10 ms·

Can You Overdose on Happiness?

76 points by dsego 7y ago

ThrowawayR2 7y ago
Interesting yet disturbing. On the one hand, a possible treatment for severe treatment resistant depression, which would relieve the misery of many thousands of suffering individuals. On the other, a possible gateway to the sci-fi concept of wireheads ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction) ) or a mechanism to involuntarily pacify dissidents or other disaffected members of society. I'm really not sure what to think.
cies 7y ago
An LD50[1] for a happiness level? I don't think so. OD'ing in sense of "my happy chemicals are depleted so now I need to recover a bit", suuuure :) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose
- magashna 7y ago
  Sounds like MDMA abuse.
salvad0r 7y ago
I kind of skimmed the article, but it did remind me of another one I read about babies. Once a baby gets to the point they express emotions, they will look at their parents and fill with so much joy, their sub-conscious forces them to look away so they can calm down and don't hurt themselves.
- The_rationalist 7y ago
  Source about babies getting so much joy just by looking at their parents? This seems unlikely or at least hyperbolic.
- helpPeople 7y ago
  Wow my kid does this. I attributed this as "bashful". And my wife says I do this too.
topspin 7y ago
You can, but most people have a built-in defense mechanism for dealing with excessive happiness; they indulge invented troubles and make themselves miserable. Some large fraction of contemporary news headlines are attributable to this phenomenon; most people aren't actually clever enough to invent their own troubles so they adopt the invented troubles created by others.
- mottosso 7y ago
  I also have this view. Curious whether you know of any resources to read up on this some more? It's one of those things that's hard to search for.
- everdev 7y ago
  Some people refer to this as the "upper limit problem" or "upper limit theory" https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-personal-renaissance/201401/do-you-sabotage-yourself-when-you-reach-your-goals https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-personal-renais...
perseusprime11 7y ago
Happiness and suffering are tow sides of the same coin. They follow each other closely. Overdose of happiness will lead to an equal amount of suffering. Better to be indifferent to either and focus on equanimity, peace and harmonY.
- codr7 7y ago
  This is very true, contentment and acceptance are two more worthy goals to aim for. I find them easier to relate to and more fundamental. My Yoga teacher used to say that it's useless to tell someone to relax, it's like telling them to not think of a pink elephant.
- The_rationalist 7y ago
  Is there scientific evidence that the more we have highly happy moments the more we have highly suffering moments? I does not match my experience of life.
  - cheeko1234 7y ago
    I think it's more of the other way around. To have happy moments you have to have suffering moments to compare to how bad it could be. Basically: who gets happier when they get a gift? Someone who doesn't get gifts a lot, or someone who's always getting gifts?
    - perseusprime11 7y ago
      Bingo!
arandr0x 7y ago
"Why not allow patients to set their own moods to suit their own circumstances and desires?" Can't most people to some extent do that?
- boomlinde 7y ago
  It seems like such therapy is aimed at people whose capacity to affect their mood positively is diminished somehow.
known 7y ago
Happiness = Money + Children http://archive.is/LvxSN http://archive.is/LvxSN
- MaxBarraclough 7y ago
  I recall Daniel Kahneman concluded the opposite: happiness is largely a function of spending time with people you love (not including children), and life-satisfaction is largely a function of plain old career success.
- milesvp 7y ago
  yeah, not quite. children actually tend to make you less happy than your peers. at least until they’re old enough to largely fend for themselves. At least in western cultures. I suspect households with more than 2 adults the equation changes significantly. My experience is every child is a pleasure for 2 hours, no matter how badly they are misbehaving. So a household with enough adults to hand off the children may be able to maximize some kind of child additive happiness, though now you have to deal with added adult drama...
  - lostlogin 7y ago
    If happiness is living with 12 adults and a child, I’ll take hell every time.
    - throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
      Hey Arnold seemed alright
  - helpPeople 7y ago
    Ancedotes... My baby has made me incredibly happy. But also frustrated and tired. But now that we hit 4 months, it's mostly happy and rarely tired and frustrated.
    - lucb1e 7y ago
      I'm not sure one can make much of a statement about how happy children make you after you've had one for four months...
bahrd 7y ago
Sweet, well here's at least one mental illness I'll never have to worry about...
aaroninsf 7y ago
"Dissatisfaction will find its level."
The_rationalist 7y ago
RANT: This is rationally the most interesting topic I've ever read. It's not subjective, this is clearly the currently known most effective way to maximize hapiness and maximizing happiness is the only rational policy: utilitarism. But there are so many obvious questions unanswered: I incrementing from one volt to another had significant mood alteration, why didn't the doctor improve granulairy,why didn't they tried e.g If changing from one volt to another has such a big impact on mood alteration, why couldn't they try floats ? (e.g 3.265 volts) Also the happiness benchmarcking should be much more rigorous (we're talking about permanently altering a human mood behavior) e.g how much is increased or decreased the response to stimulis such as consuming music, arts, orgasms, or laugh ability. How much does this affect social behavior, ability to focus, working memory, creativity, etc. Is the alteration only changing baseline well being or does it affect the propensity of having mood spikes (high low, high up). I'm just a random guy on the internet,the scientists should have measured all of this. Other obvious things: The field should be massively be financed by state research. The voltage should be dynamic in real time and changeable though a smartphone application. Philosophers and data scientists should make consensus on optimal strategies (setting a right voltage for a right situation) Also, the stimulation only affect one brain region, I expect that the recompense system is far more complex and thus we should have as many electrodes as there are concerned brain regions. Indeed, each with differing voltages. Deep brain stimulation seems to be the successor of a widely used paradigmatic technology: Psychotrophs. Cannabis mostly have the structure of dopamin and thus can pass the blood brain barrier and stick to dopamin receptors. Here hapiness is controlled chemically not electrically. So can the recompense system be totally controlled electrically or only a subset of moods states/substates can be controlled electrically? Also, does the stimulation inherit some downsides of cannabis? Bonus: Instead of having a dynamically changing voltages in real time but in a continous manner, would it be useful to make rapid non continous volts switching having a "rhythm" like a music? Could we create new fine grained feelings on demand?
- helpPeople 7y ago
  If there is electrical current, can we make hats that measure EMF?
  - 7y ago
tehnub 7y ago
Interesting comment from the Nautilus comment section from user Zdenek Husak: > What an incredibly flawed piece; sensational, unscientific and condescending to patients suffering from depression. All decorated with opinions of a very controversial scientist: http://alison-bass.blogspot.com/2011/05/helen-mayberg-case-study-in-why-we-need.html http://alison-bass.blogspot.com/2011/05/helen-mayberg-case-s...
- akeck 7y ago
  There is also a rebuttal to that blog post: http://daviddobbs.net/smoothpebbles/alison-bass-your-facts-on-helen-mayberg-are-wrong-wrong-and-wrong/ http://daviddobbs.net/smoothpebbles/alison-bass-your-facts-o...
m3kw9 7y ago
Humans are awesome difference tellers, but once you have too much of the same thing you will be indifferent to it. As with happiness that could happen, there is a limit of sustaining higher highs. Unless that person can stop and notice around them and be grateful of what they have by noticing the suffering around. Something to that degree
- criddell 7y ago
  So, if by some feat of governmental magic, my city were able to eliminate the homelessness problem, I might be less happy because I wouldn't see as much suffering around me?
  - wysifnwyg 7y ago
    You'd find something else. There's always inequality to be found.
  - corey_moncure 7y ago
    It sounds strange to say it but at some level, isn't it possible? Sometimes YouTube shows me videos of natural disasters (I have a strong interest in the extremes of physics, weather, nature, etc. generally) and some of those videos feature widespread human suffering on display. When I see these videos, I remember that my life is actually pretty great despite the minor nuisances that may have me feeling ticked off that day. Couldn't seeing homelessness around you could remind you how lucky you are that you don't suffer from the conditions that lead to homelessness?
vinceguidry 7y ago
Some 8 years or so ago I experimented with triggering mood changes using a meditative technique. I had long been doing 'centering' meditative exercises so that I could bring more focus and clarity to seated practice. I wanted something more practical that would affect my everyday life. I eventually settled on two 'states'. A 'centered' state and a 'joyful' one. Any time I noticed myself outside of one of the two states, I performed the quick ritual to bring myself back to it. After a few days of practice, I found myself shockingly good at performing quick, directed mood shifts, in any situation I found myself in. I settled into a routine that lasted a few weeks. It didn't suck, I never 'overdosed'. It was every bit as cool as you can imagine it being. However over time I lost the desire to keep it up. Eventually I realized that, in the end, being able to relate to others requires a certain amount of empathy, and being blissed-out all the time made it really difficult to do that. It might get easier if everyone around me also could stay centered or joyful, but if I want deep fulfilling relationships with others, being able to feel what they feel and not what I want to feel is important. This is ultimately what makes addiction so caustic to relationships IMO. Your mood stops moving and flexing with your social environs. It's a feedback loop that closes you off from those that sustain you and you lean heavier on the substance.
- cheeko1234 7y ago
  Teach me please. I need this.
- wfn 7y ago
  I am interested in trying something akin to those mood-modulating techniques of yours. Can you perhaps elaborate on them a bit, or give some pointers where to look? Is this something which can be incorporated into mindfulness practice, or not really? Thanks! :)
- IpV8 7y ago
  Teach me too
- vinceguidry 7y ago
  I'll reply once to my own comment to the three requests for tutelage with the same thing I sent in the one person that emailed me. The technique isn't particularly hard to develop. I used hand gestures. Hold your hands in the gesture and focus on the desired mood. Best done initially when you are only slightly 'off' from the desired mood. Rinse and repeat until you can do it more readily and in situations that are further away from the desired one. The hard part is in remembering to do it, and in maintaining the patience to keep at it. If I hadn't already had years of meditation experience by the time I came up with this idea, I don't think I would have been able to follow through. I used the teachings of George Gurdjieff to help me reach a place where I could rely on my ability to remember such things at the time in which I need to remember them. PDF link follows, however not the one I used. I personally read the first few chapters of his first book, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, which is an impossibly dense read that communicates a stupidly simple message. http://www.gurdjiefffourthway.org/pdf/SELF-REMEMBERING.pdf http://www.gurdjiefffourthway.org/pdf/SELF-REMEMBERING.pdf
tombert 7y ago
There's a quote in Bojack Horseman that has a similar theme: > I guess I got a happy ending, but every happy ending has the day after the happy ending, right? And the day after that. So the wedding was so much fun. It was the happiest day of my life. But, you know, what does that say about all the days I have left? I've always liked that quote, because it is something that gets a bit glossed over in books and movies, but is important; the first derivative of happiness after something amazing is almost invariably negative.
- DiffEq 7y ago
  This is absolutely not so. Just because one flies high one day does not mean if you fly low the next day that it is negative at all. Because hey - you are FLYING! There are different joys in all levels of flight (or to leave the analogy, of life). Additionally IF one does have an exceptionally negative day, it can be used to even more appreciate the exceptionally happy days. And another way to understand this is that the happy times, if truly pure and happy, never lose the positive buoyancy they shed on the rest of your days; so in that way those days have raised your overall abundance of life.
  - tombert 7y ago
    > Just because one flies high one day does not mean if you fly low the next day that it is negative at all. Because hey - you are FLYING! Sure, and maybe that mentality works for you, but I feel like a lot of people are more sensitive to differentials than actual quality-of-life. For example, if I get a big raise at work, then that's great; I will probably be happy for awhile, and after that, I'll probably equalize to more or less the level of happiness I was before. Imagine that I then lose that raise, going back to the same salary that I started with. I would probably be pretty depressed over that, despite the fact that I wouldn't, in practice, be any worse than how I started. I'm not saying it's rational, I'm just saying that's how I (and I think a lot of people) would react.
    - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
      Hedonic adaptation works both ways, you would normally equalize to the same level after the cut, so it is a good thing. And if you keep that process in mind and maintain perspective, you can flatten both bursts of happiness and bouts of depression. Paradoxically, this might actually raise your settled level of happiness.
tosser0001 7y ago
I knew a guy who I always thought was basically the opposite of clinically depressed - I thought of him as "clinically happy". In some ways I was a bit jealous of how he never seemed to let things get to him. But on the other hand, he would let certain aspects of his life fall apart in ways that seemed to me his perpetual good humor perhaps didn't allow him to address. If he had felt a bit more discomfort I think he would have taken a different path from time to time and ultimately wound up in a better place overall.
- program_whiz 7y ago
  Totally get what you're saying, have known people like that. But then it begs the question -- end up in a better place for what reason? If being "in a better place" wasn't going to improve how he felt internally, why bother? I think its hard for us normies to understand people like that, because its so obvious how it would be "better" to have more money, stability, etc, but perhaps the definition of enlightenment is to be truly happy regardless of circumstance. If that's the case, is there really a reason to do those things (if it truly won't change your internal state in any way)? Like if you knew that no job or money you made would ever lead to any fulfillment of any kind, and you would be equally happy without the job / money, would you still do it, just because its a "better situation" (how we define better is again tricky here)... This is extreme, but there's an old zen koan about a teacher who tells his servant to leave him alone while he drinks tea, as his house burns down. He then walks back to see it burned down, and no one can understand why he did that, and he says something like "I was enjoying my tea". The house was as meaningless as if someone had said "if you don't come quick a leaf will blow off your patio" -- totally meaningless and of no impact to your present mood.
  - razorunreal 7y ago
    I think our emotional responses exist to guide us towards good decisions. If you take a reinforcement learning system and you always give it positive reinforcement, it will not learn much of anything. I guess I'm saying your enlightenment is irrelevant if it's not improving your survival.
Ascetik 7y ago
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, no you cannot, because the immortal soul presupposes a participation in the infinite and eternal. Aristotle made this clear, which St. Thomas then expounds on: "Man’s ultimate happiness consists in the contemplation of truth, for this operation is specific to man and is shared with no other animals. Also it is not directed to any other end since the contemplation of truth is sought for its own sake. In addition, in this operation man is united to higher beings (substances) since this is the only human operation that is carried out both by God and by the separate substances (angels). (Summa Contra Gentiles, book 3, chapter 37) and It is impossible for any created good to constitute man’s happiness. For happiness is that perfect good which entirely satisfies one’s desire; otherwise it would not be the ultimate end, if something yet remained to be desired. Now the object of the will, i.e., of man’s desire, is what is universally good; just as the object of the intellect is what is universally true. Hence it is evident that nothing can satisfy man’s will, except what is universally good. This is to be found, not in any creature, but in God alone, because every creature has only participated goodness. Therefore, God alone can satisfy the will of man, according to the words of the Psalms (102:5): “Who alone satisfies your desire with good things.” Therefore, God alone constitutes man’s happiness.” (Summa Theologica Part 2. Q.1. Article 8)
zackmorris 7y ago
I'm intrigued by the idea that electrical brain stimulation might somehow take the place of damaged or disconnected parts of the brain. I stumbled onto these links the other day while researching concussion and depression: https://www.myrighttime.com/concussions-depression https://www.myrighttime.com/concussions-depression https://msktc.org/tbi/factsheets/depression-after-traumatic-brain-injury https://msktc.org/tbi/factsheets/depression-after-traumatic-... https://www.brainline.org/article/depression-after-brain-injury https://www.brainline.org/article/depression-after-brain-inj... http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/17/study-reveals-how-concussions-can-trigger-depression/ http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/17/study-reveals-how-conc... In my case, I was a rambunctious kid who bumped his noggin dozens of times and I always wondered if that had an effect on my mood. I've struggled with depression off and on since my late teens, although I think that most of it was environmental. It can be difficult sometimes as creative people to find satisfaction in the workaday world when it's so far removed from the life of invention and fulfillment that we might imagine for ourselves. The interesting thing about concussion is that it doesn't always show up on brain scans because it can be microscopic tears in the white matter connecting different regions, rather than acute damage to a specific area. So maybe everything is working, but there is a delay or diminishment in inner monolog that makes everything feel like a struggle or seem like tasks require additional motivation that is difficult to maintain. It could manifest differently for everyone though, and the damage may or may not be permanent. I think that some of the trouble comes because we might rewire ourselves to cope with temporary damage, and then find ourselves caught in dysfunctional habits after the brain repairs itself via neuroplasticity. Similar things happen in the body with referred pain, where nerves report pain months or years after a muscle strain heals, for example. I’ve been experimenting with a TENS machine and after just 3 half-hour sessions, the pain in one of my shoulder blades is about 1/3 less than before. I also think there might be a connection with the limbic system, or whichever centers connect thought with external action. I’ve noticed that I can brainstorm like no tomorrow, or perform physical tasks like lifting weights, but combining the two to adapt physically under changing mental requirements and do things like home improvement projects can be taxing sometimes. The end result being that I’m not quite the self-motivator I once was, because it’s easier to procrastinate reading/writing about my interests or take direct orders from a boss than start my own project. So I’ve been experimenting with separating my goals and performing them temporally, using a to-do list. Maybe list what to do in the morning, then perform the steps in the afternoon or the next day. The idea being that any of us can write an outline of how to achieve our dreams, hopefully incorporating mindfulness meditation practices (aka The Secret), then diligently follow those steps by reporting to ourselves as our own boss and achieve some level of spiritual independence and satisfaction in our lives. Some keywords that helped me research this are SSRI, SNRI and adult crawling. YMMV though as I’m a bit of a mind hacker (certainly not a doctor) and have never been on antidepressants.
otakucode 7y ago
This is a very difficult issue. It appears that the doctors had to rely on the patients own evaluation of his state, which is very problematic. The point at which the patient smiled wide and said he felt euphoric very well could have just been an absence of his normal mental problems. If you have anxiety, and it is taken away, yes, you feel euphoric. Because you don't know what you have been missing, and when you reach 'normal' it seems amazing. I had a similar experience when I first started treatment for social anxiety disorder. I very quickly came to realize that something I didn't even know what a problem or even knew it COULD be a problem had ruled my life for as long as I could remember. I had been warned that there could be sexual side effects from the medication. However, what had been described was lack of sexual interest, inability to climax, things like that. Yet what I experienced was the most intense spine-chilling toe-curling orgasms of wonder I'd ever had in my life. I explained this to my doctor and she let me know I was just having normal orgasms finally. I never could have guessed it before, but my pleasure level even during orgasm was markedly lower due to anxiety (even with masturbation). Do not count on people with anxiety being able to recognize either anxiety or what they're "supposed to" feel like. It sounded to me like the doctor was afraid, actually afraid, of making the patient feel good. This sounds to me like a disgusting, cancerous viewpoint grown out of centuries of Protestant Work Ethic nonsense. Our stark, desperate fear of the destructive nature of pleasure is backed by almost nothing, and it benefits no one. When pleasure is paired with some sort of drawback - then point to the drawback. Not the pleasure as some kind of "it must be bad" that should be self-evident to post-Industrial era people. The whole 'deny the body and animal urges' notion was invented and promoted to get people into repetitive, grueling low-pay factory work and nothing more.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

76 points by dsego 7y ago

Interesting yet disturbing. On the one hand, a possible treatment for severe treatment resistant depression, which would relieve the misery of many thousands of suffering individuals. On the other, a possible gateway to the sci-fi concept of wireheads ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction) ) or a mechanism to involuntarily pacify dissidents or other disaffected members of society. I'm really not sure what to think.

cies 7y ago

An LD50[1] for a happiness level? I don't think so. OD'ing in sense of "my happy chemicals are depleted so now I need to recover a bit", suuuure :) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose

magashna 7y ago
Sounds like MDMA abuse.

salvad0r 7y ago

I kind of skimmed the article, but it did remind me of another one I read about babies. Once a baby gets to the point they express emotions, they will look at their parents and fill with so much joy, their sub-conscious forces them to look away so they can calm down and don't hurt themselves.

The_rationalist 7y ago
Source about babies getting so much joy just by looking at their parents? This seems unlikely or at least hyperbolic.
helpPeople 7y ago
Wow my kid does this. I attributed this as "bashful". And my wife says I do this too.

topspin 7y ago

You can, but most people have a built-in defense mechanism for dealing with excessive happiness; they indulge invented troubles and make themselves miserable. Some large fraction of contemporary news headlines are attributable to this phenomenon; most people aren't actually clever enough to invent their own troubles so they adopt the invented troubles created by others.

mottosso 7y ago
I also have this view. Curious whether you know of any resources to read up on this some more? It's one of those things that's hard to search for.
everdev 7y ago
Some people refer to this as the "upper limit problem" or "upper limit theory" https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-personal-renaissance/201401/do-you-sabotage-yourself-when-you-reach-your-goals https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-personal-renais...

perseusprime11 7y ago

Happiness and suffering are tow sides of the same coin. They follow each other closely. Overdose of happiness will lead to an equal amount of suffering. Better to be indifferent to either and focus on equanimity, peace and harmonY.

codr7 7y ago
This is very true, contentment and acceptance are two more worthy goals to aim for. I find them easier to relate to and more fundamental. My Yoga teacher used to say that it's useless to tell someone to relax, it's like telling them to not think of a pink elephant.
The_rationalist 7y ago
Is there scientific evidence that the more we have highly happy moments the more we have highly suffering moments? I does not match my experience of life.
- cheeko1234 7y ago
  I think it's more of the other way around. To have happy moments you have to have suffering moments to compare to how bad it could be. Basically: who gets happier when they get a gift? Someone who doesn't get gifts a lot, or someone who's always getting gifts?
  - perseusprime11 7y ago
    Bingo!

arandr0x 7y ago

"Why not allow patients to set their own moods to suit their own circumstances and desires?" Can't most people to some extent do that?

boomlinde 7y ago
It seems like such therapy is aimed at people whose capacity to affect their mood positively is diminished somehow.

known 7y ago

Happiness = Money + Children http://archive.is/LvxSN http://archive.is/LvxSN

MaxBarraclough 7y ago
I recall Daniel Kahneman concluded the opposite: happiness is largely a function of spending time with people you love (not including children), and life-satisfaction is largely a function of plain old career success.
milesvp 7y ago
yeah, not quite. children actually tend to make you less happy than your peers. at least until they’re old enough to largely fend for themselves. At least in western cultures. I suspect households with more than 2 adults the equation changes significantly. My experience is every child is a pleasure for 2 hours, no matter how badly they are misbehaving. So a household with enough adults to hand off the children may be able to maximize some kind of child additive happiness, though now you have to deal with added adult drama...
- lostlogin 7y ago
  If happiness is living with 12 adults and a child, I’ll take hell every time.
  - throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
    Hey Arnold seemed alright
- helpPeople 7y ago
  Ancedotes... My baby has made me incredibly happy. But also frustrated and tired. But now that we hit 4 months, it's mostly happy and rarely tired and frustrated.
  - lucb1e 7y ago
    I'm not sure one can make much of a statement about how happy children make you after you've had one for four months...

bahrd 7y ago

Sweet, well here's at least one mental illness I'll never have to worry about...

aaroninsf 7y ago

"Dissatisfaction will find its level."

The_rationalist 7y ago

RANT: This is rationally the most interesting topic I've ever read. It's not subjective, this is clearly the currently known most effective way to maximize hapiness and maximizing happiness is the only rational policy: utilitarism. But there are so many obvious questions unanswered: I incrementing from one volt to another had significant mood alteration, why didn't the doctor improve granulairy,why didn't they tried e.g If changing from one volt to another has such a big impact on mood alteration, why couldn't they try floats ? (e.g 3.265 volts) Also the happiness benchmarcking should be much more rigorous (we're talking about permanently altering a human mood behavior) e.g how much is increased or decreased the response to stimulis such as consuming music, arts, orgasms, or laugh ability. How much does this affect social behavior, ability to focus, working memory, creativity, etc. Is the alteration only changing baseline well being or does it affect the propensity of having mood spikes (high low, high up). I'm just a random guy on the internet,the scientists should have measured all of this. Other obvious things: The field should be massively be financed by state research. The voltage should be dynamic in real time and changeable though a smartphone application. Philosophers and data scientists should make consensus on optimal strategies (setting a right voltage for a right situation) Also, the stimulation only affect one brain region, I expect that the recompense system is far more complex and thus we should have as many electrodes as there are concerned brain regions. Indeed, each with differing voltages. Deep brain stimulation seems to be the successor of a widely used paradigmatic technology: Psychotrophs. Cannabis mostly have the structure of dopamin and thus can pass the blood brain barrier and stick to dopamin receptors. Here hapiness is controlled chemically not electrically. So can the recompense system be totally controlled electrically or only a subset of moods states/substates can be controlled electrically? Also, does the stimulation inherit some downsides of cannabis? Bonus: Instead of having a dynamically changing voltages in real time but in a continous manner, would it be useful to make rapid non continous volts switching having a "rhythm" like a music? Could we create new fine grained feelings on demand?

helpPeople 7y ago
If there is electrical current, can we make hats that measure EMF?
- 7y ago

tehnub 7y ago

Interesting comment from the Nautilus comment section from user Zdenek Husak: > What an incredibly flawed piece; sensational, unscientific and condescending to patients suffering from depression. All decorated with opinions of a very controversial scientist: http://alison-bass.blogspot.com/2011/05/helen-mayberg-case-study-in-why-we-need.html http://alison-bass.blogspot.com/2011/05/helen-mayberg-case-s...

akeck 7y ago
There is also a rebuttal to that blog post: http://daviddobbs.net/smoothpebbles/alison-bass-your-facts-on-helen-mayberg-are-wrong-wrong-and-wrong/ http://daviddobbs.net/smoothpebbles/alison-bass-your-facts-o...

m3kw9 7y ago

Humans are awesome difference tellers, but once you have too much of the same thing you will be indifferent to it. As with happiness that could happen, there is a limit of sustaining higher highs. Unless that person can stop and notice around them and be grateful of what they have by noticing the suffering around. Something to that degree

criddell 7y ago
So, if by some feat of governmental magic, my city were able to eliminate the homelessness problem, I might be less happy because I wouldn't see as much suffering around me?
- wysifnwyg 7y ago
  You'd find something else. There's always inequality to be found.
- corey_moncure 7y ago
  It sounds strange to say it but at some level, isn't it possible? Sometimes YouTube shows me videos of natural disasters (I have a strong interest in the extremes of physics, weather, nature, etc. generally) and some of those videos feature widespread human suffering on display. When I see these videos, I remember that my life is actually pretty great despite the minor nuisances that may have me feeling ticked off that day. Couldn't seeing homelessness around you could remind you how lucky you are that you don't suffer from the conditions that lead to homelessness?

vinceguidry 7y ago

Some 8 years or so ago I experimented with triggering mood changes using a meditative technique. I had long been doing 'centering' meditative exercises so that I could bring more focus and clarity to seated practice. I wanted something more practical that would affect my everyday life. I eventually settled on two 'states'. A 'centered' state and a 'joyful' one. Any time I noticed myself outside of one of the two states, I performed the quick ritual to bring myself back to it. After a few days of practice, I found myself shockingly good at performing quick, directed mood shifts, in any situation I found myself in. I settled into a routine that lasted a few weeks. It didn't suck, I never 'overdosed'. It was every bit as cool as you can imagine it being. However over time I lost the desire to keep it up. Eventually I realized that, in the end, being able to relate to others requires a certain amount of empathy, and being blissed-out all the time made it really difficult to do that. It might get easier if everyone around me also could stay centered or joyful, but if I want deep fulfilling relationships with others, being able to feel what they feel and not what I want to feel is important. This is ultimately what makes addiction so caustic to relationships IMO. Your mood stops moving and flexing with your social environs. It's a feedback loop that closes you off from those that sustain you and you lean heavier on the substance.

cheeko1234 7y ago
Teach me please. I need this.
wfn 7y ago
I am interested in trying something akin to those mood-modulating techniques of yours. Can you perhaps elaborate on them a bit, or give some pointers where to look? Is this something which can be incorporated into mindfulness practice, or not really? Thanks! :)
IpV8 7y ago
Teach me too
vinceguidry 7y ago
I'll reply once to my own comment to the three requests for tutelage with the same thing I sent in the one person that emailed me. The technique isn't particularly hard to develop. I used hand gestures. Hold your hands in the gesture and focus on the desired mood. Best done initially when you are only slightly 'off' from the desired mood. Rinse and repeat until you can do it more readily and in situations that are further away from the desired one. The hard part is in remembering to do it, and in maintaining the patience to keep at it. If I hadn't already had years of meditation experience by the time I came up with this idea, I don't think I would have been able to follow through. I used the teachings of George Gurdjieff to help me reach a place where I could rely on my ability to remember such things at the time in which I need to remember them. PDF link follows, however not the one I used. I personally read the first few chapters of his first book, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, which is an impossibly dense read that communicates a stupidly simple message. http://www.gurdjiefffourthway.org/pdf/SELF-REMEMBERING.pdf http://www.gurdjiefffourthway.org/pdf/SELF-REMEMBERING.pdf

tombert 7y ago

There's a quote in Bojack Horseman that has a similar theme: > I guess I got a happy ending, but every happy ending has the day after the happy ending, right? And the day after that. So the wedding was so much fun. It was the happiest day of my life. But, you know, what does that say about all the days I have left? I've always liked that quote, because it is something that gets a bit glossed over in books and movies, but is important; the first derivative of happiness after something amazing is almost invariably negative.

DiffEq 7y ago
This is absolutely not so. Just because one flies high one day does not mean if you fly low the next day that it is negative at all. Because hey - you are FLYING! There are different joys in all levels of flight (or to leave the analogy, of life). Additionally IF one does have an exceptionally negative day, it can be used to even more appreciate the exceptionally happy days. And another way to understand this is that the happy times, if truly pure and happy, never lose the positive buoyancy they shed on the rest of your days; so in that way those days have raised your overall abundance of life.
- tombert 7y ago
  > Just because one flies high one day does not mean if you fly low the next day that it is negative at all. Because hey - you are FLYING! Sure, and maybe that mentality works for you, but I feel like a lot of people are more sensitive to differentials than actual quality-of-life. For example, if I get a big raise at work, then that's great; I will probably be happy for awhile, and after that, I'll probably equalize to more or less the level of happiness I was before. Imagine that I then lose that raise, going back to the same salary that I started with. I would probably be pretty depressed over that, despite the fact that I wouldn't, in practice, be any worse than how I started. I'm not saying it's rational, I'm just saying that's how I (and I think a lot of people) would react.
  - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
    Hedonic adaptation works both ways, you would normally equalize to the same level after the cut, so it is a good thing. And if you keep that process in mind and maintain perspective, you can flatten both bursts of happiness and bouts of depression. Paradoxically, this might actually raise your settled level of happiness.

tosser0001 7y ago

I knew a guy who I always thought was basically the opposite of clinically depressed - I thought of him as "clinically happy". In some ways I was a bit jealous of how he never seemed to let things get to him. But on the other hand, he would let certain aspects of his life fall apart in ways that seemed to me his perpetual good humor perhaps didn't allow him to address. If he had felt a bit more discomfort I think he would have taken a different path from time to time and ultimately wound up in a better place overall.

program_whiz 7y ago
Totally get what you're saying, have known people like that. But then it begs the question -- end up in a better place for what reason? If being "in a better place" wasn't going to improve how he felt internally, why bother? I think its hard for us normies to understand people like that, because its so obvious how it would be "better" to have more money, stability, etc, but perhaps the definition of enlightenment is to be truly happy regardless of circumstance. If that's the case, is there really a reason to do those things (if it truly won't change your internal state in any way)? Like if you knew that no job or money you made would ever lead to any fulfillment of any kind, and you would be equally happy without the job / money, would you still do it, just because its a "better situation" (how we define better is again tricky here)... This is extreme, but there's an old zen koan about a teacher who tells his servant to leave him alone while he drinks tea, as his house burns down. He then walks back to see it burned down, and no one can understand why he did that, and he says something like "I was enjoying my tea". The house was as meaningless as if someone had said "if you don't come quick a leaf will blow off your patio" -- totally meaningless and of no impact to your present mood.
- razorunreal 7y ago
  I think our emotional responses exist to guide us towards good decisions. If you take a reinforcement learning system and you always give it positive reinforcement, it will not learn much of anything. I guess I'm saying your enlightenment is irrelevant if it's not improving your survival.

Ascetik 7y ago

According to St. Thomas Aquinas, no you cannot, because the immortal soul presupposes a participation in the infinite and eternal. Aristotle made this clear, which St. Thomas then expounds on: "Man’s ultimate happiness consists in the contemplation of truth, for this operation is specific to man and is shared with no other animals. Also it is not directed to any other end since the contemplation of truth is sought for its own sake. In addition, in this operation man is united to higher beings (substances) since this is the only human operation that is carried out both by God and by the separate substances (angels). (Summa Contra Gentiles, book 3, chapter 37) and It is impossible for any created good to constitute man’s happiness. For happiness is that perfect good which entirely satisfies one’s desire; otherwise it would not be the ultimate end, if something yet remained to be desired. Now the object of the will, i.e., of man’s desire, is what is universally good; just as the object of the intellect is what is universally true. Hence it is evident that nothing can satisfy man’s will, except what is universally good. This is to be found, not in any creature, but in God alone, because every creature has only participated goodness. Therefore, God alone can satisfy the will of man, according to the words of the Psalms (102:5): “Who alone satisfies your desire with good things.” Therefore, God alone constitutes man’s happiness.” (Summa Theologica Part 2. Q.1. Article 8)

zackmorris 7y ago

I'm intrigued by the idea that electrical brain stimulation might somehow take the place of damaged or disconnected parts of the brain. I stumbled onto these links the other day while researching concussion and depression: https://www.myrighttime.com/concussions-depression https://www.myrighttime.com/concussions-depression https://msktc.org/tbi/factsheets/depression-after-traumatic-brain-injury https://msktc.org/tbi/factsheets/depression-after-traumatic-... https://www.brainline.org/article/depression-after-brain-injury https://www.brainline.org/article/depression-after-brain-inj... http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/17/study-reveals-how-concussions-can-trigger-depression/ http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/17/study-reveals-how-conc... In my case, I was a rambunctious kid who bumped his noggin dozens of times and I always wondered if that had an effect on my mood. I've struggled with depression off and on since my late teens, although I think that most of it was environmental. It can be difficult sometimes as creative people to find satisfaction in the workaday world when it's so far removed from the life of invention and fulfillment that we might imagine for ourselves. The interesting thing about concussion is that it doesn't always show up on brain scans because it can be microscopic tears in the white matter connecting different regions, rather than acute damage to a specific area. So maybe everything is working, but there is a delay or diminishment in inner monolog that makes everything feel like a struggle or seem like tasks require additional motivation that is difficult to maintain. It could manifest differently for everyone though, and the damage may or may not be permanent. I think that some of the trouble comes because we might rewire ourselves to cope with temporary damage, and then find ourselves caught in dysfunctional habits after the brain repairs itself via neuroplasticity. Similar things happen in the body with referred pain, where nerves report pain months or years after a muscle strain heals, for example. I’ve been experimenting with a TENS machine and after just 3 half-hour sessions, the pain in one of my shoulder blades is about 1/3 less than before. I also think there might be a connection with the limbic system, or whichever centers connect thought with external action. I’ve noticed that I can brainstorm like no tomorrow, or perform physical tasks like lifting weights, but combining the two to adapt physically under changing mental requirements and do things like home improvement projects can be taxing sometimes. The end result being that I’m not quite the self-motivator I once was, because it’s easier to procrastinate reading/writing about my interests or take direct orders from a boss than start my own project. So I’ve been experimenting with separating my goals and performing them temporally, using a to-do list. Maybe list what to do in the morning, then perform the steps in the afternoon or the next day. The idea being that any of us can write an outline of how to achieve our dreams, hopefully incorporating mindfulness meditation practices (aka The Secret), then diligently follow those steps by reporting to ourselves as our own boss and achieve some level of spiritual independence and satisfaction in our lives. Some keywords that helped me research this are SSRI, SNRI and adult crawling. YMMV though as I’m a bit of a mind hacker (certainly not a doctor) and have never been on antidepressants.

otakucode 7y ago

This is a very difficult issue. It appears that the doctors had to rely on the patients own evaluation of his state, which is very problematic. The point at which the patient smiled wide and said he felt euphoric very well could have just been an absence of his normal mental problems. If you have anxiety, and it is taken away, yes, you feel euphoric. Because you don't know what you have been missing, and when you reach 'normal' it seems amazing. I had a similar experience when I first started treatment for social anxiety disorder. I very quickly came to realize that something I didn't even know what a problem or even knew it COULD be a problem had ruled my life for as long as I could remember. I had been warned that there could be sexual side effects from the medication. However, what had been described was lack of sexual interest, inability to climax, things like that. Yet what I experienced was the most intense spine-chilling toe-curling orgasms of wonder I'd ever had in my life. I explained this to my doctor and she let me know I was just having normal orgasms finally. I never could have guessed it before, but my pleasure level even during orgasm was markedly lower due to anxiety (even with masturbation). Do not count on people with anxiety being able to recognize either anxiety or what they're "supposed to" feel like. It sounded to me like the doctor was afraid, actually afraid, of making the patient feel good. This sounds to me like a disgusting, cancerous viewpoint grown out of centuries of Protestant Work Ethic nonsense. Our stark, desperate fear of the destructive nature of pleasure is backed by almost nothing, and it benefits no one. When pleasure is paired with some sort of drawback - then point to the drawback. Not the pleasure as some kind of "it must be bad" that should be self-evident to post-Industrial era people. The whole 'deny the body and animal urges' notion was invented and promoted to get people into repetitive, grueling low-pay factory work and nothing more.

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