Hello incorporeal human. We have no time for pleasantries, so let’s just assume we are two curious friends who tolerate each other on their journey for a better understanding of everything. We will start with some basic questions. What does it mean for something to be real? Is our respect for reality the ultimate concept we value most or is there another facet of human existence which is more fundamental? And since we are on this topic, what about truth? Do we really find ourselves in a post-truth era, where we are foolishly relinquishing facts and are forcefully replacing them with imagined and preference-driven non-sense? That would be very unsavoury indeed, but is it unpalatable under any circumstances? What’s up with all that?

Ok, these are too many questions to start the day and we are already overly ambitious if we think we can answer them! What I am going to try though is to finally face this nagging idea that reality is only significant to the extent that it is useful in relation to our well-being! I know how that sounds like and it can be easily misinterpreted, so let us see if that’s just pretentious babble or if there is some validity behind it.

I will start, quite paradoxically, with the admittance that I value truth very highly. We cannot function in the world properly if we don’t have at least a minimal inclination for respecting the truth. I dare anyone to question the solidity of a concrete wall, the burning temperature of a red-hot ember, the gravity of the situation when you face the edge of a cliff, the piercing nature of our reflective self, or the annoying shriek of a disgruntled teenager. There are intrinsic properties of the world around us and within us which we can only ignore at our own peril.

Also, beyond just being an inclination, we have even evolved to respect the truth, in a manner of speaking. One of the definitions for “truth” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “the property of being in accord with fact or reality”. That is exactly what most life forms are unwittingly trying to do: align themselves with the reality around them (had it not been for some humans, I would have been at liberty to write “all life forms”, but alas, my fingers are tied). There is a selection pressure in nature to remove the unicellular simpletons from the gene pool and to favour the von Neumanns among the cyanobacteria which can distinguish light from darkness. Sure, the selfish gene is one of the basic units when we think of evolution, but world-mapping is the silent hero lurking behind the scenes. To be alive is to move and in order to move your butt you need to be aware of the surroundings where said butt can wiggle. Less facetiously, a model of the world is required in order to navigate it and the less in tune it is with reality, the more detrimental it is to the survival of the individual or of the species. A warped vision of the world can lead to a levelled rigor mortis. Of course, an accurate view of reality doesn’t guarantee survival, because just as you are mapping the world increasingly more accurately, so do the brains of your predators, those rotten villains who are trying to compete with you in this vicious game of hide-and-seek. And there is nothing you can do when serendipity decides to shorten your chances haphazardly. However, an accurate model increases your likelihood of survival, so you start to cherish the truth. Unbeknownst to you, of course.

Another important point to make is that the world exists even without an observer. It seems quite obvious and trivial, but it needs to be re-emphasized in this discussion or I risk some public lynching later in the afternoon. Whatever idea I’m defending in this string of characters will never deny that there is an objective reality with specific rules and rigid axioms in the fabric of spacetime. We are embedded in a multiverse that follows a particular “logic” of its own and we would be foolish to think otherwise. We are the products of an outside reality, not the architects of it, and we exist within the implicit rules of existence (I’m quite sure that’s not tautological). There is only one truth and it is ingrained in the nature of things, whether we will ever be able to fully comprehend it in all areas of inquiry or not. All models of the world will always be gauged by how close to reality they are. The alternative is delusion.

The four statements which can summarize the discussion so far are the following:

1. There is an objective reality out there, which is governed by fundamentals laws.
2. Truth can only be defined in relation to the objective reality.
3. Humans (among other life forms) have been incentivized by natural selection to search for the truth (or, at the very least, to acquire a model of the world which is aligned with reality as much as possible).
4. Objecting to the truth is to be voluntarily delusional.

But here is the twist and the twist comes under the shape of a few questions:

• Can illusion become preferable over the objective reality in the right conditions?
• Should the actual reality truly be the measure by which we value our own life and experience?

Jumping fearlessly into the next thought, I will mention that there are many forms of delusion. Some of them fall under the umbrella of ‘biases’. It is utterly impressive how easily we can fall victims to a suite of cognitive biases. Just to state a few (from Michael Shermer’s “The Believing Brain”): authority bias, Barnum effect, believability bias, clustering illusion, confabulation bias, consistency bias, expectation bias, false-consensus effect, Halo effect, herd bias, in-group bias, primacy effect, self-fulfilling prophecy, stereotyping bias. And many more! The more famous are the availability heuristic, cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. The availability heuristic refers to the shape of our conscious thoughts which is limited by the prior information that come readily to mind; cognitive dissonance is proof of our impressive stubbornness with our ability to hold to mind contradicting ideas and yet feel very serene about it; and the confirmation bias makes us look only where we want to look when we are rudely pressured into defending our beliefs by archenemies. We are true experts in fooling ourselves or letting ourselves be fooled in our daily activities, either due to our ignorance, our stubbornness or our inability to bootstrap ourselves out of our foolishness.

In other words, we have plenty of reasons to think that we are already delusional most of the time, so isn’t it already the status quo? However, despite these biases fogging our minds, leading us astray or keeping us locked in various ideologies, there is something we are altogether sure about, a feeling we can’t easily shake away: the experiences we have must be real for them to have any value to us. On this point, humans are particularly sober and unyielding in general. Why is that?

Why are gamers everywhere reproached for “wasting their time”? Why do humans read “This Perfect Day” by Ira Levin and cheer the protagonist during his efforts to crumble the illusions which keep people in a serene, albeit artificial, state of mind? Why is Cypher from Matrix immediately dismissed and vilified when he yearns for the simulated veil over the harshness of wakefulness? (I admit the fact that he callously killed his fellow humans in his attempts to recapture that veil. That is what made him a villain.) Why are drug addicts not better understood in their (admittedly) misguided ways to make their life more bearable?

These waters were tested and probed before, most famously by philosopher Robert Nozick in his popular book from 1974, “Anarchy, State, and Utopia”, with a thought experiment he called “The Experience Machine”. To understand the context, he was trying to show that people don’t only care about how they feel “from the inside”, but that there are other factors they use in the assessment of their lived experiences.

I will not fully adhere to the exact details of his thought experiment here, but he asked us to imagine that “superduper neuropsychologists” are able to stimulate your brain in such a way as to make you believe you’re having any experience whatsover without being conscious of the fact that it’s a simulation. (Very much like in the Matrix, before sourpuss Morpheus came with his colourful pills to ruin the day.) Also, this simulation is meant to offer you pleasant experiences that you wouldn’t have otherwise been able to witness. For example:

• You wish to experience the life onboard a space station during its voyage to Betelgeuse before the latter goes supernova? Done!
• Do you wish to go through some kind of metamorphosis and experience life from the perspective of a newt? Weird, but done!
• Are you sufficiently narcissistic and wish you had the power of creating new universes and make creatures within it bow before you? Done, you solipsistic nincompoop! (But don't expect them to be conscious.)

There are many variants of this experiment we can imagine: you decide beforehand what kind of experiences you wish to have; you can go inside the simulation to have a look and enjoy a few experiences, but then get out; only a number of people will go in at a time, while the rest of humanity will continue living in the real world, and so on.

But let’s make the thought experiment relatively simple and strip it down to the bare bones by going with the following boundary conditions (assuming they are all possible in this fictitious experiment of ours):

1. All humans are going inside the simulation. There is no reason then for you to regret abandoning anyone behind or to feel too selfish over the choice while others continue to go through the usual drudgery.
2. The simulation will guarantee your well-being at all times. Whatever struggle is simulated (if any!) will not be painful to you, if that makes sense to you.
3. You will not be aware of the fact that you are in a simulation (unless that is conducive to your well-being).
4. You will not dictate beforehand what experiences you will have in the simulation. However, the experiences will be exquisite to you, as defined by the very nature of the thought experiment.
5. You will remain in the simulation until your physical death.

Now, stranger from an even stranger land, do you choose to go in the simulation and experience wondrous events with your well-being fully ensured or do you wish to continue your life outside the simulation, but on the plains of the real world with whatever experiences may come your way, pleasant and painful?

Analyse your first reaction and then see if you stick with that decision when you give it a further thought.

In the original thought experiment, Robert reaches the conclusion that almost no one would accept to remain indefinitely inside the simulation, because “we learn that something matters to us in addition to experience”. He splits his reasoning into three arguments:

1. Humans not only want to experience doing things, but to actually do them as well.
2. Humans care about what kind of people they are and so they won't accept to be just "an indeterminate blob" while plugged to the simulation.
3. There is no direct contact with "any deeper reality" when inside the simulation.

From my very own real experience, after prodding a number of people on this topic, everyone seems to be in agreement with Robert. Of course, the number of data points I have is quite limited, but it seems to be the case that the vast majority of people would indeed refuse to plunge into the simulation. If you also share that sentiment, then it seems like I will need to be particularly persuasive to have a chance in making you even doubt your initial reaction. On the other hand, if you are already packed and ready wholeheartedly to go to the Superduper Brain Center and be connected, then maybe I can sprinkle some further arguments in your direction if you need to convince others to accept your lunacy.

Personally, I also sensed a resistance the first time I heard about the experiment, despite a very strong gravitational pull towards the simulation. However, now I’m in the position where I can hardly understand why anyone wouldn’t accept the simulation.

After reading Robert’s objections, I find it difficult to distinguish between the 1st argument and the 3rd argument. People may indeed wish to both experience and do things (1st argument), but only because of the worth they are attributing to activities from the real world (3rd argument). If people are experiencing the climb to the top of Olympus Mons on Mars inside the simulation, but are not satisfied that they haven’t actually done it (assessment done outside of the simulation, either before or after they are plugged in), then it must be that their disappointment stems from the fact that it didn’t meet their criterium of being real. So in a quick sleight of hand, “doing it” was already a short for “doing it in the real world”. (Note: No innuendos were actively meant in the writing of this and I’m not responsible for my subconscious.)

The 2nd argument is a problem of character and personhood. According to Robert, it is not only that we would think of ourselves as blobs, but going into the machine would also be a form of suicide. The experiences would no longer reflect our personhood, as we would only be at the recipient end of an influx of images and induced states with no correlation to our true self.

To answer this concern requires tackling the concept of personal identity, which will be the topic of a future discussion in this remote corner of the web. However, I believe that my attempt to counter his 3rd (and main) argument will also be strong and wide enough to cover the 2nd argument as well.

(Note: I seem to have writhed my way out of answering three questions and made it critical to answer only one. However, remember that the whole purpose of this long rambling here is to mainly address the value of simulated experiences compared to real experiences, regardless of the validity of the other arguments. I will leave it to your judgement, anonymous reader and passionate executioner, whether you agree with these dodging moves.)

Nonetheless, before moving on, I do wish to emphasize that the way we would even think to reply to this concern of personhood greatly depends on what exactly do we expect to happen in the simulation. Although it’s not quite how I picture the whole thought experiment, I will try to be fair and present what Robert may have had in mind (or at least a “steel man” version of it):

• The experiences from within the simulation are completely identical regardless of the person connected to the machine. If a billion people are connected to the machine and all would be shown the same "episode", then there would be a billion identical experiences. Even the mysterious and intimate sense of qualia would be similar between these people, as we are to assume that everything in the brain is manipulated in just the right way to achieve the desired effect, i.e., simulate a particular experience. If that is the case, then almost nothing of the original mind would be preserved in the simulation. It would simply be a configuration which is supposedly perfectly imprinted onto the brains of anyone connected. (Biologically, that is very implausible, but who are we to let that stop us now from our mind games?!)

This scenario would indeed be a form of suicide, as Robert suggested. People may squirm at the thought that they would cease to exist only for their brains to continue on their own, experiencing exciting adventures and being filled to the brim with the elixir of Well-Being. An entire population of brain clones engulfed by a sweet sameness. No matter how pleasurable that may be for the brains within, people outside don’t seem to find that very appealing. I already mentioned before that I felt an initial resistance upon hearing about the experience machine; that resistance was anchored to this very point. However, given how I increasingly prioritized well-being over individuality during my search for answers in this multiverse of ours, the more attractive became the simulation. But that jump in priorities is a multi-faceted odyssey involving the additional concepts of meaning, morality, free will and personal identity. And did I not say that the topic of personal identity is a challenge for another time?!

And now back to the main topic. Is a connection to actual reality required for our experiences to have value? Could it be that reality is only important to the extent that it is useful and conducive to well-being?

Our emotions and our thoughts are all the products of the brain and its neurochemical shenanigans. Consciousness itself is the result of all those strange machinations that occur between the synapses. Our very own selves are structures which have emerged from matter and we perceive the world according to a biological algorithm that has been written and constantly updated for billions of years. So yes, I understand the attachment we have to reality, the respect we retain to this ancient model that confers us the experiences we currently have. We are even bound to obey it, as our instincts have been attuned according to its whims. We look at the world and we don’t easily accept to look sideways, because our very existence depended on keeping our sight straight, on keeping our model up to date. Falling on the side of fantasy meant making a mistake and there were forces in our vicinity which are quick to punish us for it, whether that meant hunger, beasts or calamity. (I’m also imagining an early human afflicted by “alternative truths”, who confronted with lava flowing through his backyard, decided to take a dip. But we don’t need to go that far to understand how respecting the truth is in our interest.)

We talked about the necessity of creating a map of the world. The value of that model was determined eons ago based on how long you survived and how efficient you were in your reproductive abilities, the macro-currencies that natural selection is using during her gambling sprees. So the value of the model was measured by its utility! We have surely further evolved in the meantime and we are capable of experiencing a vast array of internal states due to our self-awareness and cognition, but we are still shaped by our biology and by the environment around us. And we are undoubtedly still driven by the model which brought us here.

I would argue then that even though reality undoubtedly is, what we perceive is a model of it. And we value our experiences in light of this model when they match the reality to which they belong. There is a strong connection between the rules we follow in our daily lives and the world to which they apply. Change one without the other and you obtain conflict and chaos. But change both appropriately and you get a new starting point from where you can make your next move! The value we accord to our experiences depends not on reality, but to which reality they pertain.

You don’t agree? Let’s try this: imagine that there is a “glitch in the Matrix” right now and you suddenly become aware of the fact that all your life so far has already been from within a simulation. Not only that, but there isn’t even a real version of you out there. You’re all that is, this elaborate string of code that has the gift (to be read as “the curse” if you’re using my thesaurus) of consciousness. May be quite distressing indeed if you haven’t taken measures to be ready for such a moment. After a few minutes of hyperventilating and a few whispered obscenities in a couple of languages you picked up along the way, you decide either that your life was stripped away of meaning or that it doesn’t change the worth of your lived experiences. You decide to either judge your existence based on the truth of the reality above or acknowledge the fact that your life made sense in the context of the simulation below and keep going.

Is a connection to actual reality required for our experiences to have value? No! The worth of your experiences is gauged differently depending on which page from the book of realities you are looking at. “Real” reality is only one of many realities in which conscious minds can potentially find comfort and meaning. It is only a matter of finding or engineering the others.

However, in our current reality, our evolution also brought us in a configuration that falls on a spectrum between suffering and well-being, with a high predisposition for the former and an exquisite thirst for the latter. So it’s time to come back to the concept of utility. As mentioned earlier, in our incipient state as furry animals we were driven only by survival and reproduction. We still have those in our repertoire, but our ability to reflect on our actions led us to navigating the world in a constant search for equanimity, a state of mind thoroughly desirable regardless of how we may differ in our interpretation of it. Some are looking for the small pleasures of life, others are ravenous for meaning, most are just hoping for a break from hardship, but we are all trying to get closer to our aspirations. It is this search for personal well-being that fuels our every action.

As I will surely keep highlighting in all of my whispers, well-being is the core value of all conscious creatures by which all other values are measured. Other animals may not think of their existence in these terms, but they act according to them. Whether they are trying to satiate their hunger or quench their thirst, they are always unconsciously trying to move away from suffering and discomfort to more pleasurable states. All that human animals have truly achieved is to greatly enlarge the playing field: we are capable of much more suffering, but also much more potent pleasures. So the stakes are much higher for achieving our sought state of well-being, given how many more ways we have in which we can feel pain.

Could it be that reality is only important to the extent that it is useful and conducive to well-being? Yes! Whatever meaning we may find in this reality of ours is only relevant to the extent to which it offers equanimity. Otherwise it’s a non-sequitur. Even in moments of altruism and sacrifice, we may accept feeling pain so that others are better off and as a result we are better off as well. When we go at great lengths and take great pains in achieving a goal, we do it for the promise of serenity at the end or because the struggle itself is a source of gratification. We don’t do pain for the sake of it.

(Note: There is much more to explore here, but one does not travel through the entire multiverse in a light-second. We’ll travel the next second next time.)

With all that in mind, a simulation which has the primary goal of offering us what we already strongly desire in the real world doesn’t sound all that bad, does it!? (I can already imagine how you reply to that with a definitive “It still does, you nincompoop!”)