Dan Weijers
Victoria University of Wellington
July 2011
 Q: Does Nozick’s experience machine thought




experiment (EMTE) elicit biased responses?
Q: Should Nozick’s EMTE be used as evidence in
arguments about wellbeing?
Q: Should any version of the EMTE be used as
evidence in arguments about wellbeing?
Q: What do EMTEs tell us about the value of pleasure
and the plausibility of hedonism?
Q: What should EMTEs be used for?
 “Suppose that there were an experience machine that
would give you any experience you desired. Superduper
neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you
would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or
making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the
time, you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes
attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine
for life…?”


Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia, pp 42-45
Smart, J. & Williams, B. (1973). Utilitarianism for and Against , pp 18-21.
 Disclaimers:




Ignore responsibilities to family etc.
Don’t realise it’s not real
Still exercise autonomy
Machine works perfectly
 Internalist mental state theories of wellbeing = ‘hedonism’
 “Now if pleasure were our greatest good, then we would all
volunteer to be hooked for life to this machine… But surely
very few people would volunteer.”

1.
2.
3.
Kymlicka, W. (1990). Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction, p 13.
If pleasure = g. good, then we’d plug in
We would not plug in
Therefore, pleasure ≠ g. good
 But is premise 1 true?
 It assumes our judgements about the EMTE are based on a
rational comparison of lots of pleasure with average pleasure
 Is premise 2 true for other EMTEs?
 Judgments are affected by intuitions, but it’s hard to say when
and by how much because intuitive cognition is opaque
 How easily does ‘the reason’ come?
 It’s also hard to know what causes the intuition (and therefore
how useful it is)
 Reconstruction via reverse engineering
 Reconstruction often fails when we only consider the factors that
are stipulated in the thought experiment as the possible causes of
the intuition.
 Since intuitive cognition uses pattern recognition, irrelevant
aspects of the triggered past experiences can affect the intuition.
 Experiments have caught people out confabulating / being
dumbfounded
 Biases – The problem with intuitive cognition (and judgments
heavily influenced by it)
 David Sobel: the credibility of intuitions elicited from
contemplation of thought experiments can be
undermined by “telling a convincing story about the
genesis of such intuitions that would explain why we
have them while revealing them to be misleading”
(2002, p. 244).
 Tweaks and reversals
 Armchair, hallway, and experimental testing
 Imaginative resistance = consciously, or unconsciously,
rejecting any of the stipulations (or implied features)
of a thought experiment.
 Machine underperformance
 Machine malfunction
 Not worrying about loved ones
 Also the opposite - overactive imagination.
 “floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your
brain,”
 “plug into this machine”

(My emphasis, Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p 42.)
 125 first year philosophy students with Nozick’s scenario: which
is the best option to choose and why?
 79% (99/125) thought they should not connect
 35% (35/99) cited reality, truth, or something related
 44% (44/99) of the main justifications given by those who
thought they should not connect indicated imaginative
resistance
 bad experiences are required to appreciate good ones or develop
(19%, 19/99)
 no autonomy or control in the machine, (14%, 14/99)
 responsibilities to others (4%, 4/99)
 the machine might break down or not be that good (3%, 3/99)
 Other main justifications that were consistent with the thought
experiment, but are irrelevant for evaluating the intrinsic value
of experiences or reality, included:
 the machine seems scary or unnatural (8%, 8/99)
 getting out every two years would be depressing (6%, 6/99)
 93 first year business students using the following survey:
 It’s 2062 and you are riding a hovertube to town…
1) Ignoring how your family, friends, any other dependents,
and society in general might be affected, and assuming that
Experience Machines always work perfectly, what is the
best thing for you to do for yourself in this situation?
Tick only one of these options:
O You should accept the spot in an Experience Machine
O You should not accept the spot in an Experience
Machine
2) Briefly explain your choice:
 37% (34/93) thought they should connect to an EM
'Should Connect
to the EM'
Responses
Irrelevant Main
Judgments
50
40
45
40
35

16% difference
p = 0.004

30
25
% 20
15
35
% 25
20
15
10
10
5
5
0
0
Self
Nozick's

23% difference
p < 0.001

30
Self
Nozick's
 Far fewer respondents to the Self scenario justified their
choice with the reasons:
 ‘bad experiences are required to appreciate good experiences
or to develop properly’ and
 ‘you would have no autonomy or control in the machine’
 Status quo bias is best defined as an inappropriate
preference for things to remain the same

Bostrom, N. & Ord, T. (2006). The Reversal Test: Eliminating Status Quo Bias in Applied Ethics, Ethics,
116: 656-679.
 Linked to:
 Loss aversion (valuing losses more than equivalent gains
in uncertain circumstances) and
 The endowment effect (overvaluing what we have and
know)
100
90
 Limitations:
80
 Small
samples
(24, 80, 24,
24)
 Social
capital lost
in reality
(not a
mirror of
Nozick’s)
70
60
% 50
40
30
20
10
0
Negative
Nuetral SQ
empahsised
Positive
Nuetral
Real Life is…
De Brigard, F., 2010. If You Like it, Does it Matter if it’s Real?, Philosophical Psychology, 23(1): 43–57.
 Reduce oversensitivity to potential losses
 Evolutionary considerations  we are loss averse in
conditions of uncertainty

Chen M. K., V. Lakshminaryanan, & L. R. Santos, 2006. The Evolution of Our Preferences: Evidence from
Capuchin Monkey Trading Behavior, Journal of Political Economy, 114: 517–537.
 Behavioural econ.  we value equivalent losses and gains
more equally the less we know the target of the decision

Bloomfield A. N., J. A. Sager, D. M. Bartels, D. L. Medin, 2006. Caring about Framing Effects, Mind &
Society, 5(2): 123–138.
 Therefore, we are more likely to think that the unfamiliar
(and therefore risky) experience machine life is going to be
a better idea for someone we care less about than ourselves
 E.g. respondents will be more likely to think that a stranger
should connect to an experience machine than a friend, and a
friend more than themselves.
 This hypothesis was tested with 3 new scenarios in
which a friend, a cousin, and a stranger are the target
 All of these scenarios were tested on first year business
students at the same time as the Self scenario.
 Very similar to Self scenario, only now the choice is
about whether the stranger should connect to an EM
 48% (45/93) decided that connecting to an experience
machine made the life in question better
 12% more than respondents to the Self scenario.
 May not be loss aversion that is the cause
 Are EM judgments becoming more rational as care
factor decreases?
 Framing all of the options as equally familiar
 Framing of reality or the machine as the status quo
makes it the easy, less risky, known, and perhaps
default option
 A main appeal of the SQ seems heavily linked to our
social and relational capital
 we know how to work with the life we have
100
90
Connect %
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
 124 first year philosophy students - Stranger No Status Quo scenario:
 A stranger, named Boris, has just found out that he has been regularly switched
between a real life and a life of machine-generated experiences (without ever
being aware of the switches); 50% of his life has been spent in an Experience
Machine and 50% in reality. Nearly all of Boris’ most enjoyable experiences
occurred while he was in an Experience Machine and nearly all of his least
enjoyable experiences occurred while he was in reality. Boris now has to decide
between living the rest of his life in an Experience Machine or in reality (no
more switching)…
1) Ignoring how Boris’ family, friends, any other dependents, and society in
general might be affected, and assuming that Experience Machines always
work perfectly, what is the best thing for Boris to do for himself in this
situation?
Tick only one of these options:
O Boris should choose the Experience Machine life
O Boris should choose the real life
 Neutralising the status quo = 12% difference (Stranger NSQ vs.
Stranger, p-value = 0.025)
 Making the choice on behalf of a stranger = 12% difference
(Stranger vs. Self , p-value = 0.035)
 Reducing irrelevant factors = 16% difference (Self vs. Nozick’s , pvalue = 0.004)
 Stranger NSQ vs. Nozick’s = 40% difference (p-value = 0.000)
 Yes
 Indicated by De Brigard’s results
 Indicated by students’ confabulation/dumbfounding in
class
 Shown by my results
 Imaginative resistance
 Status Quo Bias
 Over-sensitivity to loss/fear of change/inertia
 No
 Nozick’s scenario elicits judgements about 40% off
the mark due to:
 Status quo bias
 Imaginative resistance
 Ineptness (irrelevant main justifications)
 The experience machine is dead!
 But are trained philosophers affected?
 It might not matter
 Whose judgments do we want to understand?
Hypothetical Connect % for
Stranger NSQ
Hypothetical Connect % for
Stranger NSQ 2
70
70
60
60
50
50
40
40
30
30
20
20
10
10
0
0
Philosophers
Students
Reasonable people
Philosophers
Students
Reasonable people
 Possibly
 The Stranger NSQ scenario seems like a much better
candidate
 Reality vs. internal experiences (Yes)
 Makes use of memorable, mysterious and intriguing
concept of the experience machine (Yes)
 Appears relatively unaffected by bias and other
irrelevant factors (Yes)
 Not too complicated < half %inept responses of
Nozick’s (OK)
 Long live the experience machine!
 Not as much as philosophers have thought
 No agreement on the relative values
 The EM argument against hedonism needs reassessing
 These results do not endorse hedonism
 22% cited reality as main justification in the Stranger NSQ
scenario
 If reality has any intrinsic value, then hedonism is false
 22% citing reality = defeasible evidence that hedonism is false
 The experience machine should no longer be considered to
provide evidence that hedonism and all other internalist
mental state theories of well-being are overwhelmingly
likely to be false.
 All of the ETMEs should be used to educate on how to
evaluate thought experiments
 Long live the experience machine (again)!
 Stop the student abuse





10 ‘normal’ lecturer spiel on EMTE vs. hedonism
Exposed connect % = 28%
Control connect % = 15%
13% difference p-value = 0.032
Is this how judgements become widespread (amongst
philosophers)?
 How much confabulation is going on in EMTEs?
 Do philosophers rationally judge EMTEs?
 Confirmation bias
 How would trained philosophers with no experience of
EMTEs respond to my Stranger NSQ scenario?
 Would experience of Nozick’s EMTE make much
difference?
 Q: Does Nozick’s experience machine thought




experiment (EMTE) elicit biased responses? Yes
Q: Should Nozick’s EMTE be used as evidence in
arguments about wellbeing? No
Q: Should any version of the EMTE be used as
evidence in arguments about wellbeing? Possibly
Q: What do EMTEs tell us about the value of pleasure
and the plausibility of hedonism? Less than thought
Q: What should EMTEs be used for? Education