"My dear Kepler, I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable stupidity of the common herd. What do you have to say about the principal philosophers of this academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an asp and do not want to look at either the planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times? Truly, just as the asp stops its ears, so do these philosophers shut their eyes to the light of truth."          – Galileo Galilei to astronomer Johannes Kepler.

How did so many of Galileo’s peers manage to deny the undeniable for so long? By playing the same dopamine games that help today’s intellectuals (and dummies) deny that our species is flirting with self-annihilation.

Ignorance might not be bliss, but self-deceptions and denial do help provide the only payoff that people are interested in — dopamine.

• Self-deceptions protect people from what they dread most — the dopamine deprivation associated with facts that increase fears, reduce peer approval, or threaten esteem.
• Denying the countless, growing, and possibly insurmountable problems facing humankind makes it possible to ignore the existence of a widespread brain disease responsible for all the problems.

What Galileo didn’t and couldn’t know was that, by refusing to look through his telescope, the philosophers he reproved were doing what people do all the time, i.e. protecting their dopamine flow by playing variations of two popular games, I Don’t Believe What You’re Saying Because I Don’t Want to Know (IDBWYSBIDWTK) and The Religion Game (TRG).

Dopamine games seem illogical, irrational, and/or foolish because dopamine games are never about logic, reason, information, or facts, and always about triggering dopamine and/or protecting dopamine flow against the threats posed by logic, reason, information, or facts.

IDBWYSBIDWTK

The trick to playing I Don’t Believe What You’re Saying Because I Don’t Want To Know is to substitute any flimsy deception for the words “I don’t want to know.” In the 17th century, Galileo’s haughty detractors refused to peer through his telescope because they convinced one another that Galileo was somehow using his suspicious contraption to fool fools.

For centuries, people have easily dismissed irrefutable information with equally dubious deceptions that include, “Because what you’re saying is too depressing,” “Because I don’t like the way you said what you said,” “Because I don’t like you,” and unconsciously, “Because I can’t admit how threatened I am by what you’re saying.”

Only dimwits would ignore a man shouting, “Fire!” because they found the information too depressing, they disliked the man, they couldn’t admit they were afraid of fires, and/or they were annoyed by the way the guy yelled, “Fire!”. Yet, when it comes to learning about dopamine, even dopamine experts play IDBWYSBIDWTK.

Why? Because IDBWYSBIDWTK offers a proven strategy that effectively protects dopamine flow. And the only requirement is the ability to hide behind the flimsiest of excuses to rationalize a commitment to ignorance. Additionally, accomplished players score a quick dopamine boost by deluding themselves into believing that they are somehow too smart to be fooled, as opposed to realizing that, once again, they’re actually fooling themselves.

The Religion Game

Genuinely religious/spiritual individuals are peaceful, kind, compassionate, forgiving, aware, and share love. Fear addicts flock to organized religions for the dopamine-induced expectation of eternal salvation, peer-approval addicts for the dopamine doled out to anyone willing to forgo thinking to gain acceptance, and esteem addicts for the dopamine triggered by the esteem-elevating deception that they’re somehow smart and special for having what it takes to pick the one true lottery ticket to heaven.

As a bonus, religion addicts get to play The Religion Game whenever their dopamine flow is threatened or they need a gratuitous dopamine hit. The Religion Game is a variation of I Need to Convince Myself That I’m RIght! which offers significant advantages to players who prefer the charade of being right over admitting that they’re wrong. Bolstered by the misconception that only their religion’s holy books hold all correct answers, religion addicts find it easy to refute the irrefutable and deny the undeniable simply by picking, choosing, and misinterpreting consistently incorrect and conflicting scriptures. Instead of suffering the dopamine deprivation of understanding that they’re essentially demonstrating a fear of facts, the righteous pretense of being “right” delivers the dopamine payoffs they crave.

I’m an Optimist!

I’m an Optimist!, a clever variation of One-upmanship, is a game based on a number of convenient self-deceptions. The first deception falsely equates the ability to deny unpleasant information with optimism. The second deception is the unspoken and misleading implication that anyone suggesting unpleasant information is a fear-monger / alarmist / defeatist / pessimist. The third deception is that optimists are inherently smarter, nicer, and/or superior to pessimists.  

Without having to waste any time addressing information that threatens their dopamine flow, I’m an Optimist! players get to skip right to the dopamine hits triggered by building up their esteem by putting down the bearers of unpleasant / dopamine depleting information.

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