With enough computational power, evolved species can master the fitness game just with pleasure. How? Pain and pleasure seem to be just tools to efficiently navigate the fitness landscape, with simple but effective rules like “avoid this (low) point” (pain) and “go for that (high) one” (pleasure) [1].
But the fitness landscape game has unlimited complexity. We always can do it better, while pain as it is (pleasure too!) is a very simple mechanism, so it’s reasonable to consider that eventually is going to be radically upgraded or just replaced [2].
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[1] Interestingly, a third or more motivational subjective axis can be found, that is not pain nor pleasure. Yes, difficult to imagine, but in fact, if we’d live in a world with just one of them (pain or pleasure) it would also be almost impossible to imagine the other.
[2] This includes, of course, the possibility of dry machines replacing us, we the wet machines.