The Experience Machine

Picture this:

There's a machine. You step into it, close your eyes, and wake up in a world that feels completely real. You don’t know that it's a simulation. You can live life the way you want. You can fall in love, win the Olympics, or become a famous artist or philosopher. Every experience feels vivid and meaningful, and you’ll feel proud of yourself and loved. You’ll feel like your life matters.

But it’s all fake, and none of it actually happens. You’re just floating in a tank while your brain is fed perfect experiences.

Would you plug in?

This was the question philosopher Robert Nozick posed in the 1970s. He called it the Experience Machine and used it to challenge the idea that happiness is all that matters. Because if happiness or pleasure is the ultimate goal, then this machine should be the ultimate life. You’d get the best possible version of existence, without any of the pain or failure that usually comes with it.

But most people say no. They wouldn’t plug in.

And that’s weird. If we care about feeling good, why reject the one thing that guarantees it?

Nozick thought this meant we care about more than just happiness. We want to live in contact with reality. We want to actually do things, not just believe we are doing them. It matters to us whether our relationships, achievements, and experiences are genuine. Even if we couldn’t tell the difference, something about the fake version feels hollow.

There’s something in us that wants truth, even if it hurts. We want our lives to mean something, and meaning might depend on real consequences, real risk, real struggle. If you "climb Everest" in the machine, did you really climb it? If you "fall in love," does it count if no one else exists?

You could say the machine strips life of its rough edges, but maybe those edges are the very things that make life meaningful in the first place.

Of course, there are people who might say yes. People who’ve been through trauma, or deep suffering, or who feel like the real world has nothing left to offer. For them, the machine might feel like relief. And that’s not something to dismiss. It’s a reminder that not everyone starts with the same relationship to reality. Not everyone is running from the same things.

But here’s where the thought experiment gets eerie. It isn’t really fiction anymore. We already live with pieces of the experience machine. Social media lets us curate perfect versions of ourselves. Virtual reality keeps getting better. Our lives are full of simulations that blur the line between what’s real and what just feels real. So maybe the better question now isn’t just would you plug in, but are you already halfway there?

The Experience Machine isn’t just about a machine. It’s about what kind of life we want. It asks whether joy is enough on its own, or if we need something deeper. It asks whether meaning comes from inside us, or from our relationship to something outside us. Something real.

So think about it. Would you plug in?

And if not, what does that say about who you are?