it is not woven into the fabric of the universe that intelligent beings (or any beings for that matter) have to have anything that feels as good as love does to us.
Actually, it sort of is. “Feeling good” is just a convenient name to refer to the effect of certain stimuli patterns: a specific level and type of reinforcement.
There may be organisms whose niche does not require them to have a state that represents the level of reinforcement implied by the “experience of love”, but that is not a deficiency, and we are not “lucky” to have come from a niche that made being so useful.
But any organism would be theoretically capable of such a reinforcement state even if it had to be artificially imposed upon its neurology. It’s not a matter of whether it’s possible, but whether it’s desirable.
If greater and greater levels of “feeling good” are what you’re going for, I suggest you try heroin. Or get yourself wireheaded, ASAP. I think you’ll find it’s not quite what you were expecting.
There may be organisms whose niche does not require them to have a state that represents the level of reinforcement implied by the “experience of love”, but that is not a deficiency, and we are not “lucky” to have come from a niche that made being so useful.
But any organism would be theoretically capable of such a reinforcement state even if it had to be artificially imposed upon its neurology. It’s not a matter of whether it’s possible, but whether it’s desirable.
If greater and greater levels of “feeling good” are what you’re going for, I suggest you try heroin. Or get yourself wireheaded, ASAP. I think you’ll find it’s not quite what you were expecting.