PHLA11H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Experience Machine, Atherosclerosis
Document Summary
He had a student who showed in tutorial conversations signs of deep, suicidal depression. The student was later found dead [the student"s mother, a devout roman catholic, was deeply worried about her son"s soul, and she asked the professor point blank whether her had any reason to suspect suicide. The professor, an atheist, wanted to comfort her, and so, by a quite deliberate lie, assured her that, as far as he knew, the boy had been in good spirits . [his] mother, a very elderly but happy woman, had extremely advances atherosclerosis. Point was brought up about how this example as well as the one with the professor are comparable to the experience machine from the mother"s point of view. It is like the experience machine in the way that the person affected won"t know that they are living a lie".
