Laurence worked his whole life for this moment. He had experienced countless ups and downs, endured
days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years of continuous self-doubt, hardship, sacrifice,
uncertainty, and all the rest. But now, here he was, finally tasting the fruits of his labor as
they squeezed out from the very core of his life. The day was August 12th, 2142. Laurence had just
received a standing ovation for a talk he gave at the world’s most popular and respected biannual
conference. At which, the greatest thinkers, writers, leaders, and innovators of all sorts
came both virtually or in person to give one of their life’s greatest presentations,
laying bare the accumulation of their mind on a stage scrutinized by the entire intellectual
community and general public at large. The conference was streamed and distributed live
across every virtual reality, augmented reality, and general streaming platform across the world.
Following his flawless talk, both Laurence and the audience knew what they had just experienced:
a beautiful and successful encapsulation of a life’s work that would likely impact the
way people thought about human cognition, values, morality, and well-being, forever.
Laurence had spent the majority of his adult life pursuing psychology. More specifically,
theoretical neuropsychology. Throughout his life, he had this intense compulsion to understand,
with total and complete objectivity, the nature and state of optimal well-being, or rather,
what he would go on to term psychological worthiness: the most suitable, ideal
social and personal conditions to provide the individual with the greatest, subjective,
qualitative, conscious experience of their life. He had spent the vast majority of his twenties
and thirties experimenting, researching, learning, and failing, developing a variety of insights and
theories along the way. Up until more recently, now in his late forties, his work had mostly
gone unnoticed. But for some inexplicable reason, Laurence always had this strange sense that he was
on the right track, that somehow everything was supposed to work this way. He always felt a deep,
genuine connection and enjoyment in his work, even when it would traditionally be considered
rather miserable. He also always seemed to find himself falling into situations of great,
unforeseen luck just before hitting a wall, or before things got too bad or unmanageable.
And now, most importantly, he was being proven right; his work finally and
actually clicking into place, bringing him right into that destination of limelight,
and giving him everything he ever wanted. In this moment of the conference, it felt like he
had truly touched the ultimate state of life’s worthiness–the very premise of his life’s work.
Throughout the remaining three nights of the conference following Laurence’s talk,
he was approached by a large number of people–both general and virtual attendees,
as well as other speakers. They asked him all sorts of questions. Many attempted to rub his
shoulder well enough to become involved in his work or get him involved in theirs. Women of
all sorts approached and hit on him, which he politely had to decline, pointing to his wife
with him each time and revealing a flawlessly attractive woman who, by all physical standards,
was in an entirely other league. He entertained everyone as much as necessary to remain polite,
but mostly tried to get out of the majority of the interactions as quick as possible.
One individual in particular, however, was extremely interesting to Laurence.
When he saw the man at the convention center’s bar one of the nights and recognized him as one
the first speakers of the conference, Laurence actually hoped to get an opportunity to speak
with. The man was mysterious, with something noticeably distinct and almost separate about him.
He fit the sort of super genius or science-fiction hero archetype (or perhaps super-villain),
seemingly always dressed in all black with strange, straight down hair, an unusual amount
of bionic body augmentations, and wearing all the latest technologies, almost like he was trying too
hard to fit in but was a few decades too early. This man had given a similarly impactful talk
on a new, groundbreaking brain-computer technology two days prior to Laurence’s talk. Laurence found
it to be the most ambitious, interesting, and curious talk of the entire conference so far.
The man was essentially proposing and announcing a soon-to-be publicly available technology,
which, if it did what he said, would basically be the type of innovation that defines and
separates an entire period of history from all the prior. He had termed the technology,
“NewLife Technology,” and was the founder of the company being built around it. The company was
set to basically offer people the option to opt out of their lives. After completely selecting,
defining, and more-or-less programing the conditions of their desired experience of life,
users would then step into cryogenic chambers, have electrodes implanted into their brain
that would communicate brain signals, continuously stimulating neural patterns and perceptual states,
and ultimately simulating an entirely new, different life for the remainder of the user’s
biological life. The machines would also nullify the user’s previous memories in the process,
replacing them with newly encoded false ones to match with their desired story line,
experiences, and conditions. Lastly, the user would be plugged into a separate program
connected to a quantum supercomputer that created populations of artificially intelligent beings
who could then be interacted with within the simulation in a manner
that would be arguably equivalent to interacting with biological human minds.
Previously, in its slightly earlier forms, the technology had been used exclusively
for individuals with serious physical or mental ailments, like body paralysis, comas,
unresolvable depression, trauma, or worse. In these cases, it was considered by most to
be ethically permissible. Although, for many, even here, it was still certainly debatable.
However, it was federally approved in most countries, which was enough. Now, however,
this particular neuroscientist and technologist’s premise was to allow ordinary, otherwise healthy
people to use the technology. This was met by both worldwide support and worldwide contempt.
The understandably large, primary sticking point with the technology was that it
essentially couldn’t (at least not easily) be reversed or exited from, since once inside,
the user wouldn’t know that they were inside anything. And if it was set to be cut short, the
effects of coming out could pose serious mental risks when trying to readjust back. As a result,
currently, users would essentially be required to willingly and fully opt out of their own life
until the end of their life. Part of what the man was giving a talk about was the risks compared to
the benefits of such a choice, and how for some, if not many, it would still, for good reasons,
actually be the preferable option. Laurence found the entire premise of the
man’s talk to be somewhere between completely fascinating and completely nonsensical. In a
lot of ways, it contradicted his own talk and key theories of well-being and human values.
When the man approached Laurence at the bar on the fourth night of the conference,
Laurence was excited to engage in a discussion with him. He had several questions,
criticisms, and some hope that perhaps the seeds of a potential collaboration or debate could be
planted for the future. The two congratulated each other, first, then discussed each other’s
talks for a little while, then moved on to other, broader philosophical topics, and then finally
narrowed back in on the NewLife Technology and its implications. They started fairly light-hearted,
but as a few more beers were poured and emptied, the intensity increased. Laurence argued, not
about the ethics of what the man was doing, but the philosophical problem with what it presumed:
that consumers would and should desire to leave their life for a fake, virtual one–even if their
own life was relatively bad and the new life could be anything they wanted. Laurence argued that
people want and should want to know and live in reality more than they want and should want live
in what is purely pleasurable, easy, desirable, and designed to one’s preferences. “We value the
true form of things over the mere pleasure of what things can give us. The uncertainties and
ups and downs of life are important, essential even: the negatives as much as the positives.
In most cases, it’s the difficulty, scariness, and unpleasantness a part of things that allows
the experience of things to ultimately become meaningful or worthwhile or perhaps even capable
of being experienced at all.” Laurence said to the man. The man had plenty of counter arguments,
of course, suggesting that if one felt that life was best lived with ups and downs, they could just
program that in. “It need not be pure pleasure, Laurence. I don’t disagree with you on that point,
but that doesn’t discredit the technology. I am not suggesting that people plug into a purely
blissful experience of life, if a purely blissful experience of life is not desirable. But I am
suggesting plugging into a purely desirable life.” the man replied. “Yes, but people still want what
is real. There are entirely separate factors relevant to human experience beyond the actual
feeling of experiences. Humans want to earn their way to pleasure, to reward, to meaning. They want
to be and do within truth, even if it’s painful or hard; perhaps even if it’s only painful and hard
with no reward. If it’s simply engineered, chosen, or predetermined at the beginning,
it’s undesirable, and most won’t do it. And they shouldn’t.” Laurence went on with. “Why not?” the
man asked with fairly sturdy confidents. “Aren’t you merely assuming the position that knowing
truth will provide the most desirable experience of life… or greatest wellbeing or whatever else
you called it. I forget what term you used in your work. In any case, it isn’t truth in it of itself
that you’re actually arguing for there, but the underlying desire for a preferred state that truth
will give you.” “Worthiness.” Laurence quickly interjected to confirm his preferred terminology.
“Ok, worthiness.” the man picked back up, “Let’s assume that if that term
serves as an umbrella term for a life maximized to its highest degree of positive, personal value,
then it would not merely be a life defined by the most pleasure or least pain, nor the most
truth or least illusion, but rather, the most optimal experience of life in total, regardless.“
“Sure.” Laurence interjected with hesitancy. “Then would not the difference between life’s maximal
worthiness and life’s minimal worthiness only be a matter of one’s experience of it being so,
or perhaps more accurately, the experience of their believing it to be?” “Yes. But…” Laurence
jumped in before quickly being cut back off. “And if so, then any and all subset qualities
that maximize this condition–this state–could all be setup to perfection within our machines.”
concluded the man. A little thrown off now, Laurence replied, “Without even having to
look any further into that argument, I would still say that you’re missing the most important part:
it isn’t real. The people aren’t real. The history and effects on the course of reality are not real.
None of it’s real. And that’s fundamental.” The man paused, nodded while smiling with clenched
lips, and then asked Laurence with a noticeable tinge of sarcasm, “So… then, you don’t want to do
it?” Laurence let out a small laugh while smiling and rolling his eyes with a reciprocated note of
sarcasm. “We could really use you.” the man added. ”I think a mind like yours could help us both
inside and outside. Your ideas are really what’s probably missing. I’m not supposed to share this,
but we’ve already started short-term trials where people have gone in for short windows of time and
come back out just fine. I would love to see if there was maybe an opportunity there if you were
ever interested.” “Look, I don’t personally see anything ethically wrong with any of it,” Laurence
interrupted, “but I think you’re wrong to assume, one, that people will want it, and two, that they
should be convinced that they do. I like this life. It hasn’t been easy. But it’s real. So no,
I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to pass.” “Ok.” the man said with a final, accepting head nod.
After a noticeably long pause of silence between the two, the man turned back to Laurence and said,
“Then would you like to exit this one?” Another, shorter pause followed this. “The bar?”
Laurence replied with a short, confused laugh underneath his words.
The man turned more straight-on towards Laurence and took off his augmented reality glasses.
Then he said, “Laurence, you’re going to have to try to bear with me here, but you are currently
in a NewLife Machine.” The man paused again to let Laurence process the information and reply.
Laurence did not successfully do either, but could only laugh, believing with certainty that the man
was just joking or messing with him. “I know this is hard.” the man went on with, “It always is. But
this, right now, is actually an exit checkpoint inside a NewLife Machine. You came up with the
whole thing. One of the cleverest ones we’ve seen yet, I might add. You essentially came up with and
scripted this entire conversation as a method of gaging your own interest in continuing or leaving,
without revealing to yourself that you’re in anything prior to you declaring to a bot,
myself, with sufficient certainty that you are no longer interested in the idea of being in here.
And it seems to me that you just stated that.” Another brief pause hung between them. “You also
planned on your own reasonable skepticism here, so…” The man put his AR glasses back on and swiped
his hand a couple times in relation to them. The entire bar, all the other people, objects,
everything turned pure white. Laurence began to sink into the truth of what was happening,
or rather, sort of not happening. “If you tell me that you would prefer to leave this reality,
which is in fact a simulation, and return to whom you were before in base-reality,
I can send an alert signal that will trigger a cease to the simulation right now. But I
am the only one who can do this, Laurence. And this is the only checkpoint you currently have.
You have a little time to think about it right now, but if you say no,
I go away, and this memory is erased. And that’s almost certainly the end of any way out.”
Laurence, now petrified, began to noticeably and physically panic.
The man grabbed Laurence by both his shoulders and calmed him down. Once he was calmed down enough,
Laurence quickly asked, “What was before?” The man looked through a display of VR files only visible
to him through his glasses. Then he said, “Before was similar in the overall, fundamental sense.
You were…well sort of still are an aspiring psychologist, especially interested in
neuropsychology. But you were…are beginning to get somewhat old, in your mid-hundreds now.
You were still unsuccessful, at least in your view, and lacking the intellectual abilities to
measure up to your dreams of becoming a leading thinker or theorist in this field. You were alone
romantically and lower-middle class. Again, that’s all according to your own self-approved report.”
Laurence looked down at his lap in indescribable shock. Then, he looked back up. “Why?” he emitted.
The man motioned a quick swipe of his hand again and then said, “It was your dream to do what you
did here at this conference. You wanted to be a leading thinker; an important, successful,
revolutionary neuropsychologist.” “Yeah, a real one.” Laurence quickly interjected.
The man paused and looked more directly at him. “You are a real one.” Another brief
pause hung in the air while Laurence tried to make sense of this ridiculous seeming comment.
“Many years ago, you volunteered as an early trial member to help develop this technology. So far,
you’ve helped reveal and map cognitive changes before, during, and after, and most importantly,
provide real data and evidence on how to best set up psychological and neurological conditions.
You’re helping build the library of reliable experiences and states to be selected from for
future users. Your findings in here are real. They have and will help people you know and don’t know,
remember and can’t remember. And Laurence, is there really any reason to believe that
an experience is less valuable if it isn’t real, if one cannot know the difference?”
Another very long pause sat between the two. “So,” the man said, “would you like to stay or leave?”