# The Experience Machine Argument ## Intro Imagine a machine that could give you any life you wanted. You would feel that you were falling in love, writing a great book, winning the race, being admired. None of it would be real; you would be floating in a tank. But from the inside it would feel perfect, and you would never know. Would you plug in for life? Most people say no. They want their friends to be real friends, their achievements to be real achievements, and their beliefs to be true, even if the truth is harder than the dream. That is a strange thing to want, if all that matters is how life feels. It suggests we love reality itself, not just the feelings reality gives us. The Experience Machine Argument asks where that love comes from. If our minds were shaped only to survive and reproduce, we would expect them to love whatever works, true or not. If we were made by a God who is Truth, for a life in the truth, a love of reality over comfort is exactly what we would expect. The argument does not say everyone always loves the truth. People run from it all the time, which Scripture also predicts. It says that the love is there, and it fits one story much better than the other. ## In full The Experience Machine Argument is a likelihood argument from the human valuation of reality. Its datum is the reflectively stable preference, displayed in Robert Nozick's experience machine (1974) and in the empirical literature that followed, for genuine contact with reality over experientially identical illusion. The datum is real but contested: De Brigard (2010) showed that status quo bias drives some of the response, Weijers (2014) built less biased versions with mixed results, and Hindriks and Douven (2018) found that under a third chose the classic machine while about half would take a more realistic experience pill; information avoidance (Golman, Hagmann and Loewenstein, 2017) shows the opposite tendency at work in ordinary life. The spine (P1 to P5) argues that an intrinsic, not merely instrumental, valuation of truth is not specifically expected on a fitness-only history, since evolutionary game-theoretic results (Hoffman and colleagues) and Plantinga's argument indicate that selection rewards useful rather than true representations; whereas on Christian theism, where human beings bear the image of a God who is Truth and are made to know Him, it is expected, as is its corruption into the avoidance of unwelcome truth. The argument differs from the [Argument from Perception](/codex/argument-from-perception/), which concerns whether perception can be about and answerable to a world; this one concerns why we want to be in contact with the world at all. The conclusion is confirmatory and modest, since the datum is partly confounded by bias and the naturalist has a credible byproduct account. ## Format note This page is a **braided case**: a valid spine, with each premise supported by an inductive strand of evidence, an abductive table of rival explanations and a convergence note, then a knot that checks for double counting, a likelihood ledger and a defeater gate. Four fields are braided. **Philosophy** supplies Nozick's thought experiment and the case that we value more than experience. **Psychology** tests it, finding both a real preference for reality and real biases, along with the opposite habit of avoiding hard truths. **Reality**, the question of what is actually there, is the object of the preference, the thing we want our lives to touch. **Objective truth** is what the preference aims at, and the evolutionary results of Hoffman and Plantinga ask whether a mind shaped only by fitness should aim at it. Other arguments in this format are gathered at [Ris3n Arguments](/codex/ris3n-arguments/). ## The spine | # | Premise | |---|---| | **P1** | **The datum.** Human beings display a widespread, reflectively stable preference for genuine contact with reality over experientially identical illusion. | | **P2** | **Intrinsic, not only instrumental.** That preference values truth and reality for their own sake, since in the machine case it persists when, by stipulation, illusion would cost nothing in experience. | | **P3** | **What fitness predicts.** On a fitness-only history of the mind, cognition is shaped to produce useful representations, not true ones as such, so an intrinsic valuation of truth is not specifically expected. | | **P4** | **What theism predicts.** On Christian theism, human beings are made in the image of a God who is Truth, to know reality and Him, so an intrinsic love of truth is expected, and so is its corruption into avoidance. | | **P5** | **The likelihood principle.** Evidence far more expected on one hypothesis than another confirms the first over the second. | | **C** | **Therefore the human love of reality over comfort confirms Christian theism over naturalism.** | **Validity.** P1 and P2 establish the datum: an intrinsic preference for reality. P3 says that datum is not specifically expected on naturalism; P4 says it is expected on theism. So the datum is more expected on theism, and P5 makes it confirmation. The form is a likelihood comparison closed by modus ponens. **Strength of the conclusion.** Confirmatory and modest. P1 is supported but partly confounded by bias; P3 depends on contested evolutionary arguments. The ledger reflects both. ## P1, The datum ### Inductive strand 1. **Nozick's thought experiment.** Robert Nozick, *Anarchy, State, and Utopia* (1974), pp. 42-45, describes a machine that gives any experiences you like while you float in a tank, and asks: "Would you plug in? What else can matter to us, other than how our lives feel from the inside?" He answers that we want to actually do things, not merely have the experience of doing them, to actually be a certain kind of person, and to be in contact with a deeper reality than one people construct. 2. **Most people refuse the classic version.** Frank Hindriks and Igor Douven, "Nozick's experience machine: An empirical study" (*Philosophical Psychology* 31, 2018), tested the original machine against more realistic variants. Only a minority, under a third, chose to plug into the classic machine, but about half of participants were willing to take an "experience pill" in a more realistic variant. The preference for reality is real, and it is sensitive to framing. 3. **The ancient testimony.** Aristotle opens the *Metaphysics* (I.1) with the claim that all human beings by nature desire to know. Augustine wrote that he had met many who wanted to deceive, but no one who wanted to be deceived (*Confessions* X.23). 4. **Grief at discovered deception.** People who learn that a loved one's affection was faked, or that a life's work was a fraud, do not usually say "but it felt real, so nothing was lost." They grieve a loss of reality. ### Abductive strand | Explanation of P1's data | Explanatory power | Scope | Simplicity | Ad hoc? | |---|---|---|---|---| | Humans value reality and truth in themselves | Explains refusal, grief at deception and the ancient testimony | Wide | One posit | No | | Status quo bias: people refuse to leave whatever life they have (De Brigard) | Explains part of the response | Narrow: does not cover grief at deception | Simple | No, and it is real | | Distrust of the machine (it might fail) | Explains some refusals | Narrow: the scenario stipulates reliability | Simple | Partly | ### Convergence Philosophy (Nozick, Aristotle, Augustine), experimental philosophy (Hindriks and Douven) and the common experience of betrayal reach P1. The experimental work also shows its limits, so the datum is stated as a widespread preference, not a universal one. ### Objections and rebuttals 1. *"De Brigard showed it is only status quo bias."* (Felipe De Brigard, "If you like it, does it matter if it's real?" *Philosophical Psychology* 23, 2010.) **Rebuttal.** De Brigard's reversed scenario, in which people are told they are already in a machine, did shift answers, and the argument concedes that bias explains part of the response. It does not explain why people grieve discovered deception in ordinary life, where no status quo favours the truth. 2. *"Weijers found the intuitions are mixed."* (Dan Weijers, "Nozick's experience machine is dead, long live the experience machine!" *Philosophical Psychology* 27, 2014.) **Rebuttal.** Weijers's bias-reduced versions gave no strong verdict either way. That weakens P1 as a universal claim and is why the ledger counts it as modest. The argument needs only that the preference is widespread and reflectively stable among those who have it. ## P2, Intrinsic, not only instrumental ### Inductive strand 1. **The machine removes every experiential payoff of truth.** By stipulation, the machine is reliable and its experiences are as good as or better than real life. Anyone who refuses is preferring reality when reality offers no difference in how life feels. 2. **People want true beliefs about things that cannot affect them.** People want to know what really happened to a relative long dead, whether a historical figure really said what is claimed, or what lies beyond the observable universe. Such truths often change nothing in a person's prospects. 3. **Truth is wanted even at a cost.** People ask for a true diagnosis rather than a comforting one, and scientists accept results that overturn their own theories. ### Abductive strand | Explanation of P2's data | Explanatory power | Scope | Simplicity | Ad hoc? | |---|---|---|---|---| | Truth and reality are valued for their own sake | Explains refusal when illusion is costless | Wide | One posit | No | | Generalized curiosity, adaptive on average (Loewenstein, *Psychological Bulletin* 116, 1994) | Explains interest in information | Good for ordinary curiosity | Simple | Weaker when truth costs and illusion is free | | Anti-exploitation heuristic: distrust anyone who would deceive you | Explains refusal to be manipulated | Narrow: the machine can be benevolent and chosen | Simple | Partly | ### Convergence Moral philosophy (Nozick on the value of doing and being), psychology of curiosity, and the ethics of medicine (the patient's right to the truth) reach P2. The curiosity literature also supplies the main rival, which the defeater gate meets head on. ### Objections and rebuttals 1. *"People prefer reality because, in real life, truth usually pays."* **Rebuttal.** That is why the machine is useful as a test. It isolates reality from payoff. The usual payoff explains a learned preference for truth that pays; it does not explain refusing a free and better illusion. 2. *"People also avoid truth all the time."* **Rebuttal.** Yes. Golman, Hagmann and Loewenstein, "Information Avoidance" (*Journal of Economic Literature* 55, 2017), document people skipping medical tests and choosing comfortable news. The argument predicts this tension; see P4. ## P3, What fitness predicts ### Inductive strand 1. **Fitness beats truth, in models.** Chetan Prakash, Kyle Stephens, Donald Hoffman, Manish Singh and Chris Fields, "Fitness Beats Truth in the Evolution of Perception" (*Acta Biotheoretica* 69, 2021), use evolutionary game theory to argue that perceptual strategies tuned to fitness payoffs generally outcompete strategies tuned to the true state of the world. See [Fitness Beats Truth Argument](/codex/fitness-beats-truth-argument/) and [Donald Hoffman](/codex/donald-hoffman/). 2. **The same worry in philosophy.** Alvin Plantinga, *Where the Conflict Really Lies* (2011), argues that natural selection rewards adaptive behaviour, and that on naturalism the probability that our belief-forming faculties are aimed at truth as such is low or inscrutable. See [Argument from Reason](/codex/argument-from-reason/). 3. **What selection would reward.** On a fitness-only history, the expected attitude to truth is instrumental: want true beliefs where they pay, and do not care, or prefer comfort, where they do not. ### Abductive strand | What a fitness-only mind would value | Fits the data? | |---|---| | Useful beliefs, true or not | Fits information avoidance; fits the machine refusal poorly | | True beliefs where truth pays | Fits ordinary curiosity; poor fit for refusing a free, better illusion | | Truth for its own sake | Not specifically predicted; possible only as a byproduct | ### Convergence Evolutionary game theory (Hoffman and colleagues), analytic epistemology (Plantinga) and cognitive science of self-deception reach the same point: selection is aimed at fitness, and truth is favoured only where it serves fitness. ### Objections and rebuttals 1. *"Hoffman's results are contested."* **Rebuttal.** They are, and critics argue that the models assume what they prove. The argument does not need the strong claim that evolution selects against truth. It needs only the weak claim, which critics also accept, that selection does not aim at truth for its own sake. 2. *"Truth-tracking is usually fitter, so evolution favours it."* **Rebuttal.** Then it favours truth where truth is fitter. That still predicts an instrumental love of truth, not a preference for reality when illusion is free and better. ## P4, What theism predicts ### Inductive strand 1. **God is Truth and made us for truth.** Jesus says "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" ([John 14:6](/codex/john-14-6/), ASV) and "ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" ([John 8:32](/codex/john-8-32/), ASV). He came "that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice" ([John 18:37](/codex/john-18-37/), ASV). 2. **Scripture commands love of truth over comfort.** "Buy the truth, and sell it not" ([Proverbs 23:23](/codex/proverbs-23-23/), ASV). The psalmist says God desires truth in the inward parts ([Psalm 51:6](/codex/psalms-51-6/)). 3. **Scripture also predicts the flight from truth.** "Men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil" ([John 3:19](/codex/john-3-19/), ASV). Paul speaks of those who "hinder the truth in unrighteousness" ([Romans 1:18](/codex/romans-1-18/), ASV) and of those who "received not the love of the truth" ([2 Thessalonians 2:10](/codex/2-thessalonians-2-10/), ASV). ### Abductive strand Christian theism predicts both halves of the human data: a love of truth that belongs to our design, and a fallen tendency to suppress unwelcome truth. Naturalism predicts the second half easily, as comfort-seeking, but the first half only as a byproduct. A hypothesis that predicts the tension does better than one that predicts only one side. ### Convergence Biblical anthropology (made in the [Imago Dei](/codex/imago-dei/), fallen), the patristic tradition (Augustine's love of truth and flight from it in *Confessions* X) and contemporary psychology (the coexistence of curiosity and information avoidance) agree on the two-sided picture. ### Objections and rebuttals 1. *"Theism predicts anything: love of truth and avoidance of it."* **Rebuttal.** It predicts a specific shape: love of truth as the design, avoidance as a corruption that is tied to moral threat ("their works were evil"). That shape is testable. Avoidance of medical and political information is concentrated where the truth threatens the self, as Golman and colleagues describe. ## P5, The likelihood principle ### Inductive strand The comparative principle is standard in science and in [Bayesian Probability](/codex/bayesian-probability/). ### Abductive strand Its rival, that nothing confirms without known priors, would undercut the evolutionary modelling the objector relies on. ### Convergence Bayesians and likelihoodists agree on the comparative use. ### Objections and rebuttals 1. *"Priors matter."* **Rebuttal.** The ledger is prior-agnostic; priors are argued in the [Cumulative Case for Christian Theism](/codex/cumulative-case-for-christian-theism/). ## The knot The strands are independent: a thought experiment (Nozick), experimental studies (De Brigard, Weijers, Hindriks and Douven), economics of information (Golman, Hagmann and Loewenstein), evolutionary modelling (Prakash, Hoffman and colleagues), analytic epistemology (Plantinga) and ancient testimony (Aristotle, Augustine). Two overlaps are counted once. First, the three experimental studies are one family bearing on one datum, the machine refusal. Second, Hoffman's and Plantinga's arguments make one point, that fitness does not aim at truth, and the ledger counts it once. The same evolutionary point appears in the [Fitness Beats Truth Argument](/codex/fitness-beats-truth-argument/) and [The Lock and Key Argument](/codex/the-lock-and-key-argument/); across the codex it should be counted once. ## The ledger Prior-agnostic: the ledger asks only how expected each datum is under each hypothesis. The ratings are judgments argued above, not measurements. | Datum | How expected on theism | How expected on naturalism | Favours | Why | Independent? | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Widespread refusal of the experience machine | High | Moderate | Theism, modestly | Bias explains part of the response | Yes, one family | | Grief at discovered deception in ordinary life | High | Moderate | Theism, slightly | Social betrayal is also costly, so selection explains much of it | Partly overlaps the row above | | Wanting truth when illusion is free and better | High | Low to moderate | Theism, modestly to clearly | The fitness account predicts instrumental love of truth | The core datum | | Avoidance of threatening truth | High | High | Even | Both predict it; theism predicts its moral shape | Yes | | The two together: love of truth and flight from it | High | Moderate | Theism, modestly | Theism predicts the tension as design and corruption | The conjunction | **Net.** No row is decisive and one is even. The argument's force sits in the core datum, wanting truth when illusion would cost nothing, which naturalism can explain only as a byproduct of adaptive curiosity. Honestly stated, the argument modestly favours theism and adds a distinct strand to the [Cumulative Case for Christian Theism](/codex/cumulative-case-for-christian-theism/). ## The defeater gate **The curiosity byproduct.** The strongest objection is that a general-purpose drive for information is adaptive. George Loewenstein's information-gap theory ("The Psychology of Curiosity: A Review and Reinterpretation," *Psychological Bulletin* 116, 1994) treats curiosity as a drive aroused by gaps in knowledge. A creature that cannot predict which truths will matter does better if it wants truth in general, and that general want will then spill over into cases where truth has no payoff, including the experience machine. On this view the love of truth is a byproduct of an adaptive drive, and no Creator is needed. The reply has three parts. 1. **The byproduct account predicts the wrong shape.** A drive aimed at closing information gaps predicts wanting information, not wanting one's life to be real. The machine offers all the information and novelty one could want; what it denies is reality. Refusing it is not curiosity about something unknown; it is a preference for a real world over a perfect unreal one. 2. **Byproducts are weak where they are costly.** If the love of truth were a byproduct, we would expect it to fade when it costs comfort or status. In the cases that matter most, a hard diagnosis or an unwelcome fact about oneself, people who love truth often keep it at a price and call that integrity. 3. **The parity problem.** If the naturalist says our attitude to truth is a byproduct of fitness, the same history governs the reasoning that produced naturalism. This is Plantinga's point, discussed at [Argument from the Reliability of Reason](/codex/argument-from-the-reliability-of-reason/). A view that wants its own conclusions to be true for their own sake is borrowing the very love of truth it explains away. What the gate concedes: the byproduct account is a real explanation of curiosity, and it captures part of the data. The argument's claim is narrower: the specific preference for reality over a free and better illusion fits design for truth better than spillover from a drive for information. ## Concessions - *Grant:* status quo bias shapes answers to the machine question. *Now collect:* it does not explain grief at discovered deception or the patient who asks for the true diagnosis. - *Grant:* people avoid unwelcome truth constantly. *Now collect:* Scripture says the same and ties it to moral threat, which is the pattern the economists find. - *Grant:* Hoffman's models are disputed. *Now collect:* the argument needs only the weak point every party accepts, that selection does not aim at truth for its own sake. - *Grant:* curiosity is adaptive. *Now collect:* curiosity wants information; the machine refusal wants reality, which is a different thing. ## Cheatsheet **The 30-second version (read aloud).** Imagine a machine that gives you a perfect life, all of it fake, and you would never know. Would you plug in? Most people say no. We want real friends, real achievements and true beliefs, even when the truth is harder than the dream. But if our minds were shaped only to survive, why would we care whether life is real, as long as it feels good? A love of reality over comfort is exactly what you would expect if we were made by a God who is Truth, for a life in the truth. And our habit of running from hard truths? The Bible predicts that too. **Fast facts:** 1. Nozick (1974): "Would you plug in? What else can matter to us, other than how our lives feel from the inside?" 2. Hindriks and Douven (2018): under a third chose the classic experience machine, though about half would take an experience pill. 3. De Brigard (2010): status quo bias explains part of the refusal; the argument concedes this. 4. Prakash, Hoffman and colleagues (2021): in evolutionary models, fitness-tuned perception beats truth-tuned perception. 5. Augustine (*Confessions* X.23): many want to deceive, no one wants to be deceived. **The closing line.** A mind built only to survive would take the machine. We do not, because we were made for what is real. ## Cross-examination ### Round 1, Would you plug in? - **Q:** If the machine were perfectly reliable and the experiences better than your life, would you plug in for good? - **If they say no:** Why not, if how life feels is all that matters? - **If they say yes:** ask whether they would want a loved one to plug in, or would want to know if they already had been. ### Round 2, Is the love of truth useful or intrinsic? - **Q:** When illusion is free and better, what does truth give you? - **If they say nothing, but I still want it:** then you value truth for its own sake. Where did that come from? - **If they say it is just curiosity:** curiosity wants information. The machine gives information. You are refusing it for reality. ### Round 3, Parity - **Q:** Do you want naturalism to be true, or just useful to believe? - **If they say true:** then you share the love of truth that fitness alone does not explain. ### Dodge table | Dodge | What it concedes | Reply | |---|---|---| | "It is just status quo bias." | Part of the data | "Then why grieve a deception you have already lived inside for years?" | | "Truth usually pays." | Truth is valued where it pays | "The machine is the case where it does not pay. You still want it." | | "People avoid truth too." | Both tendencies are real | "Yes, and Scripture predicts both: the love of truth and the flight from it." | | "Evolution explains everything." | Selection aims at fitness | "Then it explains a love of useful beliefs. I am pointing to a love of true ones." | ## Live-cite kit **Scripture (ASV):** - [John 14:6](/codex/john-14-6/): Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me. ([John 14:6](/codex/john-14-6/), ASV) - [John 8:32](/codex/john-8-32/): and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. ([John 8:32](/codex/john-8-32/), ASV) - [John 18:37-38](/codex/john-18-37-38/): To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? ([John 18:37-38](/codex/john-18-37-38/), ASV) - [Proverbs 23:23](/codex/proverbs-23-23/): Buy the truth, and sell it not; Yea, wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. ([Proverbs 23:23](/codex/proverbs-23-23/), ASV) - [John 3:19](/codex/john-3-19/): And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. ([John 3:19](/codex/john-3-19/), ASV) - [2 Thessalonians 2:10](/codex/2-thessalonians-2-10/): because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. ([2 Thessalonians 2:10](/codex/2-thessalonians-2-10/), ASV) **Scholarly:** - Robert Nozick, *Anarchy, State, and Utopia* (1974), pp. 42-45. - Frank Hindriks and Igor Douven, *Philosophical Psychology* 31 (2018). - Felipe De Brigard, *Philosophical Psychology* 23 (2010): the status quo objection. - Russell Golman, David Hagmann and George Loewenstein, *Journal of Economic Literature* 55 (2017): information avoidance. **Aphorism:** "We were not made to be comfortable. We were made to be real." ## Connection to Scripture - [John 14:6](/codex/john-14-6/), the Truth is a Person, so the love of truth is finally love of Him. - [John 18:37-38](/codex/john-18-37-38/), Pilate's question, "What is truth?", asked of the One who came to bear witness to it. - [John 8:32](/codex/john-8-32/), truth frees; the machine imprisons pleasantly. - [Proverbs 23:23](/codex/proverbs-23-23/), truth is worth buying and never selling. - [Psalm 51:6](/codex/psalms-51-6/), God desires truth in the inward parts. - [John 3:19](/codex/john-3-19/), [Romans 1:18](/codex/romans-1-18/) and [2 Thessalonians 2:10](/codex/2-thessalonians-2-10/), the flight from truth, tied to moral threat. ## Scholarship Published academic works this page draws on, each matched to a publisher, index or library catalog record. - Felipe De Brigard, "If you like it, does it matter if it's real?" *Philosophical Psychology* 23 (2010). [doi:10.1080/09515080903532290](https://doi.org/10.1080/09515080903532290) - Frank Hindriks and Igor Douven, "Nozick’s experience machine: An empirical study," *Philosophical Psychology* 31 (2018). [doi:10.1080/09515089.2017.1406600](https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2017.1406600) - George Loewenstein, "The psychology of curiosity: A review and reinterpretation," *Psychological Bulletin* 116 (1994). [doi:10.1037/0033-2909.116.1.75](https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.116.1.75) - Robert Nozick, *Anarchy, State, and Utopia* (Basic Books, 1974). [Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3336954W) - Alvin Plantinga, *Where the Conflict Really Lies* (2011). [Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL21776757W) - Dan Weijers, "Nozick's experience machine is dead, long live the experience machine!" *Philosophical Psychology* 27 (2014). [doi:10.1080/09515089.2012.757889](https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2012.757889) ## See also - [Arguments](/codex/arguments/), the master index - [Ris3n Arguments](/codex/ris3n-arguments/), the hub of ris3n's original arguments - [Argument from Perception](/codex/argument-from-perception/), whether perception can be about a world; this page asks why we want contact with it - [Fitness Beats Truth Argument](/codex/fitness-beats-truth-argument/) and [Donald Hoffman](/codex/donald-hoffman/), the evolutionary results behind P3 - [Argument from Reason](/codex/argument-from-reason/) and [Argument from the Reliability of Reason](/codex/argument-from-the-reliability-of-reason/), the parity point in the defeater gate - [The Lock and Key Argument](/codex/the-lock-and-key-argument/), where the same evolutionary point is used for a different datum - [Well-Being Cannot Ground Morality Defeater](/codex/well-being-cannot-ground-morality-defeater/), where the experience machine answers a theory of morality - [Argument from Desire](/codex/argument-from-desire/), a sister argument from a longing no illusion satisfies - [Theories of Truth](/codex/theories-of-truth/), what truth is - [Cartesian Skepticism](/codex/cartesian-skepticism/), the worry that we might already be in a machine - [Imago Dei](/codex/imago-dei/), the doctrine behind P4 - [Cumulative Case for Christian Theism](/codex/cumulative-case-for-christian-theism/), where this argument contributes ## Common questions this page answers **Q: What is Nozick's experience machine?** It is a thought experiment from Robert Nozick's *Anarchy, State, and Utopia* (1974). A machine could give you any experiences you wanted, all simulated, while you float in a tank, and you would not know. Nozick asked whether you would plug in for life, and argued that most people would not, because we care about more than how life feels. **Q: Would most people plug into the experience machine?** In one study only a minority, under a third, chose to plug into the classic machine, but about half would take a more realistic experience pill, and status quo bias explains part of the response. The preference for reality is widespread but not universal. **Q: What does the experience machine have to do with God?** If we were shaped only to survive, we would expect to value whatever feels good or works, true or not. Wanting reality even when a perfect illusion is free fits better with being made by a God who is Truth, for a life in the truth. **Q: Why do people want the truth even when it hurts?** Partly because truth is usually useful. But people also want truth when it changes nothing for them, and refuse comfortable illusions. That suggests we value truth for its own sake, which is hard to explain on a purely survival-based account of the mind. **Q: If humans love truth, why do so many avoid it?** Economists and psychologists document widespread information avoidance, such as skipping medical tests. Scripture predicts both sides: we are made to love the truth, and we also love darkness rather than light when the truth threatens us ([John 3:19](/codex/john-3-19/)). **Q: Is this the same as the evolutionary argument against naturalism?** It uses the same insight, that natural selection aims at survival and not at truth as such. But its evidence is different: not whether our beliefs are reliable, but the fact that we want them to be true, and want our lives to be real.