animal pleasures do. Contentment here is inferior to true Happiness, but is not a bad thing. Happiness is just preferable to those with the knowledge of the distinction between higher and lower pleasures. Therefore a person's life goes well as far as they are pursuing higher pleasures to deliver them true Happiness.Experientialism believes that "desireable consciousness," as a state of mind is a paramount concern of those wishing to lead good lives. The theory somewhat complies with what Mill writes about well-being, because it also involves a hierarchy of pleasures. Experientialists believe that the best pleasures can only be arrived at indirectly, an idea known as the Fundamental Paradox of Hedonism. For instance, you get much pleasure from the experience of winning a soccer game, but it is the process which gets you there which delivers you to the pleasurable experience. Your consciousness is much more "desireable" through having the experience which delivered you to the win in the soccer game. These indirect pleasures are therefore similar to Mill's higher pleasures. Experientialists would say that in gaining a pleasurable consciousness from writing a poem, it is a great pleasure because of the experience of actually writing the poem. The pleasure gotten from knowing that you have a poem which you wrote is arrived at, indirectly, through the experience of actually writing it. Mill would say that writing a poem is such a higher pleasure which contributes to Happiness. The conflicts between experientialism and Mill's account of well-being lie with the claim that experientialism is a "mental state account." A main-objections to the validity of the Experientialist account are that of the "false-friends" and Nozick's experience-machine objections. The principles of these objections serve to separate Experientialism from Mill's account fo well-being. The "false-friends" objection asks a question about whether a difference exists between ...
