Nature chanced upon value. When consciousness evolved, mind-states that held positive and negative valence were encountered. The positive provided attractive stimulus, the negative provided aversive stimulus. For hundreds of millions of years, states that had experiential value in and of themselves were shackled to the end of reproductive fitness. But consciousness became deeper and more refined. It became great enough to turn back on itself and become its own object of study. Now we, sentient animals, can see pleasure as an innate good and pain as an innate evil. We can seek after them, as our ancestors all did, but with deeper comprehension, even in cases where they become decoupled from reproductive success. Now rather than value serving biology, we can make biology serve value. One day, we may convert every star in the sky into a seething mass of ecstacy, merely because we know it to be good. So, from the age-old dance of life and death, from the cruel aeons that sharpened the knives of consciousness, the universe will come to make itself happy.