Most of us actually want to get somewhere to do an activity to then have known we did it for the rest of our lives as if to extract some intangible pleasure from its memory. Why don't we just hallucinate that we did it?

This leads to us asking the deepest question of all: What is the point of our existence. Or as someone suggests lower down, in our current form all needs could ultimately be satisfied if AI just provided us with the right chemicals. (Which drug addicts already understand)

This can be answered though, albeit imperfectly. On a more reductionist level, we are the cosmos experiencing itself. Now there are many ways to approach this. But just providing us with the right chemicals to feel pleasure/satisfaction is a step backwards. All the evolution of a human being, just to end up functionally like an amoeba or a bacteria.

So we need to retrace our steps backwards in this thought process.

I could write a long essay on this.

But, to exist in first place, and to keep existing against all the constraints of the universe, is already pretty fucking amazing.

Whether we do all the things we do, just in order to stay alive and keep existing, or if the point is to be the cosmos “experiencing itself”, is pretty much two sides of the same coin.

This was actually my point as well. You can follow this thought process all the way up to "make those specific neuron pathways in my brain fire", everything else is just the getting there part.