[Lee Yongbeom's Psychology of Happiness] No Pain, No Happiness, Like Two Sides of the Same Coin...

<33>Where Does Happiness Come From?
The Desire System Driven by Dopamine, Happiness from Expectation
Feeling Happiness by Taking Risks Rather Than Eternal Happiness Machines

Iyongbeom Novelist

In 1954, psychologists James Olds and Peter Milner conducted a legendary experiment that heralded the emergence of modern neuroscience. They implanted an electrical stimulator into a specific area of the diencephalon in rats and connected it to a switch. Soon after, the rats began frantically pressing the switch, forgetting to eat, drink, or even mate. They risked death to obtain pleasure. Later, the brain area stimulated electrically was named the "pleasure center."

Happiness is directly linked to the state of the mind. There are two views on where the mind resides and how it is created. One view holds that the mind is created by the brain's electrochemical activity, while the other suggests that the mind is unrelated to biological structures and can influence the external world. Modern science supports the first view. We do not see the world with our eyes but with our brain. The red color of an apple is not inherent in the apple but is an experience generated inside the observer's brain. Happiness is the same. Happiness is part of the emotional experience synthesized by the brain.

Happiness Hormones That Soak the Brain

Emotions are produced through the interaction of various regions within the brain's limbic system. Sensory information is seasoned like spices in the brain's emotional factory and manifests as emotions such as fear, joy, and anger. Hormones act as the spices in this process. The brain regulates our emotions with dozens of hormones. Several hormones influence happiness, with representative ones being endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine.

Endorphins are natural painkillers produced by the brain, chemically similar to opiates. When our body faces danger or physical exhaustion, the brain secretes these natural painkillers. This is why marathon runners experience euphoria at the end of intense pain. Oxytocin is called the "love hormone" or "trust hormone." The intimacy and bonding between loved ones are created by this hormone. Serotonin is closely related to our mood, food, sleep, and pain. It regulates and balances the brain's core functions that make us feel everyday happiness.

Particularly noteworthy is dopamine. Dopamine is a molecule composed of 22 atoms and is known as the "desire hormone." When the brain is soaked in dopamine, it can lead to cravings for achievement, intoxication with power, indulgence in sex, and addictions to drugs and gambling. The pathway where dopamine acts is called the reward system. What bathes us in pleasure is not the reward itself but the expectation of the reward. That is why planning a trip fills us with excitement and anticipation, but the actual trip often turns out to be underwhelming. The brain's reward system feeds on expectation. The same reward loses its effect, and only rewards that provide greater expectations stimulate desire. The boredom of repeated rewards generates stronger desires, resulting in addiction. Dopamine acts as the chemical switch for desire.

Feeling pain or pleasure is the brain's function. When in danger, the brain can anesthetize pain with hormones. That is why soldiers in combat may pull the trigger like madmen without realizing their leg is broken. Genes have made us take risks by exciting the brain when embarking on new adventures. Adventure activates the reward system, producing dopamine, which makes us feel good. All pleasure is intoxication. The hormones that intoxicate us are influenced by the autonomic nervous system, which cannot be consciously controlled. Therefore, happiness cannot be achieved simply by willing it.

Four pathways of dopamine release in the brain.

Wanting and Liking

The reason the brain provides happiness through hormones is that happy individuals have a survival advantage. Genes have implanted a reward system in our brain to achieve their goals. As we develop a reward system that constantly desires better things, desire becomes something that can never be fully satisfied. However, if our ancestors had only indulged in desire, they would have exhausted themselves and died long ago. Fortunately, the brain also has a braking system that stops desire. The brain contains both a wanting system and a liking system.

The wanting system is a neural circuit where dopamine acts, and the liking system is a neural circuit where opioids like morphine act. The wanting system focuses on "expectation" and does not immediately bring pleasure. In other words, the wanting system urges us to pursue what we want, but the hard effort for achievement does not bring instant pleasure. This is why we endure and work silently for the future. If an animal's dopamine pathway is blocked, it desires nothing and will starve even when surrounded by food. On the other hand, the liking system brings pleasure the moment what is wanted is fulfilled, but the pleasure soon fades. If the wanting system provides happiness from "expectation," the liking system provides happiness from "experience." The two systems are interconnected. Therefore, what we want is usually what we like. The perfect fulfillment of both systems is mating.

Philosophers' concept of happiness is far from the fulfillment of desire or pleasure. It is closer to calmness or contentment. This kind of happiness is more related to serotonin than dopamine. Serotonin balances positive and negative emotions. It alleviates worry, fear, anxiety, and insomnia, while enhancing sociability, cooperation, and positive feelings.

If There Were a ‘Happiness Machine’

American philosopher Robert Nozick proposed a thought experiment with an "experience machine" in . If you enter this machine and imagine what you want, you can experience exactly what you imagined. Moreover, the person inside the machine does not even realize they are inside it. Therefore, anyone who desires a happy life could enjoy eternal happiness by entering the machine. Would you be willing to stay in this machine forever?

Unless you are facing death, you probably would not want such a life. There is no achievement inside the machine. A life where you can do nothing is no different from death. We want adventure and sometimes take risks to feel happiness. The journey to obtain happiness itself forms the foundation of happiness. Happiness without the possibility of unhappiness is not happiness. To gain happiness, one must pay a price. Aldous Huxley's depicts a world where happiness inside a machine is realized. There, people chant the mantra "I am happy" while taking drugs. The protagonist John says to the dystopian ruler Mustapha Mond:

"I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin... Yes, that's right. I claim the right to be unhappy. Not only the right to grow old, ugly, and impotent but the right to get syphilis and cancer, the right to starve, the right to live in misery, the right to worry about what will happen tomorrow, the right to have typhoid, the right to groan with every kind of unspeakable pain... I want all these rights."

Are we slaves to our brain and hormones? Probably yes. More precisely, humans are slaves to nature. Happiness is essentially not a "thought." Yet happiness preachers advise us to change our thinking. Nature has made all living beings its slaves but has gifted humans with a cognitive illusion strong enough to endure the pains of reality. That illusion is that life has great meaning and that pursuing that meaning is a valuable life. Because of this, we willingly leap into pain for a meaningful life. The freedom to be unhappy and the pursuit of happiness point to the same place. Without pain, there is no happiness. Like two sides of a coin, unhappiness and happiness ride in the same boat.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.