I think you're missing the thrust of my question.

I'm asking something more like "What if mental states are mostly a means of achieving worthwhile consequences, rather than being mostly the consequences that should be cared about in and for themselves?"

It is "consequences" either way.

But what might be called intrinsic hedonism would then be a consequentialism that puts the causal and moral stop sign at "how an action makes people feel" (mostly ignoring the results of the feelings (except to the degree that the feelings might cause other feelings via some series of second order side effects)).

An approach like this suggests that if people in general could reliably achieve an utterly passive and side effect free sort of bliss, that would be the end game... it would be an ideal stable outcome for people to collectively shoot for, and once it was attained the lack of side effects would keep it from being disrupted.

By contrast, hedonic instrumentalism (that I'm mostly advocating) would be a component of some larger consequentialism that is very concerned with what arises because of feelings (like what actions, with what results) and defers the core axiological question about the final value of various world states to a separate (likely independent) theory.

The position of hedonic instrumentalism is basically that happiness that causes behavior with bad results for the world is bad happiness. Happiness that causes behavior with good results in the world is good happiness. And happiness is arguably pointless if it is "sterile"... having no behavioral or world affecting consequences (though this depends on how much control we have over our actions and health via intermediaries other than by wireheading our affective subsystems). What does "good" mean here? That's a separate question.

Basically, the way I'm using the terms here: intrinsic hedonism is "an axiology", but hedonic instrumentalism treats affective states mostly as causal intermediates that lead to large scale adjustments to the world (though behavior) that can then be judged by some external axiology that pays attention to the whole world and the causal processes that deserve credit for bringing about the good world states.

You might break this down further, where perhaps "strong hedonic instrumentalism" is a claim that in actual practice, humans can (and already have, to some degree) come up with ways to make plans, follow the plans with action, and thereby produce huge amounts of good in the world, all without the need for very much "passion" as a neural/cognitive intermediate.

Then "weak hedonic instrumentalism" would be a claim that maybe such practices exist somewhere, or could exist if we searched for them really hard, and probably we should do that.

Then perhaps "skeptical hedonic instrumentalism" would be a claim that even if such practices don't exist and might not even be worth discovering, still it is the case that intrinsic hedonism is pretty weaksauce as far as axiologies go.

I would not currently say that I'm a strong hedonic instrumentalist, because I am not certain that the relevant mental practices exist as a factual matter... But also I'm just not very impressed by a moral theory that points to a little bit of tissue inside one or more skulls and says that the whole world can go to hell, so long as that neural tissue is in a "happy state".

How is physical torture (or chronic back pain) the result of attachment to outcomes?

At the beginning, I should note that any goal which is not including immortality is stupid, as infinite existence will include realisation of almost all other goals. So immortality seems to be a good proxy for the best goal. It is better goal than pleasure. Pleasure is always temporary, and somewhat not interesting.

However, there is something bigger than immortality. I call it "to become a God". But I can't just jump, or become enlightened, or whatever, it will be not me. I want to go all the way from now to infinitely complex, eternal and superintelligent and benevolent being. I think it is the most interesting way live.

But it is not just fun. It is the meaning of life. And the "meaning" is what makes you work, even if there are no fun ahead. For example, if you care about the survival of your family, it gives you meaning. Or, speaking better, the meaning takes you.

The idea of infinite evolution is also a meaning for the following reasons. There is a basic drive to evolve in every living being. When you choose a beautiful goal, you want to put your genes in the best possible place and create best possible children, and this is a drive that moves evolution. (Not very scientific claim, as sexual selection is not as well accepted as natural selection. So it is more like poetic expression of my feeling about natural drive to evolution). If one educate himself, read, travel etc, it all is parts of this desire for evolution. Even the first AI will immediately find it and start to self-improve.

The desire to evolve is something like Nietzschen "will to power". But this will is oriented on the infinite space of future possible mind states.

I would add that I spent years working in the theory of happiness. I abandoned it and I feel much better. I don't need to be happy, I just need to be in working condition to move to my mission: infinitely evolve (it also includes saving humanity from x-risks and giving life extension for all, so my goal is altruistic).

It may look that this goal has smaller prior chances of success, but it is not so for two reasons, one them connected with appearing of superintelligence in near-term, and another is some form of observation selection which will prevent me from seeing my failure. If I merge with superintelligent AI, I could continue my evolution (as well as other people).

There is another point of view, that I often heard from Lesswrongers. That we should not dare to think about our final goals, as superintelligence will provide us with better goals via CEV. However, there is some circularity here, as superinteligence has to extract our values from us, and if we not investing in attempts to articulate them, it could assume that the most popular TV series are the best presentation of the world we want to live. Its "Games of Thrones" and "The Walking Dead".

terminal goals converge as long as you go far enough up the goal chain.

Wait. Terminal goals are, by definition, the head of the goal chain. You can't go any further.

My current thesis about human goals is that they contain loops and have no heads - not that terminal goals diverge, but that there is no such thing as a terminal human goal.

My terminal goals as far as I can tell involve the state of the world and don't involve happiness at all. How does that fit into your framework?

No, but he clearly would have the same definition as most of us. He thinks morality comes from the brain and by learning more about our brains we learn more about morality. He says things like scientists who think science can't answer "should" questions very often act as if should questions have objectively right answers, and our brains seem to store moral beliefs in the same way as they do factual beliefs.