.

What would the experience machine allow you to experience?

Any life experiences you would personally find fulfilling—climbing Everest, being with someone famous, a happy and successful life—delivered as though real.

Would you know you were inside the experience machine while using it?

No. Your memory of choosing to enter would be wiped, and the experiences would feel 100% real.

What is the central question Nozick asks about the machine?

Whether you would trade your real life for a subjectively superior life inside the experience machine.

What does hedonism claim?

That only pleasure or happiness matters for flourishing; the quality of experiences is what matters.

What is the Nozick counter to the claim that machine experiences would be meaningless because they are not real?

Inside the machine you wouldn’t know they’re fake, and the experiences would feel fulfilling since the machine is perfectly accurate.

How does Nozick address the worry that constant pleasure in the machine would be boring?

The machine can provide complex, mixed experiences calibrated for long-term happiness and meaning, potentially including challenges if desired.

What about abandoning family and friends—what is Nozick's stance?

The thought experiment focuses on what’s good for your flourishing; to test that, imagine everyone you love also enters the machine and experiences wonderful lives.

What can the experience machine not provide?

Non-experiential facts outside your mind; it cannot change real-world facts or create real relationships or people.

What happens to interactions with real family while you’re in the machine?

You can have experiences of spending time with them in the machine, but those are private, imaginary experiences, and the real people aren’t actually involved.

What is the main purpose of the experience machine thought experiment?

To test what would best promote your flourishing, not to determine moral obligations.

If you would choose the machine for your life, what might that suggest about your view of flourishing?

It would suggest you think there are goods beyond mere happiness, challenging hedonism.