Personally, I find the easiest answer is that we’re multi-layered agents. On a base level, the back part of our minds seeks pleasure, but on an intellectual level, our brain is specifically wired to worry about things other than hedonistic pleasure. We derive our motivation from goals regarding hedonistic gain, however are goals can (and usually do) become much more abstract and complex than that. Philosophically speaking, the fact that we are differentiated from that hind part of our brain by non-hedonistic goals is in a way related to what our goals are. Although the animal in us enjoys pleasure, the intellectual part is specifically used for achieving pleasure. Those goals are mutually incompatible, weird as it sounds. Giving us a pleasure-based heaven can also be an intellectual hell.
Of course I’m being kind of abstract and philosophical here, but anyway...
Personally, I find the easiest answer is that we’re multi-layered agents. On a base level, the back part of our minds seeks pleasure, but on an intellectual level, our brain is specifically wired to worry about things other than hedonistic pleasure. We derive our motivation from goals regarding hedonistic gain, however are goals can (and usually do) become much more abstract and complex than that. Philosophically speaking, the fact that we are differentiated from that hind part of our brain by non-hedonistic goals is in a way related to what our goals are. Although the animal in us enjoys pleasure, the intellectual part is specifically used for achieving pleasure. Those goals are mutually incompatible, weird as it sounds. Giving us a pleasure-based heaven can also be an intellectual hell. Of course I’m being kind of abstract and philosophical here, but anyway...