Ha let me quote myself:
Epicurus was saying that just as we don't choose the longest life, but the most pleasant, we don't choose the most pain-free life, but the most pleasant.
Is it not interesting how this statement has to be viewed carefully too. Because from the point of view of PD3 (the limit of quantity....) the most pain-free life IS the most pleasant life, by definition, at least in PD3 when considering the issue from the point of quantity alone. But if you consider that pleasure can't be reduced to a single aspect of measurement that trumps all others (certainly not quantity of time), then every time you put a caveat and say "pleasure in terms of ......." you're going to end up with a problem in measurement that isn't resolvable by any other standard of measure than going back to "pleasure" itself - which presumably is an individual standard, since only individuals can feel pleasure.
This is why I look at the "pleasure is absence of pain" as not only experientially true, as Elayne will be quick to say, but also as "logically" true. Maybe the correct word is not "logically" because what we're NOT saying is that this can be proven by abstract logic disconnected from experience. I suppose the best words I have for this at the moment are "true reason" (doesn't Lucrestius refer to "vera ratio"?) because it is reason based tightly and closely and validated by experience. Maybe it's also "true logic," or at least "practical logic." But to return to the point, it's both logically and experientially sound.