stevesbets

    During a conversation today a concept I remembered from a freshman year philosophy class came up. It’s one of my favorite “if it were possible would you…” questions. The basic idea of the experience machine (TEM) is that you program in your ideal life and then you get to live it out. You can be Bon Jovi, Lebron, or any other megastar. You can mix and match the best attributes and possessions of anyone in the world or anything you can imagine and it’s all yours in the experience machine. That is, it’s all yours in your head. Once you get in the machine you will absolutely not be able to understand that what is happening to you isn’t real, it’s all simply the machine tricking your brain.  Once you decide to get strapped into it, there is no turning back. You will be sitting in that chair consumed by the machine until the day you die.

The question then, is would you get into the machine?

As a freshman in college when I first heard of this concept, it seemed obvious to me that I would run, not walk, to be the first in line to have access to TEM. Who wouldn’t want to experience the life of Billy Joel, Tom Brady, Brad Pitt, or Phil Ivey. Better yet, all four of them rolled into the marvel of me…in my own head.

The main argument against using TEM that I have heard is that you will give nothing back to mankind in either the smaller or larger sense. You will not contribute to the happiness of your loved ones or make anyone’s life better for you having lived.  At this point I can honestly say that I’m not sure enough of what’s important to me and therefore don’t know if I’d get in TEM. I think it’s safe to say that at least 90% of the world or so would climb in happily to escape the misfortunes of their lives, but the people I have asked seem to respond negatively to it. So anyway, I’m putting it out there for all of you to decide on.

The experience machine is setting sail, are you going to climb aboard?