Aegis wants you to think

Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. . . . If you are worried about missing out on desirable experiences, we can suppose that business enterprises have researched thoroughly the lives of many others. You can pick and choose from their large library or smorgasbord of such experiences, selecting your life's experiences for, say, the next two years. After two years have passed, you will have ten minutes or ten hours out of the tank, to select the experiences of your next two years. Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there; you'll think it's all actually happening. . . .

So. . .Zenius . . .
Would you plug in?

If many others or my family did, yes. Life would become less satisfactory with fewer people in it, especially if they were close to me, so if a significant portion of the human population or the rest of my family plugged in then I would have to also do so to maintain the same level of satisfaction. However, if it remained a fringe thing to do, then you couldn't go too overboard with the good things or life would become less satisfactory there too, and since I am of good social standing slightly increased happiness wouldn't be worth occasional extreme psychological trauma of "my life is not real" and making myself essentially dead to my family.

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So...what matters is the desire to do, rather than just experience, certain things?

Nope. Whats the point of living life if its fake?

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>Would you plug it in.
I guess so, just to try it.

Hell no. I'd rather live my own life, making my own decisions instead of having everything controlled by someone/something else.

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Well to be honest, it would help for people who had disablilties, but for me I wouldn't want to go through that, because it's a form of mind control and programming of the psyche, that is not something I'm comfortable with. As a matter is fact it's CRUEL. But if it was optional, it dependds on the type of mental vacation I wanted. Kind of like the Programming of TOTAL RECALL.

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Exactally, this is the script from Total Recall. Personally, I'd do it, make me a undercover superspy disguised as a porn-star with frequent trips into space.

EDIT: But then, two years of laziness means getting out of the 'tank' to a puny body would be miserable, this thing may get addictive and ruin real life, so on second thought I'd still do it.

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And I thought the site couldn't get any worse.

What?

I'd like to put forth a hypothetical situation of myself being a test subject for the machine. Suppose I "plug in" for the very first time, just to try it.


Are my memories of entering the virtual reality (via the machine) erased? Are they replaced with false memories leading me to believe the world I've just entered has been here all along? Are my memories of planning out my every move for the next two years erased? Is the resulting void left empty so it feels as if everything I do is for the first time? I would assume so, given the facts that I don't know of the false world's existence and I feel like everything is actually happening, as stated in the quote above. If so, it would pose as a serious threat to my mental well-being once I realize that the world all around me: the sky, the suburbs, the soil beneath my own feet... never truly existed. And even if the virtual world was created in such a way that I could never figure out that it's not real, what would happen when my two years of planned experiences come to an end, ripping me from the universe I've known, or, technically, led to believe I've known, for so long? I would be devastated to learn that my life has been a complete lie for the past two years. That's over 700 days! And then I would be given just 10 hours to plan out my life for the next two years. Then, the whole thing would just start over. Sure, I could withdraw from the program. But how do I make up for those two lost years? How will I feel in a world that's completely different than the one I've been in for those two long years? So, as of now, seeing little pros and many cons, I've settled on a firm, though not unbreakable, NO.


I'd like to ask a question to further analyze the possible pros and cons of this situation. If I understood the above quote from TensaiKashou correctly, it has been assumed that people in the real world can only communicate with other people in the real world because the test subjects of the alternate universe are floating in a tank somewhere, unable to communicate. This is very true. TensaiKashou feels that once one's family/friends or a large amount of the human population uses the experience machine, one would also have to enter to keep up with one's needs for interaction. But, has this law been reciprocated for people in the virtual universe as well? In other words, if I enter the experience machine without my family tagging along, am I not able to see them anymore? I don't think this would be true. Because the real world is not perfect, those who do not use the experience machine can't communicate with those who are using it. But inside the machine, the world is perfect. What if my perfect world involves a person who isn't in the alternate world with me? Here is my question:

Can those in the virtual universe conjure up people still in the real world to interact with, such as family and friends, despite them still being in the real world, therefore creating two of the same person? Can people in the digital world even communicate with each other? Are the people I see in my user-created world actually clones of people I want to see in my world, meaning that I have no contact to other people at all, confining me to the world I created?

If one was in the alternate world, could one's needs for interaction only be satisfied if one's family and friends or a large amount of the human population entered the alternate reality as well? If the answer to that question is yes, then the answer to my question would be no, which makes sense. But, from this, I can infer that the digital universes of all who use the machine are connected to each other because once one's family/friends enter, they would be able to communicate with each other and satisfy their needs for interaction. I highly doubt this is true. What if Person A's perfect world differs from Person B's? Isn't that what the main goal of the experience machine is, to create everyone's perfect world? Suppose Person A's planned experiences involve playing DDR with Person B, who also happens to be in the digital universe, at 11:30 on December 18. However, Person B's planned experiences do not involve Person A... ever. It would be impossible to satisfy both Person A and Person B. Aegis wrote:


Because Aegis has not stated that imperfections may occur, I can assume that my stay in the the alternate world would be perfect, meaning 100% of what I want to happen... happens. In order to meet the needs of both Person A and Person B, two separate realities would have to be created, as well as a clone of Person B to play DDR with Person A. This means that not only have I disproven the theory that the mechanically-created universes are interconnected, but I have also proven that people I see in my virtual world aren't actually people, they're clones made to keep my world perfect. Having been the one who designed this entire world, I would become, essentially, my own pawn. I don't think I like that... so once again, I'm settled on NO.

Now that I've analyzed the data I've been given, I'd like to know if everything I stated in this short essay is correct. Did a certain thread creator have intentions to describe a machine different than the one I imagined, but inconveniently leave holes in the story? Did a certain thread responder believe something other than what I deducted as their POV? I'm convinced I've worked out all the missing details of this perplexing situation, but if I missed something, you noticed a contradiction in my theory, or you have a completely different theory of your own, please let me know. I'll be awaiting responses to further analyze the data and, hopefully, reach a final answer.

~Ryuzaki573, Unofficial 13-year-old Philosopher

P.S. Aegis succeeded in the overall goal of this thread. I did think. A lot. Now it's time for some strawberry cake.

That is for one to drift off to and for us to discuss.

Oh my God, are people really feeding this thread? REALLY?

And what is wrong with this thread, may I ask?

Seriously? This thread makes you think we've hit bottom? Not "how to disguise a fart" or one of the other ridiculous forum games that have been popping up in recent weeks?

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Pie is just hating on Aegis.

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I approve this thread.

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I approve of this thread by approving of Ali's post. Better than a Lady Gaga .gif

I would take "plugging in" as simply one more experience I could have. There is a smorgasbord of things I can do on the internet and a lot of times those things can replace doing them in real life (watching a concert, reading newspapers, hanging out with friends) but I wouldn't let it take away the opportunity to do everything else. I'm a geek and I feel cut off when the internet is down but I wouldn't want to spend my whole life in front of a monitor either.

Believe me, I would love to just delete the whole forum games subforum altogether.

But quick, while we're savoring this juicy topic, let's discuss what we would do if communists invaded our small Colorado town and we had to band together with other youths to fight them off!

Pie, stop being an idiot. Seriously. :/