The list of eight options below is not intended to be a complete list. Rather, it is intended to be a reasonably likely list of options that people might discuss in the near term.
For the sake of this article, the word pleasure is being used as a broad term to indicate all preferable conscious experiences, from finishing a great oil painting, to eating ice cream, to reading a good book, to feeling peace of mind, to having sex, and so on – depending one’s personal preferences, cultural background, etc. Suffering, likewise, is used to represent all gradients of unpleasant conscious states, from being dumped in a relationship, to stubbing your toe, to being eaten alive by hyenas.
The circle to the right represents a relative change in the amount of sentient experience in the world (in the increased or decreased or unchanged size of the circle), or in the relative change in the balance of pleasure and suffering in the world (in the changed degrees of red or blue in the circle).
The presence of the right-facing arrow indicates a movement from where we are now in our pleasure/suffering ratio, to one of the eight different directions that we’ll be exploring.