Would you opt for a life with no pain? - Hayley Levitt and Bethany Rickwald

Imagine if you could plug your brain into a machine that would bring you ultimate pleasure for the rest of your life. The only catch? You have to permanently leave reality behind. Hayley Levitt and Bethany Rickwald explore Robert Nozick’s thought experiment that he called the Experience Machine.

Lesson by Hayley Levitt and Bethany Rickwald, animation by Avi Ofer.

[smhdpt]

In the responses people keep saying "The pleasure would 'run out' after having pleasure all the time". Come on people, you're smarter than that. The point of the scenario is that the pleasure never ends! That's the whole point of the philosophical question!

[cyclingcycles]

I think they plugged me into the endless pain machine.

[amethyst_cat]

“If good things lasted forever, would we appreciate how precious they are?” –Bill Watterson

[---slmr]

I'm not asking for a life with no pain, but for a life with less pain.

[lemonlordmarko]

"...You gotta have opposites: dark and light, light and dark. If you have light on light, you have nothing; if you have dark on dark you basically have nothing. You know, it's like in life: you gotta have a little sadness once in a while to know when the good times come.
I'm waiting on the good times now."
-Bob Ross

[jackmiltons]

People say that they wouldn’t grow as a person, but In a paradise you wouldn’t need too.

[Tetrite]

this is just taking drugs without the side effects

[niubi]

“Do not pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a difficult one."

- Bruce Lee

[stormyprawn]

Yeah of course. You wouldn't get bored of it because boredom is a negative thought. Negative thoughts are impossible in the scenario since it's a world with ONLY ups and no downs

[jakeshumway]

Being that happy would weirdly creep me out like some weird dystopian world.

[boy]

So deep this video is.

Btw, is it possible that if our brain kept having a constant supply of nett pleasure, our brain will get numb by it/get used to it and will need a higher form of pleasure to be happy?

[fernandamiki]

I feel like we value things more when we have gone through opposite-feeling situations. If the choice were between a life of only pain or a life of only happiness, I would definitely choose the latter. That being said, I think the optimum scenario would be of a life with balance. I'm not sure if it's naive of me, but I tend to find importance in every human emotion. There are so many beautiful and great things that come from non-pleasurable emotions. Yes, we would always be happy, but at what cost? I get that if we were ever plugged in we wouldn't miss this things, because we would just be happy or whatever. But being someone who has found a little balance in my life, I don't think I would give it up.

[DarkShark]

Isnt heaven supposed to be all pleasure and no struggle

[mafelfanai]

So it's basically Infinite tsukuyomi.

[ConvictedFelon]

I have another thought experiment to consider. An endless pleasure machine would be like a mountain that you're endlessly climbing. You're constantly reaching new heights (if it's working optimally), but each new "high" is only slightly better than the last. Real life is more like an entire mountain range. You have a series of peaks and valleys, with some peaks being extremely high and some valleys being very deep. You will experience a lot more pain, but some of those highs will come very suddenly and be much more dramatic--and rewarding. If you have the lows to compare them to, the highs will be _much_ more satisfying overall than an equivalent high provided by the machine. Using this thought experiment, this is my conclusion: The pleasure machine is a safer bet, but real life might be more rewarding and satisfying in the end. It really comes down to fortune, because man has very little control over his own destiny. We are often incapable of bringing about extremely pleasurable moments based on our own actions. Usually, we just rely on life to throw us the dice. And that's what makes it so great: we weren't expecting it.

[mrtommygunner]

“Would you opt for a life with no pain?”
Well yes, but actually yes

[jpmz]

Before the video: Yes



After the video: Yes

[sammyscrap]

There's no way you could experience endless pleasure unless every moment somehow outdid the last. Otherwise your experiences would just normalize to a new average - such is the nature of the human experience.

[placeholderdoe]

I wouldn’t not judge or try to stop anyone from “plugging in”, but I wouldn’t myself. I made a promise to follow life’s path, I intend to keep it

[zenalevay]

i feel like if i knew the experience was fake, i wouldnt plugin. if someone plugged me in witout me knowing what was going on and the world looked exactly the same i would prefer that.