[lit-ideas] Re: Decisions, decisions

  • From: Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Paul)
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: 23 Oct 2004 12:57:14 PDT

Mike writes:

>"The meanings of life" (in D. Schmidtz, ed., Robert Nozick, Cambridge 
2002), David Schmidtz argues that virtually all of us would refuse to 
plug in. I'm not sure he's right, and I'm not sure the reasons he gives
are the most pertinent ones.<
        
>I *am* sure, however, that this question is a *philosophical* =one. It's also
the plot of The Matrix.<

I hadn't realized that this was _the_plot of The Matrix, although I may well
have missed it. I thought that (the strongest line of) the plot was that most of
the 'things' in the updated vats did not know their experiences were ersatz--not
that that they were having ersatz experiences, but that _what_ they were
experiencing was not actually taking place (however this is glossed). No one
seems to have opted for living in the Matrix machine that I recall, nor was
anyone given a choice in the matter.

When Nozick's thought experiment was in vogue a quarter of a century ago--and it
was never a big deal--none of the students I discussed the issue with said that
they would choose the Experience Machine, and none said that it was a matter of
indifference to them. But of course this is a somewhat weak inductive argument
(with respect to how many would abjure giving up their humanity) based as it is
on such a small sample. Perhaps one of the simplest reasons for not opting for
the machine is that people have a hard time I think  _deciding_ to be lied to,
no matter how richly entertaining the result of such a decision would be. That
once in the machine the choice would be forgotten is no more interesting than is
the fact that once in an opium dream one may well have forgotten the choice to
smoke opium.

Robert Paul
Reed College
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