[lit-ideas] Re: Decisions, decisions

From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 20:16:23 EDT
Was the issue of ontology in the Matrix too obvious and superficial to be  
recognized as valid?  There was also a lot of Christological religious  
imagery, 
though that doesn't exactly count as philosophy.  Btw, whatever  happened to 
The Truman Show as a philo-teaching film?  Or Shakespeare in  Love?
 
Julie Krueger
========Original  Message========     Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: Decisions, 
decisions  Date: 10/23/04 2:57:23 PM Central Daylight Time  From: 
_Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)   To: 
_lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)   Sent on:    
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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[lit-ideas] Re: Decisions, decisions

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