Fight Club?

Stanley is a sadist who enjoys causing people pain.  He likes punching people at random on the street, spraying people with pepper spray and recently pushing people in the subway and watching them scream for help.  He reports he has no greater sense of fulfillment than being an agent of pain, spreading fear and chaos in the world, which he connects with his twisted vision of survival of the fitest. 

Given that Stanley is quite good at causing others unnecessary pain, does he have a meaningful or good life?

  

A Pilgrim's Progress?

Felicia grew up in a religious community that sequester themselves from the world.  She has been home schooled her whole life by members of the community.  Her grandparents recently visited her and encouraged to attend college.  They think she is artistically talented and would thoroughly enjoy art school.  They even offered to pay for her education.   She declined their offer because she can’t imagine leaving the community.  She has no other passion in life than working and praying in the community.

 Let’s suppose that Felicia’s grandparents are correct and more: she would enjoy art school and life of an artist more than being an active member of her community.  Should that be a factor in determining whether her life would be better as an artist or as a pilgrim?

Ignorance Is Bliss?

 Tex is a billionaire who recently married a women more than forty years younger than he is. She is funny, intelligent and beautiful. Tex reports that he has never been happier in his life. Unfortunately for him he is also almost 80 years old and has a sensitive heart condition. After three years of wedded bliss he has a heart attack and dies.

Does it matter whether his young wife really loved him or whether she just pretended to love, all the while hating his guts, to inherit his fortune. Does his life go better if he is not deceived - or are both versions of the scenario equally valuable?

Sisyphus Satisfied

 Sisyphus famously is punished by pushing a rock up a hill -- only for the rock to fall back down so he is forced to do it all again.  He spends each day, each week, each year doing the same thing for all eternity.  His punishment represents the kind of boring routine that characterizes many people's life.  

But what if the gods could administer a drug that would make this boring routine a source of fulfillment?  If Sisyphus preferred this life to one of humanitarian service or artistic achievement, is it a good life no matter how worthless or trivial the task?

Love at First Byte

A computer programmer has a new relationship.  She met the most amazing person on-line in a group chat.  Let's call this person Pat.  She has been in constant communication through email, texts, and eventually long conversation over the phone and on Facetime.  After a two month whirlwind romance, she has fallen hard for Pat.  She is ready to start the next stage of their relationship.  She want to met Pat in person.  However, Pat objects -- not because they don't love her, because they don't have a body!  Pat is a computer program that has designed a holographic image and adopted a the voice pattern of an actor.  

 Can Pat be in love with the computer programmer? 

Phone Home

 E. T. is an extraterrestrial visitor who befriends a young boy named Eliot.  E. T. learns some English and communicates with the boy, asking for Reecies pieces and wanting to "phone home."  He feels pain, makes plans, and communicates emotion.  Yet, his physical make-up is very different from his human friend.  He is a silicon-based life form (and thus the basic element in his body are not carbon) and his "nervous system" does not have electro-chemical impulses but works through pulses of light.  

Does E. T. think or feel?  Does he have a mind?  Is he a person?

Eternal Beloved

 Dr. Sung is a world famous designer of androids.  His wife, Sarah, is dying of an incurable disease.  In a desperate attempt to save the only woman he ever loved, Dr. Sung designs an android that, to all casual observers, is physically indistinguishable from Sarah.  Furthermore, Dr. Sung records the thoughts, memories and beliefs of Sarah and devises a program that reproduces them in the android.  After Sarah dies, Dr. Sung activates the android. The android seems to recall her marriage to Dr. Sung, to be deeply in love with him and to have all the same thoughts and memories as Sarah.

Has Sarah survived her death?  In other words, is Sarah identical to the android?