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520 D. Weijers

The document summarizes the results of a survey given to first-year students at Victoria University of Wellington about Robert Nozick's experience machine scenario. 16% of students indicated they would plug into the experience machine to live in a simulated reality. The majority who chose not to plug in gave reasons related to preferring reality, truth, and real autonomy. However, 34% displayed imaginative resistance to features of the scenario, questioning whether bad experiences are needed or if unpredictable experiences are better than programmed ones. The results show that factors beyond just experience can influence judgments of Nozick's thought experiment.

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Anders Næss
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24 views1 page

520 D. Weijers

The document summarizes the results of a survey given to first-year students at Victoria University of Wellington about Robert Nozick's experience machine scenario. 16% of students indicated they would plug into the experience machine to live in a simulated reality. The majority who chose not to plug in gave reasons related to preferring reality, truth, and real autonomy. However, 34% displayed imaginative resistance to features of the scenario, questioning whether bad experiences are needed or if unpredictable experiences are better than programmed ones. The results show that factors beyond just experience can influence judgments of Nozick's thought experiment.

Uploaded by

Anders Næss
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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520 D.

Weijers
on first-year students at Victoria University of Wellington.14 The survey consisted of the
exact quote of Nozick’s original experience machine scenario from above and the
following questions:15

(1) What is the best thing for you to do for yourself in this situation?
Tick only one of these options:
W Permanently plug in to an Experience Machine
W Never plug in to an Experience Machine
Downloaded by [University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign] at 00:47 03 October 2014

(2) Briefly explain your choice:

79 survey sheets on Nozick’s scenario were completed. Through their answers to


question 1, about 16% (13/79) of the students indicated that they would connect to an
experience machine. Answers to question 2 were analyzed and grouped, revealing that
for the 84% of students who didn’t want to connect, ‘reality, truth, real autonomy, or
something related’ was the most common justification. However, this justification
only accounted for 47% (27/66) of the “informational main reasons” (henceforth
‘main reasons’ or ‘main justifications’) this group gave for choosing reality over the
experience machine. “Informational reasons” are those not coded as un-informational
reasons (i.e., either ‘no answer’ or ‘unclear, incoherent, or un-informational’).
Responses coded as ‘unclear, incoherent, or un-informational’ were generally long-
winded versions of “I don’t know why.” ‘Main reasons’ refers to the only reason
provided, or the first coherent reason if multiple reasons were provided.16
Surprisingly, 34% (20/66) of the main justifications given by the students who
didn’t want to connect indicated that they experienced imaginative resistance to the
stipulated or implied features of the scenario. The main justifications displaying
imaginative resistance were grouped as follows: ‘bad experiences are required to
appreciate good experiences or to develop properly’ (17%, 10/66; ‘unpredictable or
surprising experiences are better than pre-programmed ones’17 (10%, 6/66); ‘I can’t
because I have responsibilities to others’ (3%, 2/66); and ‘the machine might break
down or not produce great experiences in the future’ (3%, 2/66).
Some main justifications also revealed overactive imagination, such as ‘the machine
seems scary or unnatural’ (10%, 6/66). Other main justifications were consistent with
the thought experiment, and didn’t indicate overactive imagination, but were
nonetheless irrelevant for evaluating the relative intrinsic prudential value of reality
and how our experiences feel to us on the inside. These main justifications reveal
problems with using Nozick’s scenario (as it often is) to investigate the relative
intrinsic prudential value of reality and how our experiences feel to us on the inside.
Most prominent of these confounding factors was: ‘getting out every two years would
be depressing’ (9%, 5/66). Taken together, these results show that many of the factors
that have concerned philosophers might well be influencing at least some participants’
judgments about Nozick’s scenario.
Considering that Nozick’s stated purpose for his experience machine thought
experiment was to assess what matters, if anything, other than how our experiences
feel to us on the inside, all of the justifications for not connecting (from the previous

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