Dopamine

April 12, 2023 - 22 Nissan 5783

Dopamine is "a compound present in the body as a neurotransmitter and a precursor of other substances including epinephrine." To normal people, Dopamine is known as "a chemical released in the brain that makes you feel good." It's a chemical naturally occurring the body that makes you feel good when released in to your system.

In the past few years this chemical has been getting an increasing amount of attention on the internet and podcasts, such as Joe Rogan and Andrew Huberman.

This chemical's properties of making you feel emotionally good may cause some people to ask a very basic and pertinent question: do pleasure and joy has any inherent value if they are the biological results of a chemical compound being released into our brain? Do they have any intrinsic meaning if the same feelings can be generated by stimulating the areas of our brain that release this chemical?

And the answer is "yes," for one very simple and basic reason. While the studies show that Dopamine causes you to feel good, they don't account for the different experiences responsible for causing the body to release it in the first place. In other words, both a sadist who likes torturing puppies and a person who prefers to feed the poor derive pleasure from their actions. Both of them experience the effects of Dopamine in their bodies from their respective actions. The difference between them is that an act of cruelty releases Dopamine in the former, while in the latter an act of kindness is responsible for it. In both individuals same chemical is active, but a completely different action stimulates the body to release it.

What this means is that it matters very little that Dopamine is the agent of pleasure, but rather that people are either wired and/or nurtured differently such that completely different things trigger their pleasure sensors. It brings Dopamine (and therefore pleasure) into the realm of values, purpose, and meaning, explaining the biological mechanism responsible for the positive sensations it creates, but not the thoughts and actions that trigger it in the first place.