The Experience Machine is a short section of Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Harvard University philosopher Robert Nozick. The text is one of the best known attempts at a refutation of ethical hedonism, based on considering a choice between everyday reality and an apparently preferable simulated reality.
Nozick asks us to imagine an experience machine that could give us whatever desirable or pleasurable experiences that we could possibly want. "Superduper neuropsychologists" have figured out a way to stimulate a person's brain in order to induce pleasurable experiences. We would not be able to tell that these experiences were not veridical. He asks us, if we were given the choice, would we choose the machine over real life?
A counter-argument to this thought-experiment was brought up by Elliott Sober. He offers an egoistic explanation for our motives: that we find the idea of the ignorant life repulsive, whereas we find the idea of the real life appealing. He believes there is a distinction between the idea of a pleasant state and the pleasant idea of a state. Even though it is the case that we would be happier in the ignorant life, at the time it would make us happier to choose the real life, which is why we choose that.
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