By Ben Boruff

In his 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, philosopher and Harvard professor Robert Nozick offered his now-famous Experience Machine thought experiment as a critique of hedonism. Nozick imagined a machine that could provide unending pleasure to any individual willing to experientially submit to it. The thought experiment suggests that if human beings desire only pleasure, humans would willingly use the machines. Nozick argues, however, that human beings may avoid such machines because humans ultimately desire "actual contact" with a "deeper reality." In other words, we value real experiences over pleasurable ones.

But what if there was a machine that offered both real and pleasurable experiences? And what if that machine was your washing machine?