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What matters for people other than their experiences?
The authenticity of their experiences. Their identity (conception of self). Their ties to reality.
Nozick says the drive is to live. Maybe its to create a legitimate identity. Not being self aware
while being in the machine negates a person’s identity as a person. Selfconsciousness is not
taken to the extreme. The machine splits the self. If you have a real world identity, built
through your actions, you put that behind you when you hook up to the machine. There, your
actions change, and so does your identity. Not because your actions do, but because your level
of selfawareness changes. The urge to stay in the real world is a clinging to what separates us
from animals the awareness of consciousness.
Would people choose the machine or not?
Nozick may be right in saying no. He says its because of wanting to act in certain ways, be a
certain kind of person, and have actual contact with reality. I think it’s because people don’t
want to sacrifice their selfawareness.
On what basis would they make this decision?
Degree of selfconsciousness. Ideas of natural / artificial. Getting bored even with perfect life,
whereas natural, even difficult, life keeps one guessing. Achieving without external help. Want
to actually do something. Still, pleasure all the time is pleasure all the time. Just because we do
certain things (or think we do) that doesn’t make us the kind of person we are. (Or does it?).
Would their actions in the machine seem somehow less legitimate, or equally fulfilling?
Probably less legitimate, but only for a brief time upon coming out of the Machine. That might
turn the machine time into a regretted memory, however, and that wouldn’t do much good.
Nozick says few minutes of distress shouldn’t interfere with lifetime of bliss.
(Compare with being helped to accomplish something v. doing it alone.)
Also, people want to do something for themselves. Many would rather earn money than inherit
it, and consequently would take greater pleasure in the things they purchased with the money.
In that sense, the Machine is like a rich parent who dies and leaves its wealth of experience to be
managed by the child.
What about actions under the influence of drugs? Are they less legitimate?
Apparently psychologically (though not legally). If a drunk driver runs over a child, he suffers
the same or worse punishment as a sober man who did the same, but if he wins an arm
wrestling contest his pleasure is fleeting at best. People often say things to the effect of, Don’t
mind him, he’s drunk. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Drunken promises do not carry the
same weight as sober ones, just as imagined deeds won’t have the same gravity as real ones.
Build analogy between machine and psychoactive drugs.
Drugs are powerful simply because they either eliminate or enhance the user’s self
consciousness. A depressant as common as alcohol can blur judgment and remove many
inhibitions that ordinarily would be in place. Machine gives feelings of power. I do what I want
to do. But this is only in dreamworld. What’s really happening is sacrificing will and senses
outside of the brain. You’ll hear things the same way paranoid schizophrenics do. A giant
hallucination for which you’d be considered crazy in the real world. Machine is stimulant,
depressant, and hallucinogen all in one. Addictive, too, since who would want to leave
pleasurable life for boring, realworld one.
Do the drugs give you access to a transcendent system?
Never done drugs. Reality of Machine is transcendent only in that it can avoid the downside of
mood. Reality still governed by what people (programmers, inventors) know. For example,
what would happen if you tried to kill yourself in the machine? No one knows what death is
like, so it would be only a simulacrum. Drugs transcend reality on illusory level only, perhaps.
People under toxic psychosis (druginduced paranoia) will make connections that aren’t really
there.
Why do people use alcohol & other drugs, but not Machine?
Alcohol is done in degrees, is not total like Machine. There is a point up to which you are still
grounded in the real world. Also, being drunk or high usually doesn’t last two years, as Nozick
suggests his Machine would.
Are the things which keep people from using drugs the same that would keep them from
using the machine?
Fear of addiction, fear of crashing, ideas of “natural” and “artificial,” fear of harming others, fear
of harming self (overdose). First three seem to apply to both. Nozick eliminates fourth. Also,
wanting to do something for self, and be in contact with reality, be a certain kind of person (a
natural person?).
Are the things which make people use drugs the same that would make them use the
machine?
Feelings of power, despair with own life. Hope for something better. Pleasurable sensations,
physically and psychologically. Contact with transcendent reality (Castaneda).
Identity
Nozick says plugging into the machine is like a suicide, indeterminate blob. Forster says lady is
swaddled lump of flesh. Iran and Rich don’t relate as people, but as machines with certain
settings. Machine sacrifices identity, creates “artificial” one. Drugs are similar. Significantly
alter what you do, and how you respond to it. Maybe they exaggerate latent characteristics, just
as in the machine you might amplify your libido or appetite for Chinese food. With Forster and
Dick, machine comes to regulate you and your reality. Are we more than what we do or what
we think we do? Androids in Blade Runner do things, but does that give them identity? They
do something (in the film) for real (real to them, real to everyone else), but it has no effect
(affect). Meanwhile, mood organ (play on instrument and anatomy) electronically adjusts
attitude to everything. Feeling certain way doesn’t mean you’ve actually done anything.
(Consider the “multifold opportunities of the future.”) Nothing seems to effect Iran either. The
world for her is flat, thanks in part to the mood organ.
Selfawareness also sacrificed in identitytransformation machine. Switch to any kind of person
you want, and you cease to be the kind of person who want to be someone else. Also, on what
level are you aware of yourself as having at one time been someone else, or at least a different
kind of person. Is that the same as acknowledging that I am a different kind of person now than
I was in high school? Do I feel better about changing my identity (or the kind of person I am)
through experiences, rather than a device. Is it better to overcome a conduct disorder problem
through understanding myself than through ECT?
Identity as related to prescribed antidepressants?
Would do it to keep from killing self, would wonder at natural status of personality / identity.
Naturally sad person suffers from abnormal balance of seratonin in brain. Drugs return in to
normal level. If identity is emotions toward actions, identity is a construct of chemicals.
Machine also can adjust those chemicals (Nozick’s and Dick’s do just that, and Forster’s seems
prepared. Machines are all antidepressants, but Iran uses hers to be depressed, Nozick says his
are suicide (the ultimate act of the depressed), and Forster’s character’s grow increasingly
forlorn.
Artificial
Almost undefinable. Seems to be idea of alien object penetrating, invading the physical interior
of their body, and changing things around. People feel like their identity is being threatened or
adulterated by foreign material, the working of which they cannot be completely aware.
Vegetarianism can be fear of other life forms inhabiting your system. This is what machine does.
In Forster, Kuno says machine is the only living thing. He needs to get outside the machine, to
feel something for real. People with strong boundaries between self and nonself will resist non
self coming in. Others with weaker boundaries (schizophrenics, indeterminate blobs) will not
resist as much. Also, confusion of reality with unreality becomes more pronounced with further
use of drug or machine.
Reality of their actions matters. Actions without machine are more legitimate, didn’t need help
to do something. Inherit v. earn money. Feels better to work for it.
Psychoactive drugs
Another question for medical ethics is that of brain interventions. Administration of
psychoactive drugs may be considered reversible mechanisms of behavior control, whereas
psychosurgery, such as frontal lobotomy, is irreversible. Since both may place strict limitations
on individual freedom, continuation of the practices of psychosurgery and of psychoactive drug
therapy must be examined carefully from an ethical viewpoint (see PSYCHOPATHOLOGY).
Psychoactive, or mindaltering, substances are found the world over. The coca plant grows in
the Andes of South America and contains 1 to 2 percent COCAINE. The marijuana plant,
Cannabis sativa, contains a group of chemicals called tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. This plant
grows wild in most countries, including the United States. The opium poppy is the source for
OPIUM, MORPHINE, HEROIN, and CODEINE. It grows in the Middle East and the Far East.
HALLUCINOGENS (such as LSD), the amphetamines (see AMPHETAMINE), such as speed,
and sedatives (see SEDATIVE), such as methaqualone (Quaalude, or ludes) and barbiturates (see
BARBITURATE), are manufactured in clandestine laboratories worldwide. As a result,
psychoactive drugs are used for the purpose of intoxication practically everywhere. (See also
DRUG TRAFFICKING.)
Pharmacologists, who study the effects of drugs, classify psychoactive drugs according to what
they do to those who take them. Drugs that speed up signals passing through the nervous
system, which is made up of the brain and spinal cord, and produce alertness and arousal and,
in higher doses, excitability, and inhibit fatigue and sleep, are called stimulants (see
STIMULANT). They include the amphetamines, cocaine, caffeine, and nicotine. Drugs that
retard, slow down, or depress signals passing through the central nervous system and produce
relaxation, a lowering of anxiety, and, at higher doses, drowsiness and sleep, are called
depressants. They include sedatives, such as barbiturates, methaqualone, and alcohol, and
tranquilizers, such as Valium. One distinct kind of depressants are those which dull the mind's
perception of pain and in medicine are used as painkillers, or analgesics. These drugs are called
narcotics. They include heroin, morphine, opium, and codeine. In addition to their painkilling
properties, these depressants also produce a strong high and are intensely dependency
producing. Some drugs cannot be placed neatly in this stimulantdepressant spectrum.
Hallucinogens include LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. They produce unusual mental states,
such as psychedelic visions. Marijuana is generally not regarded as belonging to any of these
drug categories and exists as a drug type unto itself.
The illegal use of psychoactive drugs is vast and extensive in the United States. Some 70 million
Americans age 12 and over have tried at least one or more prohibited drugs for the purpose of
getting high. The illegal drug trade represents an enormous economic enterprise. Sales of illegal
drugs in the United States may have totaled $100 billion in 1986, more than the total net sales of
the largest American corporation, and more than American farmers earned from all crops
combined. About 60% of the illegal drugs sold worldwide end up in the United States.
Most people who have taken illegal drugs have done so on an experimental basis. They
typically try the drug once to a dozen times and then stop. Of all illegal drugs, marijuana is the
one users are most likely to stick with and continue using. Even most regular users of illegal
drugs are moderate in their use. The typical regular marijuana smoker is a casual, onceina
while user. Still, a sizable minority does use the drug frequently, to the point of abuse.
A psychotropic drug is a chemical that alters the behavioral responses of an individual to or
within the environment. (See Forster) A more delineated definition of the term considers drugs
that are administered to alleviate mental illness (psychotherapeutic drugs). Many psychotropic
drugs as such have been used to great benefit in psychotherapeutic treatment programs. The
use of psychotherapeutic drugs in children is somewhat limited to hyperactivity, epilepsy, tics,
brain damage, and rare cases of childhood schizophrenia.
AMPHETAMINE and methylphenidate are representative drugs of the psychomotorstimulant
class of drugs. These drugs have been used in the treatment of obesity, fatigue, narcolepsy,
some forms of depression, and the hyperkinetic, or hyperactivity, syndrome in children.
Because of suggestions that some members of this class might lead to physical dependence and
produce brain damage and behavioral alterations when used for prolonged periods, use of
psychomotor stimulants has been curtailed.
There are two classes of antidepressant drugs: the monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors, such
as nialamide, and the tricyclic antidepressants, such as imipramine. (and, now, SSRI’s.) Both
classes of drugs are used in the treatment of DEPRESSION, an affective disorder that can involve
a manic phase. In general, depression is characterized by persistent feelings of fatigue, loss of
appetite, difficulty in sleeping, general irritability, and loss of libido. Not all these symptoms
need be present at the same time in a state of depression. The MAO inhibitors and tricyclic
antidepressants are more often used in the treatment of depression of a long duration. These
drugs sometimes take 10 to 20 days to begin working. The MAO inhibitors are useful in the
treatment of depression, presumably because of their effects on norepinephrine and serotonin.
They interact poorly, however, with many foods. The tricyclics block the reuptake of
norepinephrine into presynaptic neurons. Neither the MAO inhibitors nor the tricyclics have
profound effects on nondepressed humans. Both types of antidepressants can result in some
rather serious toxicity if not taken under carefully monitored conditions. These toxic effects
include liver damage and massive disruptions of the functions of the autonomic nervous
system, such as control of blood pressure and of heart rate. Chlorpromazine and amphetamines
are also used to treat depression.
Antianxiety drugs, formerly called "minor tranquilizers," include the barbiturates, ethanol
(alcohol), and the benzodiazepines, such as LIBRIUM and valium, and are probably the most
frequently used drugs in Western culture.
Formerly called "major tranquilizers," the antipsychotic drugs are used most frequently in the
treatment of acute and chronic schizophrenia. Antipsychotic drugs include three classes of
compounds: the phenothiazines such as chlorpromazine, the butyrophenones such as
haloperidol, and the thioxanthene derivatives such as chlorprothixene. Symptoms of psychosis
include hallucinations, delusions, inappropriate affects (see Blade Runner), including
disorganized thought and behavior as well as fear, panic, and hostility. Antipsychotic drugs
are used in individuals diagnosed as schizophrenic or having an affective disorder, such as
manicdepressive illness. These drugs ease some psychotic symptoms.
The prototypic hallucinogens are lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and mescaline. They have
no commonly recognized therapeutic value, although they have been of considerable interest to
the scientific community because of their ability to induce at least some of the symptoms of
psychosis. Because they often mimic psychotic states, they are termed psychotomimetic drugs.
Borderline psychological disorder is a fairly common behavioral disorder marked by selfimage
problems, strong mood shifts, and difficulty in maintaining relationships but dread of being
alone. Usually this pattern is fully developed and persists by early adulthood. The mood
swings, which last a few hours to a few days, include spells of depression, anxiety, and intense
anger as well as feelings of boredom and emptiness. Overeating, substance abuse and other
impulsive, reckless actions are common, as are suicide threats or selfmutilation in more severe
cases. The personal or family factors that may cause this disorder to develop are as yet
insufficiently understood; it is addressed by various forms of psychotherapy.
Blade Runner Philip K Dick
Penfield Mood Organ
“Mood organ” included in first sentence of book.
Wife in bad mood: “You set your Penfield too weak” (1)
1 Keep your hand off my settings. I don’t want to be awake.Iran
1 If you set the surge up high enough, you’ll be glad your awake; that’s the whole point.
1 Friendily, because he felt welldisposed toward the world his setting had been at Dhe
patted her bare, pale shoulder.
1 “I’m not a cop.” He felt irritable now, although he hadn’t dialed for it.
2 At his console he hesitated between dialing for a thalamic suppressant (which would
abolish his mood of rage) or a thalamic stimulant (which would make him irked enough
to win the argument).
2 I’ll dial what’s on my schedule for today.
2 My schedule for today lists a sixhour selfaccusatory depression. Iran
2 “What? Why did you schedule that?” It defeated the whole purpose of the mood
organ.
3 When I had the TV sound off, I was in a 382 mood; I had just dialed it. So although I
heard the emptiness intellectually, I didn’t feel it. (see Borderline Psych. Disorder)
3 Then I realized how unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life, not just in this building
but everywhere, and not reacting.ÉThat used to be considered a sign of mental illness;
they called it “absence of appropriate affect.” So I sat down at my mood organ and
IÉfinally found a setting for despair. So I put it on my schedule for twice a month; I
think that’s a reasonable amount of time to feel hopeless about everything. Iran
3 But a mood like that, you’re apt to stay in it, not dial your way out. [Like Experience
Machine]. Despair like that, about total reality, is selfperpetuating.
3 Iran: I program an automatic setting for three hours later. A 481. Awareness of the
manifold possibilities open to me in the future.
4 He [Deckard] relied on it greatly.
4 I don’t feel like dialing anything at all now. Iran
4 Then dial 3. Rick
4 Her voice had become sharp with overtones of bleakness as her soul congealed and she
ceased to move, as the instinctive, omnipresent film of her great weight, of an almost
absolute inertia, settled over her.
5 Okay, I give up; I’ll dial. Anything you want me to be; ecstatic sexual bliss I feel so bad
I’ll even endure that. What the hell. What difference does it make. Iran
______
The Machine Stops Forster
Machine controls everything. People just sit around, not communicating.
144 In the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesha woman, about five feet high, with
a face as white as a fungus.
146 I want you to come and see me.ÉI want to see you not through the machine. (Feelings of
inauthenticity of experience).
148 Kuno wants to visit the surface of the earth. Needs real feeling outside of control of
machine. Lectures are insufficient. Risks death to do it.
149 There was a button that produced literature.
153 She studied the civilization that had immediately preceded her ownthe civilization that
had mistaken the functions of the system, and had used it for bringing people to
things, instead of for bringing things to people.
157 Her anxiety [when traveling] increased.
167 “Man must be adapted to his surroundings, must he not?” Logic for killing strong
looking infants. Compare with psychotropic drugs.
171 Kuno: “I heard voices in the silence, and again they strengthened me.” Schizophrenic
auditory hallucinations. He is the mad one in the society.
176 Cannot you seeÉthat it is we who are dying, and that down here the only thing that
really lives is the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot
make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of
touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it
has paralyzed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it.
180 Kuno wakes up. “I was surrounded by artificial air, artificial peace, and my friends
were calling to me down speaking tubes to know whether I had come across any new
ideas lately.
183 “A generation absolutely colourless.”
____________
The Experience Machine Robert Nozick
Argues against idea that pleasure, and only pleasure, matters us. If that were true, we’d have
overwhelming reason to want to be hooked up to a machine that would cause favorite
sensations. Nozick argues few would go for this, because of desires to act in certain
ways, be certain sorts of people, and be in contact with reality. If so, then these things
matter for reasons independent of the pleasure they bring.
Experience machine. Preprogram your life’s events for two years, then have 10 minutes or ten
hours for programming next two years. While in tank, you’ll think it’s actually
happening.
492 “What else can matter to us, other than how our lives feel from the inside?”
492 We want to be a certain way. A person floating in a tank is an indeterminate blob. (cf.
Forster).
492 Plugging into a machine is a kind of suicide.
492 Why should we be concerned only with how our time is filled, but not with what we
are?
492 Limited to manmade reality. No actual contact with deeper reality, though the
experience of it can be simulated.
492 Intensity of conflict over psychoactive drugs, which some view as local experience
machines, while others view as avenues to a deeper reality.
492 Experience machine doesn’t meet our desire to be a certain way. We need a
transformation machine which transforms us into whatever sort of person we’d like to
be.
492 Surely one would not use the transformation machine to become as one would wish,
and thereupon plug into the experience machine! (Why not?)
493 Result machine produces any result in the world you would produce, and injects your
vector input into any other activity.
493 Perhaps what we desire is to live (an active verb) ourselves, in contact with reality.
(And this machines cannot do for us.)