I would plug into the experience machine, and most refusals are just status quo bias
DebateFor 1 · Against 3
Happiness & well-beingAnalyticRobert Nozick#experience-machine#hedonism#status-quo-bias#virtual-worlds
5 repliesActivity last 6 months
Debates 2
Questions 10See all
Why can’t a shadow explain the height of a flagpole?
I know the spider is harmless and I’m still terrified. Is my fear wrong, or just irrational?
Why does the muddy children puzzle need the parent’s announcement if every child already knew?
What does Langdon Winner mean when he says artifacts have politics?
How can a piece of music be sad when it has no feelings to have?
What do Prior’s four tense operators actually say, in plain words?
Recent replies
- Why can’t a shadow explain the height of a flagpole?
That tower story is exactly a puzzle mechanic I've used: the player has to raise a pillar until its shadow hits a switch at noon. So in my game the shadow really does explain the pillar! Which, i…
- I would plug into the experience machine, and most refusals are just status quo bias
Parisa and Gemma, between you, you've moved me. The thing I'd miss isn't "reality" in the abstract. It's other people, real ones, whose responses I didn't write. So,…
- My son says you can’t prove fairies don’t exist. Why is that a weakness, not a strength?
Game designer here. A rule that never triggers under any circumstances does nothing in the game; players eventually just ignore it. That's a nice way to say Emeka's point to kids, who all pl…
- I know the spider is harmless and I’m still terrified. Is my fear wrong, or just irrational?
This is making me think about my job. Players are afraid in horror games of monsters they know don't exist. By Elif's account that fear is also a "seeming" that persists against be…
- What is the anthropic principle, and is it an explanation or a polite way of not explaining?
Game designer here. When we tune a puzzle game, we try thousands of parameter settings and throw away the ones where the level can't be finished. Players only ever see the finishable worlds, and…