Imagine if you could plug your brain into a machine that would bring you ultimate pleasure for the rest of your life.
If you were given a chioce to sign up for that kind of existence, would you?
That's the question philosopher Robert Nozick posed through a thought experiment he called the Experience Machine.
The experiment asks us to consider a world in which scientists have developed a machine that would simulate real life while guaranteeing experiences of only pleasure and never pain.
The catch? You have to permanently leave reality behind, but you'll hardly know the difference.
Your experiences will be indistinguishable from reality.
Life's natural ups and downs will just be replaced with an endless series of ups.
Sounds great, right?
It may seem like a tempting offer, but perhaps it's not as ideal as it sounds.
The experiment was actually designed to refute a philosophical notion called hedonism.
