Half a century ago, the philosopher Robert Nozick imagined a world where we could fulfil our desires through an ‘experience machine’ similar to the Matrix. He assumed we’d prefer reality, but as digital life becomes ever-more simulated, was he right?
In a pivotal scene in the movie The Matrix, the character Cypher sits in a plush restaurant, with a soft harp playing in the background. He’s inside the eponymous computer simulation within which most of humanity unwittingly lives. Across the table is a sentient machine. Worn down by the effort of resisting these mechanical agents, he has decided to make a deal.
As he eyes a piece of steak on his fork, Cypher explains: “I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling me that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realise? Ignorance is bliss.” Cypher agrees to betray the human resistance, in exchange for having his memory wiped and living a life of wealth and fame within the Matrix.
The movie, released in US cinemas 25 years ago today, continues to be highly influential. But the questions it explored about the nature of reality – and our supposed affinity to it – go back further. This year marks another anniversary: 50 years ago, the philosopher Robert Nozick foresaw the themes of The Matrix – and much more about contemporary life – by proposing an intriguing thought experiment. In his 1974 book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, he asked his readers: would you willingly plug your brain into a simulated “experience machine” if you could live out your deepest desires? Would it matter to you if it wasn’t “real”?
In the current moment, where virtual experiences are becoming more prevalent and intertwined with our daily lives, and technology can increasingly simulate pieces of reality, Nozick’s question feels more prescient than ever. Whether spending an afternoon in the metaverse, using a chatbot as a stand-in for a human friend, or creating an AI-generated video, it is asked of us repeatedly in small but important ways. Nozick was ardent that most would prefer reality, but is it possible that Cypher got a few things right?
Similar to the Matrix, Nozick’s experience machine would be able to provide the person plugged into it with any experiences they wanted – like “writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book”. No one who entered the machine would remember doing so, or would realise at any point that they were within it. But in Nozick’s version, there were no malevolent AIs; it would be “provided by friendly and trustworthy beings from another galaxy”. If you knew all that, he asked, would you enter the experience machine for the rest of your life?
Nozick proposed that most people would prefer the real world, in spite of the fact that the machine would definitively offer a more pleasurable life
Nozick believed people would not. The thought experiment was intended to demonstrate that reality, or authenticity, has some inherent value to us. While Cypher makes the decision to live in the Matrix when the alternative is continued resistance, Nozick proposed that most people would prefer the real world, in spite of the fact that the machine would definitively offer a more pleasurable life.
To explain this unintuitive answer, Nozick suggested three reasons for our aversion to the experience machine. The first was that “we want to do certain things, and not just have the experience of doing them”. The second was that “we want to be a certain way, to be a certain sort of person”, and we cannot truly be anything in the experience machine. Finally, Nozick supposed that “plugging into an experience machine limits us to a man-made reality, to a world no deeper or more important than that which people can construct”. Through the lack of “contact with any deeper reality,” we would lose access to meaning and significance.
Ultimately, Nozick wrote, “we learn that something matters to us in addition to experience by imagining an experience machine and then realising that we would not use it”.
However, the claim that most people would not plug into the experience machine was not proven when Nozick made it. “He [was] sharing his own intuition,” says Frank Hindriks, professor of ethics, social and political philosophy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
In 2016, Hindriks and Igor Douven of Sorbonne University in France attempted to verify that intuition by surveying people’s responses to the original thought experiment. They also asked if participants would take an “experience pill” that operates similarly to a machine but allows the user to remain in the world, and a functioning pill that enhances the user’s capabilities but not their perception of reality.