I’m finding speculation on the ‘experience machine’ quite interesting.

For it to be an effective and encompassing experience, I imagine the participant would need to be ‘split off’ somehow; There would have to be a separation of the part of them that has awareness of the simulation and some fresh memory-less offshoot that will enjoy the experience.

Perhaps the overarching awareness part that is outside the ‘machine’ could direct and manipulate the machine to provide the best experience for the freshly partitioned awareness inside.

It could be like some form of art or ‘gardening’. Growing a fledgeling personality, using only the indirect means of manipulating experience.

I think the difficulty would be in keeping the ‘experiencing awareness’ engaged with the world the machine is weaving. The experience would need to be smooth and beguiling or the process might be rejected (like a failed organ transplant).

The machine’s ‘reality’ needs to be internally consistent, as a jarring inconsistency might snap the participant out of it.

If the art/technology of partitioning awareness really got off the ground it might be possible to work on several fledgeling personalities each split off from your more fundamental awareness.

The ‘Experience machine’ might be able to run parallel realities or they could all be set off in the same simulated reality.

Now that would take a real artist to manage!

When the experience is complete the partition would be removed and the little personality would ‘come back home’ to be re-integrated into the overarching awareness.