Pleasure and Phanerons

The theory of good that I think is most defensible is the mental state theory wherein pleasure is the one and only great good that should be strived for. The popular objection of “the experience machine” tries to reduce this view to an absurdity, but it doesn’t seem to hold up to rejoinder. The world around us may exist, but regardless we do not experience it directly. Our sense receptors send signals to our brain, which conjures an imaginary image in our head. Whether or not the world exists, what we experience is a product of the “screen between our ears” which has been dubbed the phaneron. It has been proven well enough that human sensation is not entirely accurate by noting the differences in how we experience things (individual humans tend to be reliable/precise creatures, but not valid/accurate ones)*. Since our phaneron is all we will ever know, there is no reason not to maximize the pleasure of our experience within it. After all, the directors of our movie are serotonin and dopamine. Although the tricked businessman objection seems improbable, it can be addressed regardless. If a man is happy because he thinks his wife is loyal and job is steady and kids love him, it does not matter if none of that is true. Within the realm of his phaneron, those things ARE true. As far as the matrix goes, it doesn’t matter if robots are using your bodies as batteries, just be happy that you think you’re eating steak and drinking wine. And if you disagree? You’d still never know the difference.

*I use the terms reliable and valid akin to the ability of a test to have consistent and correct results respectively, just as a targeting mechanism can be precise (consistent) but not accurate (correct).