This makes me think about the relationship between happiness and pleasure. They’re are arguments that posit that a life of unending pleasure may not lead to a happy life. Or, conversely, that a happy life likely requires suffering.

So, it may be that happiness is more desirable than pleasure. Simple longevity may be as well. Wouldn’t it be worth it to live say 1,000 years even if 300 of those are painful? 400 years? — Pinprick

It's true that happiness is distinct from pleasure and this I think undercuts hedonism (Epicurean axiology). As far as I can tell, there seems to a great deal of confusion in utilitarianism; the brain is, after all, a complicated organ, prone to self-deception of the first order. At any rate, it's not the brain's fault given it didn't choose to be what it is - a machine that would do anything, and I mean anything at all, to survive (evolutionarily speaking that is). C'est la vie!

The brain is not for thinking; it is for survival. — Agent Smith

:snicker: