Essay On Robert Nozick

In a short piece he wrote, Robert Nozick discussed the possibility of a machine that people could plug into and experience different events. They would be able to experience anything they chose, and they alone would be in control of what experiences they would take part in. Nozick strongly opposes the idea of living our lives and experiences through such a machine by bringing up several logical arguments. The first argument Nozick uses to oppose such an idea is the fact that we as people want to do things rather than just experience them. We want to be able to actually do the things we long to do rather than just have the experiences which, Nozick argues, is fundamentally different. The second issue Nozick discusses is that people all have

Nozick argues that a person cannot be courageous or kind for example if he has lived his whole life through a machine. The third and final problem Nozick sees with the experience machine is that a machine would simply put us in a world that is not authentic, but instead is made to be perfect. We would not have contact with what Nozick calls “deeper reality” (Nozick 43). I agree with each and every one of the points that Nozick uses to argue with the existence of a machine that surely could bring nothing but false experiences and wasted lives. His first argument is appealing and convincing because I believe there is a difference between experiencing something and actually doing it. If we do not actually do something, we lack what made the experience so special in the first place: authenticity. While we may not know we are in the machine while we are, when we are out of the machine we would be aware that our experiences were nothing more than a farce, which takes away from the glory of experiencing them in the first place. Nozick also makes a stellar point when he discusses that we would not gain any character traits while living out our lives in the machines. It takes life experiences, both good and bad, to make us the people we become. If we