# How happy could you be if you had to live the rest of your life in a holodeck? (Think Star Trek) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 3, 2016, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099 "2016-02-03T21:20:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gretchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8edcca/32.png) [@Gretchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gretchion)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/21 "2016-02-04T12:08:53Z")
I would be happier if I could tailor those ten people’s memories a bit, so I could have my parents happily married, and my best friend never married the shrew that kept me from seeing him. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/22 "2016-02-04T12:46:55Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > This “Technology will Save Us!” meme is getting way, way, out of control. > > Let me guess - those who would jump at the chance would also want to make themselves immortal, right? > > This question gets down to the "Which is the _REAL_ person - the one who walked into the Transporter, or the one who came out of the other? > > Now we want a transporter to “take” us to a 100% Virtual World. > > Call me old-fashioned, but this would be attractive only if I was actively dying (Hello, Mr. Zimmerman!). Presumably there would be somewhere else I’d prefer to be. > Still, I’d want that to be the place I die, not a place where I can live for “virtually forever”. > > After the first billion or so years, those 10 people will be just as bored as you are. > > “Hey! Let’s all go to that little galaxy over by the great burger joint!” > > “We’ve done that 73,497 times already”. > “You’ve f\*cked every creature you have created, and every creature we have created”. > "We’ve seen every friggin kind of sunset in the history of the entire friggin’ Universe (the term now means “holodeck”). 42 MILLION times. > > At some time, I want to rest. Reality provides this guarantee. Some people get cheated, some get their dream and live to 100 - as a shriveled-up raisin who’s biggest thrill is having somebody pick it up and put it in a wheelchair and rolled out onto the porch. > > I ain’t going there. I don’t think you understand the OP. There isn’t any conscious download of you going on. It’s basically you, living inside a magic box. All characters are simulated. YOU have full knowledge of this. There is no question of who is real and who is NOT real. And no, holodecks can’t make you immortal. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/23 "2016-02-04T13:15:40Z")
Wait. How do I know I’m not just one of someone else’s ten? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/24 "2016-02-04T13:39:55Z")
How are biological functions like food and water - and waste - handled? Or are we going to be in a mini-Matrix? ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/25 "2016-02-04T15:33:28Z")
I’m pretty sure all of you are just part of the simulation. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/26 "2016-02-04T15:36:24Z")
**You have complete control over programming.** I prefer reality; my imagination can be a little darker than I would like to live in. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/27 "2016-02-04T15:57:02Z")
Positives: freedom from morality in my interactions with other “people,” no need to go to work if I don’t want to, never worrying about money issues, unlimited time for reading. Negatives: never being able to escape the knowledge that my wife and friends aren’t really my wife and friends. Better than operating solely off of my memories of them, but worse in the knowledge that they aren’t genuine. I’m guessing I’d eventually end up avoiding them and trying to make new “friends” of the lesser simulations. Overall, I voted “Meh.” ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/28 "2016-02-04T17:07:33Z")
I suppose I’d be better off that Tom Hanks talking to a volleyball or Will Smith hanging out with mannequins at a video store, but that’s not setting the bar very high. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/29 "2016-02-04T17:24:37Z")
> [@Asimovian](#): > > Positives: …unlimited time for reading. I was told, isolation, no outside contact. You may never get any new kindle downloads. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/30 "2016-02-04T17:40:48Z")
Sounds like hell. I’d be separated from my wife and kids. Having simulacra of them wouldn’t make it better; it would make it worse, as it would highlight the fact that i was missing out on the real thing. ---
**Author:** ![Corporal\_Clegg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Corporal\_Clegg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corporal_Clegg)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/31 "2016-02-04T17:49:24Z")
The movie “Star Trek: Generations” addresses the question of whether you would rather live for eternity in a paradise provided for you by someone or something verssus dying a final death in the service of making a difference to your fellow living beings. Both Piccard and Kirk chose to leave the paradise because it was fake and meaningless and go back to life and make a difference assuming death would be final. I would choose to fight the tough battles if I could get the chance to fulfill my potential. But life for me at 60 is frittering away and no one seems interested in teaming up. So, wtf. I’d like to spend my days in a place where my fantasies could be realized. Sex, sex, and more sex. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/32 "2016-02-04T18:15:32Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > I was told, isolation, no outside contact. You may never get any new kindle downloads. Sure, but that assumes I’ve come anywhere near reading all of the literature in existence today, which I haven’t. I’m guessing everything up to the moment I go in would be available in the holodeck. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/33 "2016-02-04T18:25:35Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > How are biological functions like food and water - and waste - handled? Or are we going to be in a mini-Matrix? The holodeck could also provide replicator technology that would create actual food and water and recycle your waste. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/34 "2016-02-04T21:56:22Z")
I picked fight the hypothetical … I would have to say it depends. I think the only way I would be happy living in the holodeck would be if it was using my husband as one of the preprogrammed, capturing his data just prior to his death - otherwise I really would not like to survive past his death. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/35 "2016-02-04T22:26:52Z")
> [@Asimovian](#): > > Sure, but that assumes I’ve come anywhere near reading all of the literature in existence today, which I haven’t. I’m guessing everything up to the moment I go in would be available in the holodeck. I don’t assume that. I just think it’s a huge, depressing notion that you’d be put into this box, with no possibility of anything you do ever mattering to anyone again, and nothing that happens, or anyone else does, ever mattering to you. It’s like the (apparent) fate of some of the AI characters in Greg Egan’s _Permutation City_. They tended to be, or go, insane. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/36 "2016-02-04T22:48:01Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > I just think it’s a huge, depressing notion that you’d be put into this box, with no possibility of anything you do ever mattering to anyone again, and nothing that happens, or anyone else does, ever mattering to you. A curious and relevant (I think) observation. Logically, the universe being really big and all and surely stuffed with sentience, the actions of an individual have a vanishingly small chance of affecting much more than a small circle of friends. And even the ripples of those effects are quickly overwhelmed by everyone else’s ripples as they plod through their own lives. And if that matters to you, life in or out of the box is so very nearly congruously meaningless to a meaningful portion of the universe (even the planet) as to be identical. At least in the box there is an opportunity to feel the illusion of meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/37 "2016-02-04T22:54:17Z")
When I die, will my body be removed from the holodeck and my remaining relatives notified? I’d want a proper funeral. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/38 "2016-02-04T23:14:42Z")
> [@The Great Sun Jester](#): > > A curious and relevant (I think) observation. Logically, the universe being really big and all and surely stuffed with sentience, the actions of an individual have a vanishingly small chance of affecting much more than a small circle of friends. And even the ripples of those effects are quickly overwhelmed by everyone else’s ripples as they plod through their own lives. And if that matters to you, life in or out of the box is so very nearly congruously meaningless to a meaningful portion of the universe (even the planet) as to be identical. At least in the box there is an opportunity to feel the illusion of meaning. : When cares how small the ripples are? What matters to me most are my wife and kids. I would never choose to replace them with holographic fakes, no matter what level of luxury I’d get in return. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/39 "2016-02-04T23:17:01Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > …with no possibility of anything you do ever mattering to anyone again, and nothing that happens, or anyone else does, ever mattering to you… This describes life outside the box pretty well. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099/40 "2016-02-04T23:30:26Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > : > When cares how small the ripples are? What matters to me most are my wife and kids. I would never choose to replace them with holographic fakes, no matter what level of luxury I’d get in return. Just so we’re clear, the hypothetical isn’t a choice. It’s a situation that has been thrust upon you. The question now is: Can you ever be happy again? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-happy-could-you-be-if-you-had-to-live-the-rest-of-your-life-in-a-holodeck-think-star-trek/745099.md?page=3)