(January 15, 2015 at 12:35 pm)rasetsu Wrote:(January 15, 2015 at 12:15 am)tantric Wrote: Part of his analysis of the human condition was to separate joy and pleasure. In neurochemistry, these are responses to serotonin (joy) and dopamine (pleasure). We get pleasure from getting things, like winning, or eating a big meal, etc, but pleasure is inherently addictive. After we feel it, it's gone and leaves a need for more, in an endless cycle. This is 'attachment'. Most people struggle with attachment and desire for material things, but there is also attachment to ideas and the sense of self. The point is, this pursuit doesn't lead to that contentment and joy, in fact, it obscures it. Joy comes from being a good person and living a good life. When you remember joy, you feel it again, when you remember pleasure, you feel the lack.
This is bogus. Neurochemistry doesn't work like this. Both serotonin and dopamine are involved in many different systems and it's not a simple linear response that serotonin leads to joy, or dopamine results in pleasure.
Busted - that was a HUGE simplification. Nevertheless, dopamine is the root of addiction, and most of the things Buddhist consider 'attachments' are things that give a dopamine rush. The idea that people can be addicted to reality - that most people are addicts, going from one cheap rush to the next, be it from buying junk in walmart, eating junk food, or shooting junk in their arms, is a big part of modern/western Buddhist thought. I have refs on this, but if you don't accept sociobiology, you won't want to hear it. It relies on the idea that the addictive mechanism is a product of evolution, a means of encouraging our ancestors to eat fatty foods (junk foods), and expanded to include things like 'winning' (gambling addiction) and just acquiring stuff (hoarding). PM me if you care.
My book, a setting for fantasy role playing games based on Bantu mythology: Ubantu
