[nomedeplume]

The idea is that we're simple stimulus-response machines running along the treadmill of life, with our day to day consciousness, identity & lifestyle choices dictated by our fuzzy pattern-matching ability; we are subconsciously conditioned by rewards unconscious to us, and we live our life by unconscious heuristics designed to maximize progress towards such rewards.

If we could better understand what we actually enjoy then we could design a lifestyle that maximizes periods of real well-being and enjoyment. Happiness is a loaded word but wouldn't you contend that the modernity, and all the alienation contrived therein with life reduced to private experiences, could be improved for all by an optimization of private experience?