But that is how we experience them - though perhaps not with electrical signals, but chemical ones instead. e.g. dopamine. We're programmed to enjoy dopamine.
Humans experienced pleasure long before they knew anything about dopamine.
You seem to be rejecting the reality of subjective experience by equating it to its objectively observable physical correlates.
Moral judgements are not (at least historically have not been) based on such observables but rather on the assumption that that which causes oneself pleasure or pain typically does so for others as well.
You can put someone in an FMRI and find that certain brain signals correlate with that person claiming to feel pain (ie. correlate brain state with behavior) but you can never establish a causal relationship between those signals and the subjective experience of pain because subjective experience is by definition not objectively observable.
These sorts of philosophical arguments have been going on for a long time with little practical effect. However there is a danger that if machines do become sapient and surpass us in intelligence that based on such arguments they will conclude that human beings are merely an inferior form of intelligence which is not worth preserving. If humans themselves deny the existence of subjective experience then why should machines believe in such a thing.
Computers also calculated pi long before we used them to design circuits.
"However there is a danger that if machines do become sapient and surpass us in intelligence that based on such arguments they will conclude that human beings are merely an inferior form of intelligence which is not worth preserving"
