“Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.” 
                 – Noam Chomsky

One problem with being years ahead of the scientific community is that people think my theories sound like they’re from Neptune — or even Uranus. That’s OK. As Mahatma Gandhi noted, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Since I’ve recently graduated from being ignored to being mocked, it seems like a good time to rattle the critics’ cages a little, so here goes…

We don’t know where we came from or where we’re going and what we do know is, to put it mildly, disconcerting.

We’re optical illusions made up of atoms that are 99.9999+% empty space. Our planet is a self-contained spaceship that started out as a solidified cloud of dust and gases left over from the creation of an unremarkable star. Thanks to gravity, a phenomenon few understand, our tiny star holds its teeny offspring a safe 93 million miles away. A little further and we’re frozen. A little closer, we’re fried. 

Everything we see, touch, smell, eat, say, experience, and think can be traced to the sun, including:

• the light we see with — sometimes the light is a by-product of the nuclear energy the sun converted into electromagnetic radiation eight minutes ago. Sometimes it’s the sun’s energy stored in the wind, clouds, living to fossilized vegetation, or mostly empty atoms converted into heat that’s converted into mechanical energy that’s converted into electrical energy that can be transported through wires and reconverted into light by bulbs, TVs, and the screen you’re reading this on. 
• the food we eat — our bodies convert the sun’s stored energy (that plants and animals turn into the fuels we call foods) into heat, movement, sensations, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and speech. Imagine that, we turn the sun’s stored energy into the electrical, chemical, kinetic, and sound energy that powers our imagining, thinking, writing, reading, and talking about the sun.
• the heat that warms us — the fuels we convert into body heat, the sun’s minutes old electromagnetic radiation absorbed by our skin and stored in the earth and its atmosphere, the sun’s energy stored in fabrics and animal hides (that can be worn or converted to warming fires), and the sun’s stored heat that’s converted into heat, mechanical, and electrical energy, then reconverted back into heat.
• the energy that makes our lives easier — the sun’s stored energy fueling the vehicles, machinery, computers, refrigerators, and air conditioners that make it possible to escape the sun‘s heat.
• the beauty that warms our hearts — the miracle of birth, the earth turns we call days, nights, sunrises and sunsets, the magnificent plants and creatures that are born, reproduce, swim, fly, soar, slither, burrow, climb, walk, and die.
• the energy fueling our hearts — pumping the life-sustaining blood that pulsating through your veins.

No matter how you look at it, we are the sun. You could say we’re all superstars. 

If that isn’t magical, mystical, and mind boggling enough, just as matter isn’t as “solid” and reality isn’t as “real” as they seem, time is an illusion. According to Albert Einstein, “For us believing physicists, the separation between past, present and future has only the meaning of an illusion, albeit a tenacious one.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin summed up our situation quite nicely when he wrote, "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."

How did potentially sentient beings, gifted with the intelligence to understand that we’re sharing a mystical experience, turn into such foolish creatures? Why do we turn our backs on the miraculous and get mired in petty diversions, inane squabbles, silly roles, and hypocritical religions that hamper genuine spirituality?

The answer to the above question eluded me for 40 years. Then researchers, using sophisticated brain scanning equipment, started publishing studies that made it possible to connect every single dot I’d collected over the decades.

In a nutshell, I believe all of mankind’s problems can be traced to primitive ancestors who turned dopamine-induced survival behaviors into addictions to the deficiency needs Abraham Maslow included in his famous hierarchy of needs. It’s no coincidence that chimpanzees also obsess over food, sex, safety, power, acceptance, approval, attention, esteem and status. Same dopaminergic system, same behavior.

Our more recent ancestors were so dodo for dopamine they figured out how to use drugs, gambling, and belief systems to score massive amounts of the addictive neurotransmitter.

Until 2010 there was no one to blame. Everything changed three years ago when researchers discovered how delicate the dopaminergic system is. It turns out the primitive survival mechanism, that evolved over millions of years, is so effective because it’s extremely sensitive. So sensitive that flooding the system with the dopamine triggered by junk food can destroy fragile receptors and cause them to backfire. Scripps Research Associate Professor Paul J. Kenny wrote, “What happens in addiction is lethally simple. The reward pathways in the brain have been so overstimulated that the system basically turns on itself, adapting to the new reality of addiction, whether its cocaine or cupcakes.”

In addition to cupcakes, researchers have linked dopamine to autism, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, ADHD, delusions, paranoia, music appreciation. compulsive texting, the popularity of video games, the taste of beer, obesity, and a long list of acknowledged addictions. The topic is so hot that neuroscientists are cranking out two studies an hour.

Since the Scripps’ breakthrough I’ve been trying to find out why dozens of research teams aren’t scrambling to answer a simple question.

If cupcakes can cause a fragile survival system to wreak havoc and lead to a worldwide obesity epidemic, what about powerful psychological deficiency needs for safety/power, acceptance/approval/attention, and esteem/status?

Here’s what I think happened. Our ancestors’ chicanery set a bewildering trap that kept their descendants locked in a dopamine haze and avoiding, dismissing, mocking, and hating anyone who tried to help them escape. History is filled with examples of visionaries, inventors, saviors, leaders, and curious schlubs who were eliminated for threatening the dopamine flow of incurious, defensive, jealous, brutish, colluding killers.

With all choices reduced to dopamine flow, safety/approval/esteem addicts consistently eliminated the DNA of anyone who threatened the addicts’ safety/approval/status and dopamine flow.

Even the names, Homo sapiens and human beings, had more to do with triggering dopamine (by boosting esteem) than merit. Homo addictus seems like a better fit for a primitive species that preferred feigning sapience and humanity over behaving wisely or humanely.

Homo addictus owed its success to the symptoms associated with drug addictions — self-deception, denial, an inability to admit to (or assume responsibility for) irrational, illogical, and destructive behaviors plus the ability to attack, silence, neutralize, and murder any and all threats to their dopamine flow.

Hooked on brain drugs, early Homo addictus traveled far and wide, plundering, destroying, raping, scoring, killing, and begetting. They joined forces. They ganged up. They colluded. United, the most aggressive addicts fed and protected their addictions by weaving layers of lies and deceptions into a flimsy hoax that demanded the elimination of anyone capable of reason. Reasoning individuals have always been easy to spot because they threaten the addicts’ dopamine flow by noticing and challenging blatant hypocrisies, self-deceptions, and inhumane acts.

Inhumane, incorrigible, and invincible, Homo addictus became the most powerful species on the planet. In their insatiable quest for dopamine, our ancestors bred a subspecies of unconscious old-brain addicts who weren’t concerned about derailing evolution. And they couldn’t be bothered understanding what sharing an ongoing miracle implies. The only thing they cared about was scoring dopamine. This left the most aggressive dopamine addicts vehemently opposed to honesty, truth, facts, and individuals who threatened their dopamine flow. Which is why their 21st century progeny, including brilliant scientists, excel at denying the undeniable, rationalizing the irrational, and ignoring the obvious. All symptoms of addictions.

Here’s another symptom of addiction — we’re on an ephemeral magical mystery tour and most of us are more impressed by petty diversions, “reality TV” stars, junk foods, junk news, and consumer goods that we turn into junk.

You can bet that if aliens kidnapped a group of earthlings and dropped them on a strange planet, the secure abductees would be amazed, astonished, flabbergasted, wide-eyed, and scared. 

That’s what happened to every one of us. Except that the space aliens who delivered us to a strange planet were our mothers.

“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” – Albert Einstein

“The idea that reward is partly related to anticipation (or the prediction of a desired outcome) has a long history in neuroscience. Making good predictions about the outcome of one’s actions would seem to be essential in the context of survival, after all. And dopamine neurons, both in humans and other animals, play a role in recording which of our predictions turn out to be correct.” 
       – The New York Times

It’s only a question of time until The New York Times starts reporting on the links between dopamine and the widespread (but unacknowledged) addictions to safety/power, acceptance/approval/attention, and esteem/status. Until then, Times readers will have to settle for puff pieces about the powerful neurotransmitter, such as the June 7th article about dopamine, music and pleasure.

The Times’ preference for fluff over substance helps explain how a layman beat a prestigious newspaper (and the international scientific community) to one of this century’s biggest scoops.

As explained many times on this site, everything everyone does involves protecting and triggering dopamine flow. As a result, all choices come down to dopamine appeal and dopamine repel. People, substances, experiences, beliefs, and information that trigger dopamine flow have dopamine appeal = popular. People, substances, experiences, beliefs, and information that threaten dopamine flow have dopamine repel = unpopular. 

For example, for weeks, the most retweeted dopamine factoid on Twitter has been:

Last month there were hundreds of tweets and retweets about a study that linked the taste of beer and dopamine release. 

The easy to swallow connections between dopamine and music, text messages, and the taste of beer have serious dopamine appeal because they help people understand benign behaviors. Dopamine appealing information is seldom questioned and frequently shared.

Meanwhile, reading that it’s possible to get addicted to Abraham Maslow’s deficiency needs for safety/power, acceptance/approval/attention, and/or esteem/status has major dopamine repel because the information threatens dopamine flow by threatening safety and esteem (and approval for anyone who makes the mistake of passing it on). Dopamine repellent Information is not only more likely to be questioned and less likely to be shared, it’s often ignored, attacked, avoided, and/or summarily dismissed.

The phenomenon that I call dopamine repel is explained in a study titled Dopamine in motivational control: rewarding, aversive, and alerting.

As the study notes, “Midbrain dopamine neurons are well known for their strong responses to rewards and their critical role in positive motivation. It has become increasingly clear, however, that dopamine neurons also transmit signals related to salient but non-rewarding experiences such as aversive and alerting events.” 

In other words, the same dopamine that makes people receptive to learning why they enjoy music, “good morning” messages, and beer is capable of transforming credulous readers into dubious skeptics who question everything — except their suspicious indifference, aversion, or hostility to information that includes even the slightest anticipation of a threat to their safety, peer approval, and esteem.

BTW, when The New York Times, Discovery Channel, and PBS start covering what I’ve been writing about all these years, you’ll be able to score esteem boosting dopamine hits by telling all your friends that you read it here first.

“We tell lies, yet it is easy to show that lying is immoral.”
      – Epictetus

In his book, Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage, Paul Ekman estimates, “The average person lies three times per ten minutes of conversation.”

Three lies in 10 minutes equals 18 an hour, hundreds each week, and thousands of lies a year.

Why so many lies? Average people lie for the same reason junkies lie — to protect and trigger dopamine flow. The average junky’s lies involve dopamine-triggering expectations associated with heroin. The average person’s lies involve dopamine-triggering expectations associated with Abraham Maslow’s four deficiency needs.

To streamline this explanation I’m condensing Maslow’s deficiency needs into two:

1. Physiological needs for oxygen, water, food, sex, shelter.
2. Psychological needs for safety/power, acceptance/approval/attention, esteem/status. 

In 2010 the Scripps Research Institute issued the results of a ground-breaking study that found that laboratory rats given the opportunity to consume high-calorie, high-fat (junk) foods will overeat. This overeating forces a neuroadaptive change in their dopamine circuits that is similar to the changes in brains of people suffering from drug addiction. As the brain’s pathways grow accustomed to being overstimulated a pathological cycle begins where addicts require a constant flow of dopamine to avoid entering a state of withdrawal.

According to Scripps Research Associate Professor Paul J. Kenny, “What happens in addiction is lethally simple. The reward pathways in the brain have been so overstimulated that the system basically turns on itself, adapting to the new reality of addiction, whether its cocaine or cupcakes.” 

Dr. Kenny’s insights raise a few questions. If cupcakes can overstimulate our delicate dopaminergic system until it turns on itself, what if our psychological needs are even more powerful than cupcakes? We’re talking about primitive dopamine-induced survival behaviors that keep humans and chimpanzees obsessing over safety/power, acceptance/approval/attention, and esteem/status. What if these psychological needs cause the brain’s pathways to grow accustomed to being overstimulated until a pathological cycle begins where psychological addicts require a constant flow of dopamine (triggered by expectations of safety/power, acceptance/approval/attention, esteem/status) to avoid entering a state of withdrawal? And why aren’t researchers scrambling to find out if Maslow’s psychological needs are capable of forcing a neuroadaptive change in dopamine circuits that is similar to the changes in the brains of people suffering from drug addiction?

Which brings us back to the countless lies people, including scientists, tell themselves every day. I’m convinced that lying is a symptom of addiction, that liars/addicts are responsible for all man-made problems, and that all lies can be traced to the dopamine flow associated with expectations involving drugs, gambling, food, sex, shelter, safety/power, acceptance/approval/attention, esteem/status, and/or money.

I also believe that healthy people avoid lying (to themselves or others) because they don’t have any reason to lie and/or understand that lying is a waste of time. Spiritual individuals don’t lie because lying is immoral and self-deception and self-actualization don’t mix.

Psychological addicts, whose dopaminergic systems have been compromised, can’t stop lying because the system has been turned on itself. Like junkies, psychological addicts require a constant flow of dopamine to avoid entering a state of withdrawal. And lying is the easiest way to protect and trigger dopamine flow.

Anyone capable of admitting to a single lie every day for one week can test my theory by linking each lie to one or more of the following dopamine-triggering expectations:

• scoring drugs, gambling, food, sex, money
• protecting safety, acceptance, approval, status
• increasing power, attention, and/or esteem.

I invite those who believe their lies do not involve protecting or triggering dopamine flow to send a brief description of their deceptions to Charles@DopamineProject.org.

“Since the Moral Sense has but the one office, the one capacity (to enable man to do wrong) it is plainly without value to him. It is as valueless to him as is disease. In fact, it manifestly is a disease.”     – Mark Twain

In 1906 Samuel Clemens published “What Is Man?” In his story Twain offered a bleak opinion of mankind by setting up a lopsided dialog between a dogmatic old man (O.M.) and a skeptical young man (Y.M.). The O.M. starts by stating that man is a machine and nothing more. According to the geezer, man is lower than any mammal and beneath the ants. Everything man does is determined by training and temperament. Man possesses neither free will nor the capacity to understand that he doesn’t have free will. As the O.M. explains, our minds control us so effectively that we never even suspect that we are incapable of controlling our minds.

Twain was concerned that the essay would be met with howls of indignation and when his apprehensions proved unwarranted he was more than a little disappointed. It appears that the author didn’t realize how spot-on he was. So much so that he overlooked the possibility that readers wouldn’t get insulted, enraged, or even care because they were machines who lacked the free will required to comprehend what Twain was trying to explain.

Clemens couldn’t have known it but he was diagnosing the signs of dopamine addiction. He was so ahead of his time that he even surmised that a disease was making humans behave like chimpanzees.

The man had an extremely inquisitive mind. He was intrigued by scientific breakthroughs and he shared his interest with a close friend, Nikola Tesla. If Clemens were alive today he would be fascinated with PET and fMRI research. After spending decades writing about dopamine-induced behaviors (without realizing it) Twain might even incorporate what he learned into a work of fiction.

Surely, the world’s most famous nicotine addict would find an interesting way to explain why all addictions are dopamine addictions and how dopamine addiction is a curable brain disease that has turned into the pandemic to end all pandemics.

———————————————–

Dear Cellularscale.blogspot.com,

Sorry about the salutation, but your Aboutme page doesn’t say who you are.

A friend just brought your March 19, 2013 post to my attention and I wanted to thank you for taking the time to critique my site and for helping me focus on what I should be doing (as soon as I finish writing to you). 

You started out with a provocative heading / valid question and ended up answering your question with a questionable question/answer, “Is the 'Dopamine Project' ridiculous and unscientific? Absolutely.” 

As far as my site being unscientific, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. Still, being unscientific doesn’t make the information wrong.

And while I do admit to more than a few ridiculous oversimplifications, I don’t agree with your conclusion that my site is ridiculous.

Noam Chomsky does a good job explaining your reaction, “Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.”

You’re not alone. 17th century experts convinced themselves that heliocentrism was ridiculous and unscientific while refusing to take an honest look through a simple telescope to prove Galileo wrong. And 19th century doctors (who probably scoffed at Galileo’s detractors) were incensed by the ridiculous and unscientific suggestion that they were killing women, while refusing to do something as simple as washing their hands to prove Ignaz Semmelweis wrong. Why? I believe they weren’t interested in facts, truth, or finding out they were wrong because the only thing they cared about was protecting the same dopamine flow today’s researchers, and you, are vigilantly protecting. That’s why you avoided taking an honest look at DopamineProject.org before drafting your little hatchet job.

You managed to overlook two of the three main points I keep making while mangling and misinterpreting the third:

1. Everything we do involves protecting and triggering dopamine flow.
2. Our primitive ancestors grew addicted to the dopamine-induced survival behaviors humans share with chimpanzees. Abraham Maslow called them deficiency needs (d-needs) for food/sex, safety/power, acceptance/approval/attention, esteem/status. Our more recent ancestors were so enamored with dopamine that they learned how to use drugs, money, and belief systems to trigger the powerful neurotransmitter.
3. Scientists aren’t looking into the connections between dopamine and Maslow’s d-needs because dopamine-induced aversive behavior is keeping them (and everyone else) from wanting to discover that they’re safety/power, acceptance/approval/attention, esteem/status addicts.

While I don’t expect you to agree, your post provides numerous examples of how dopamine-induced aversive behavior works. (Since you like references: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3032992/).

Your contention that I’m railing against science couldn’t be more wrong. I’m railing against scientists for not doing their job. There’s a difference.

If you want to read someone who rails against science and scientists, check out Noam Chomsky who wrote, “Education is a system of imposed ignorance.” “The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on — because they're dysfunctional to the institutions.” And, “Science is a bit like the joke about the drunk who is looking under a lamppost for a key that he has lost on the other side of the street, because that's where the light is. It has no other choice.”

Re: The worst part is that the website does not include a single citation to a research paper.

Valid complaint, despite the hyperbole. There are citations. If you were willing to give the site a fair chance you would have noticed a few. Still, you are mostly right and I am mostly wrong. Thanks to you (and others) I intend to address this issue.

Re: Basically the website's message is a self-help, self-control one with the word dopamine sprinkled all over it.

To reach that conclusion you had to misconstrue a handful of posts (while ignoring more than 70 others) that were added in response to visitors who basically asked, “OK, I get what you’re saying about dopamine, but how can I apply the information to make my life better?” 

I figured it wouldn’t hurt to combine what is know about dopamine and self help to address their queries. It never occurred to me that someone would try to use a few purposefully simplistic posts to dismiss the entire site — while missing how even the simplistic posts explained how dopamine was the fuel behind the dismissals.

I’m curious. Did you read anything about dopamine games? If not, I hope you’ll check out How Dopamine Games Keep Neuroscientists From Learning About Dopamine and Dopamine Games: Straw Man Arguments.

Re: “He also seems to feel personally attacked by Steven Poole's New Statesman article on Neurobollocks.”

Sorry to let you down but Poole didn’t attack me or my site. And even if he did, it’s not possible to feel attacked by someone I don’t respect.

Steven Poole wrote a haughty and misleading article (to hype a book) that deserved an honest response. I thought it would be fun to turn my rebuttal into a post and sent Mr. Poole a link (something you didn’t do with me). His response was a short and sour, “Ouch!” 

To his credit, Steven left it at that and I ended up buying a copy of his book.

Re: “This Charles Lyell guy is pulling out a typical woo card, implying that he knows what scientists don't want you to know.” 

Not true and perfect example of the dopamine game, Straw Man Arguments. I have never written, said, suggested, or implied that I know what scientists don’t want anyone to know. What I have written many times is that scientist don’t want to know that dopamine is keeping them from looking into the connections between dopamine and addictions to the dopamine-induced survival behaviors humans share with chimpanzees.

Re: “Trust me, scientists want to understand dopamine.”

That’s your opinion. I believe that when it comes to investigating how dopamine is manipulating their behavior, scientists aren’t the least bit interested in understanding dopamine.

Here’s a challenge. Show me a dozen studies (that have received serious attention) involving dopamine and the prerequisites to being a scientist. You know, the dopamine triggered by expectations of safety/power, acceptance/approval/attention, esteem/status, and/or money.

If you can’t, then explain why scores of researchers aren’t using brain scanning equipment to look into the possibility that addictions to all of Maslow’s deficiency needs explain every man-made problem.

I’d love to continue this discussion in person. If you’re ever in NYC and would like to meet, let me know.

I’m willing to eat my words and swallow my pride. Are you?

Sincerely,

Charles Lyell

"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."    – Jonathan Swift

Straw Man Arguments is a popular dopamine game that employs a clever ploy —  misrepresenting what was said. The objective is to “win” disputes by questioning, disproving, dismissing, trivializing, mocking, being offended by, and/or objecting to what wasn’t said.

Gamesters never figure out that dopamine games are illogical, irrational, and/or dishonest because dopamine games are never about logic, reason, or honesty, and always about triggering dopamine and/or protecting dopamine flow against the threats posed by logic, reason, and honesty.

Straw Man Arguments is one reason face-to-face communication is the only way to help most people understand how dopamine is doing their thinking for them. That’s because transparent arguments that work for readers, who find it easy to fool themselves when playing alone, backfire when challenged. As arguments are exposed for what they are, i.e. attempts to protect dopamine flow, skeptics get to witness dopamine-induced aversive behavior in action. (Dopamine in motivational control: rewarding, aversive, and alerting)

Since it’s not possible to meet everyone interested in raising their dopamine awareness, I’m including my responses to a few favorite straw man arguments.

=========================================

Straw Man Argument: Dopamine occurs naturally. How can you be against something that’s natural?

Charles Lyell: I’m not anti-dopamine. Dopamine is like salt. A little fosters survival. Too much threatens survival. What I am against is dishonesty and dopamine is responsible for all dishonesty. People lie for one reason — to protect and trigger dopamine flow.

————————————————————

SMA: You can’t stop people from being addicted to what you call dopamine triggers, such as drugs, food, sex, or any of the other deficiency needs identified by Abraham Maslow.

CL: I don’t want to stop anyone from doing anything. My goal is to help raise dopamine awareness so people understand that food, sex, safety/power, acceptance/approval/attention, and esteem/status addicts are slaves to the same dopamine-induced cravings that keep heroin addicts lying, cheating, stealing, and scrambling for the next dopamine-triggering fix. Learning how to make logical, rational, mindful decisions, instead of letting a mindless brain chemical do our thinking for us, can increase happiness and decrease misery. 

————————————————————

SMA: Since you’re saying that money and power addicts are destroying environments to score the same dopamine junkies trigger with heroin, you must think money and power addicts should be arrested too.

CL: I don’t think, and have never said, anyone should be arrested for triggering dopamine. I do believe that all addicts should be held accountable for hurting others. And I believe it’s time to stop looking up to money and power addicts and stop looking down on junkies for being addicted to the same neurotransmitter.

————————————————————

SMA: But dopamine isn’t the only neurotransmitter responsible for behavior.

CL: Granted, but it doesn’t matter if free will is usurped by a single brain chemical or a combination of chemicals. What matters is that the chemicals that continue to help dumb animals survive are threatening our species’ survival. I decided, early on, to focus on dopamine in order to streamline explanations. Referring to neurotransmitters or brain chemicals, or matching behaviors and neurotransmitters gets unnecessarily complicated and confusing. Confusion = dopamine repel. To reduce dopamine repel I zeroed in on dopamine as a simple, straightforward, and effective (but still relevant and reasonably accurate) meme. In an upcoming post I’ll discuss what dopa-meme means to me.

————————————————————

SMA: You’re making too much about the lack of research involving Maslow’s deficiency needs. Grants are hard to come by and researchers can’t investigate every harebrained theory.

CL: Scientists are using brain scanning equipment to crank out almost two papers an hour. They’ve linked dopamine to autism, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases, success, failure, food, sex, video games, social media, celebrity worship, aversive behavior, nicotine, cocaine, heroin, and beer. I find it suspicious that there aren’t any studies looking into the connections between dopamine-induced addictions to ALL of Abraham Maslow’s deficiency needs, especially the emotional needs for safety/power, acceptance/approval/attention, and esteem/status. And I’m convinced that the same dopamine-induced aversion, that kept Galileo’s attackers arrogantly refusing to look through the astronomer’s telescope, is keeping today’s researchers from looking into the possibility that they’re addicted to dopamine-triggering emotions associated with safety/power, acceptance/approval/attention, and/or esteem/status addicts

————————————————————

SMA: Turning out opposing views doesn't make an idea correct.

CL: I’m not offering an opposing view. I’m extending what it already known and accepted about neurotransmitters to areas that researchers do not seem interested in exploring. 

According to Scripps Research Associate Professor Paul J. Kenny, “What happens in addiction is lethally simple. The reward pathways in the brain have been so overstimulated that the system basically turns on itself, adapting to the new reality of addiction, whether its cocaine or cupcakes.” (Compulsive Eating Shares Same Addictive Biochemical Mechanism with Cocaine, Heroin Abuse)

If cupcakes can short circuit the brain’s reward pathways, why can’t dopamine-triggering emotions overstimulate the dopaminergic system until it basically turns on itself, adapting to the new reality of emotional addictions?

————————————————————

SMA: Claiming that scientists don't know because they are fooled by dopamine is a clever way of dismissing anyone who disagrees with you.

CL: True, but suggesting that an explanation might be a clever gambit doesn’t invalidate a valid explanation. What if dopamine is so incredibly powerful that in addition to being responsible for worldwide obesity and drug epidemics, autism, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases, it’s capable of getting dopamine experts to fool themselves? Would it be possible to explain how dopamine manipulates behavior without the explanation sounding like a contrivance to dismiss anyone who disagrees?

————————————————————

SMA: If what you say is true, doesn’t that mean that your obsession with dopamine is all about you triggering dopamine?

CL: Of course. To be honest, I’m never sure why so many people bring this up. If anything, the question provides an example of the questioner’s attempt to protect dopamine flow and my answer acknowledges a need to trigger dopamine. (I’d like to believe it’s a dopamine-induced need to figure things out but admit it might be to elevate my esteem. Based on the negative feedback, it’s definitely not to ensure safety or garner approval/acceptance.)

Centuries ago, dopamine kept almost everyone from understanding, wanting to understand, and/or discussing the idea that the earth spins like a top around the sun. Decades ago, dopamine kept grocery shoppers frantically avoiding the first shopping carts. Today, dopamine is the reason people do not want to know that dopamine is a powerful, manipulative, and addictive drug that’s controlling everything we think about, believe, disbelieve, do, or don’t do.

The future depends on how long it takes researchers to “discover” what they haven’t been interested in noticing so far.

Rather than wait, I’m reaching out to anyone interested in fostering positive change by raising dopamine awareness.

The goal is to attract the attention of influential individuals capable of understanding five simple facts about dopamine:

1. Everything we do involves protecting and triggering dopamine flow.
2. All addictions are different forms of dopamine addiction.
3. It’s possible to get addicted to any dopamine-inducing substance, object, belief or behavior, including money and all of Abraham Maslow’s four deficiency needs.
4. Money and psychological addicts (addicted to safety/power, acceptance/approval/attention, and/or esteem/status) are more prevalent, dangerous, and self-deceptive than heroin, nicotine, and cocaine addicts.
5. Dopamine awareness offers an array of effective tools that help explain and address seemingly inexplicable aberrant behaviors and man-made problems.

For the first time in history we have sophisticated brain scanning equipment that can compare the dopamine flow of money, psychological, nicotine, alcohol, food, and heroin addicts. PLUS, we have the internet.

Until now, the need to protect dopamine flow (against real and imagined threats to safety, acceptance, and esteem) has kept 99.99% of the population from wanting to understand heliocentrism, evolution, space travel, shopping carts, and anything else that threatens dopamine flow — until they felt it was safe to believe in the obvious. 

According to a paper published in 2010, Dopamine in motivational control: rewarding, aversive, and alerting,

Midbrain dopamine neurons are well known for their strong responses to rewards and their critical role in positive motivation. It has become increasingly clear, however, that dopamine neurons also transmit signals related to salient but non-rewarding experiences such as aversive and alerting events.

The idea of a single neurotransmitter being responsible for both addiction and avoidance might  sound absurd but it actually makes sense (once you raise your dopamine awareness). Heliocentrism was ignored, dismissed, and attacked for decades because the facts threatened Galileo’s enemies’ dopamine flow by righting their upside down world. Dopamine awareness poses an even greater threat to dopamine flow because it turns a dishonest reality inside out and exposes a crooked paradigm’s deceptions.

Like helicentrism, dopamine awareness is an observation that can be verified by anyone willing to take a look. Dopamine-induced aversive behavior explains why Galileo’s attackers adamantly refused to peer through a looking glass and today’s researchers aren’t looking to prove that it’s possible to get addicted to dopamine-induced emotions. Especially since admitting to addictions threatens dopamine flow by threatening the safety, power, acceptance, approval, attention, esteem, and status we all crave.

If expectations of fostering positive change trigger a shot of dopamine that sends a smile to your face, this might be your chance to be among the top .000001% who go on record as the first to understand and apply what is currently known about dopamine to make a difference. 

Imagine if you could prove that your ancestor did something to help Galileo. Would the pride trigger a powerful, pleasant, healthy dopamine hit? This is your chance to deliver those esteem-boosting, dopamine-inducing gifts to your proud descendents.

I hope you’ll get Involved by learning about dopamine and dopamine addiction, telling the people you like and the ones you can’t stand, and doing everything you can to raise dopamine awareness.

There’s nothing to sign, nothing to join, nothing to buy.

The species you save, could be your own.

Invitingly,

Charles Lyell

“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”  – Voltaire 

The Semmelweis reflex explains why it might take years until the information contained on this site is considered common knowledge.

According to the Semmelweis Society International (http://semmelweis.org/), "The Semmelweis reflex or 'Semmelweis effect' is a metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs or paradigms."

Named after Ignaz Semmelweis, a 19th century Hungarian physician, the phenomenon could have been called the Galileo reflex. After all, the Italian astronomer provided a classic example of how dangerous experts can be, centuries before Dr. Semmelweis made the mistake of threatening his peers’ dopamine flow. It can also be called the dopamine reflex, since the powerful neurotransmitter is responsible for the knee-jerk reaction keeping today’s researchers from figuring out how everything they do they do to protect and trigger dopamine flow.

Compared to Semmelweis, Galileo was lucky. Dr. Semmelweis ended up in an asylum where he was beaten to death by guards. His offense was figuring out why so many women were dying in hospital maternity wards. Until Ignaz came along the doctors, who happened to be esteem addicts, protected their dopamine flow by convincing one another that the expectant mothers were responsible for the inexplicably high mortality rate. Semmelweis deduced that the deaths were related to the physicians studying cadavers in the hospital’s morgue. Sure enough, when Semmelweis convinced the doctors in his hospital to wash their hands in a disinfectant, the death rate dropped dramatically.

Ignaz’s troubles began when he threatened the dopamine flow of physicians working in other hospitals. The doctors were highly offended by the esteem deflating suggestion that they might be killing patients. Unable to explain his already proven theory, the good doctor was attacked, disgraced, dismissed, forced to relocate, and committed to an asylum where, within a week, he was dead. Why? For trying to save lives by asking doctors to wash their hands.

The Semmelwies reflex provides invaluable insights into:

• Why you won’t find researchers using brain scanning equipment to investigate possible connections between dopamine-induced addictions and all of Abraham Maslow’s deficiency needs, especially safety (power), acceptance (approval, attention), and esteem (status). 
• Why so few fully comprehend that addicts who use power, money, and religion to trigger dopamine are more common, destructive, and self-deceptive than addicts who use drugs to trigger the same neurotransmitter. 
• Why today’s experts are blind to the blatant similarities between themselves and the 16th century scholars who wouldn’t look through Galileo’s telescope and the 19th century doctors who refused to wash their hands.
• Why there’s no easy, non-threatening, safe way to contradict established norms, beliefs, or paradigms, especially when the norms, beliefs, or paradigms are based on fears, prejudices, and self-serving deceptions.

Answer: Everything we do, we do to protect or trigger dopamine flow.

• The need to protect and trigger dopamine flow is so powerful that our mammalian brains reduce all choices, behaviors, and beliefs down to dopamine appeal and dopamine repel.
• Dopamine appeal = dopamine-triggering expectations of food, sex, safety, power, acceptance, money, drugs and beliefs = yes/go/do/crave/believe/adore.
• Money = ultimate dopamine appeal because money can be converted into dopamine-triggering drugs, food, sex, safety, power, acceptance, attention, status, and more money.
• Dopamine repel = dopamine-threatening expectations of want, pain, fear, loss,  rejection, scorn, humiliation = no/stop/don’t/avoid/dismiss/attack.
• Dopamine ignorance protects dopamine flow by short-circuiting our rational brains and making it possible to ignore the obvious, deny the undeniable, and believe the unbelievable.
• Understanding that dopamine appeal, dopamine repel, and dopamine ignorance exist and how they work = ultimate dopamine repel because the information threatens safety, approval, and esteem which curtails dopamine flow.

In upcoming posts I’ll cover the nuances, influences, and complications that provide insights into more complex behaviors. Until then, I’d like to demonstrate how a few dopamine awareness basics help explain some common, irrational, and perplexing behaviors, starting with…

Killing elephants for tusks

Elephants are being needlessly slaughtered because ivory has compound dopamine appeal.

• Poachers and traders kill the majestic mammals for money.
• Approval/esteem addicts buy ivory to win approval and elevate status.

Understanding that money, acceptance, and esteem addicts are murdering elephants to score the same brain chemical junkies trigger with heroin = dopamine repel.

Dopamine ignorance helps ivory owners ignore the culpability, inhumanity, and depravity they share with the killers and traders.

On a sane planet, elephants would be safe because owning ivory would have serious dopamine repel. Acceptance/esteem addicts are damaged individuals burdened with insecurities and unmet needs that leave them craving approval and status. If owning ivory came with the threat of exposure, rejection and humiliation, acceptance/esteem addicts would shun ivory.

Complaining

Complaining has serious dopamine appeal because it attracts attention and elevates esteem. For some, complaining is a way of saying, “I’m important and my complaints matter!”  For others, it’s a convenient pretense about doing something, when the only thing being done is using empty words to trigger the same dopamine nicotine addicts trigger with tobacco.

Dopamine ignorance helps complainers ignore their little charades.

The inability to admit to mistakes

The expectation of admitting to mistakes has major dopamine repel because it threatens safety, acceptance, approval, and esteem. The more insecure, craven, and needy the person, the greater the repel.

Dopamine repel can be so powerful that some safety/acceptance/approval/esteem addicts protect dopamine flow by repeating mistakes. Repeating mistakes protects flow with the deception that repetition somehow proves the mistakes weren’t mistakes in the first place.

Dopamine ignorance provides the unconsciousness that facilitates flimsy denials.

Unhealthy behaviors

Unhealthy substances and behaviors that trigger high dopamine flow = high dopamine appeal.

Considering the depressing, upsetting, life-threatening consequences of unhealthy / high dopamine appeal substances and behaviors = high dopamine repel.

High dopamine appeal + high dopamine repel = high dopamine ignorance = go for the dopamine, ignore the facts.

Why nice people do bad things

When nice people do bad things it’s usually due to powerful dopamine appeal that turns caring individuals into callous addicts. That’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation. If all dopamine addicts were held accountable for their actions our planet would be a virtual heaven.

The way things are, money, power, and esteem addicts are more common and dangerous than heroin addicts. One difference is that junkies get arrested while money, power, and esteem addicts get away with flaunting their addictions and pretending their dopamine triggers are logical, acceptable, and even admirable.

Dopamine repel keeps money, power, and esteem addicts from wanting to admit to any facts that threaten dopamine flow by threatening their wealth, power, or status.

Dopamine ignorance helps not-so-nice people ignore bad behavior and convince themselves that they’re decent, compassionate, and kind.

Kim Kardashian’s popularity

Miss Kardashian is living proof of the power of seductive, unquestioned, mindless dopamine appeal. Luckily for Kim, dopamine is triggered by expectations and, as Henry David Thoreau noted, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."

Kardashian owes her popularity to an ability to help large numbers of desperate fans trigger dopamine by tapping into her expectations of fame, fortune, misfortune, and excitement.

Dopamine ignorance protects Kardashian fans’ esteem (dopamine flow) by keeping them blissfully ignorant about what they're doing.

Why this isn’t common knowledge

“In matters of science, a thousand proclamations by so-called experts are outweighed by the humble reasoning of a single individual.”
- Galileo Galilei

The delusion that human behavior is too complicated to explain protects and triggers dopamine flow by protecting and elevating esteem = dopamine appeal.

Understanding that it’s possible to get addicted to all of the dopamine-induced survival behaviors humans share with chimpanzees (for food, sex, safety, power, acceptance, approval, attention, esteem, and status) blocks dopamine flow by threatening safety, approval, esteem = dopamine repel.

Observing how humans (and chimpanzees) obsess over triggering the same dopamine that junkies trigger with heroin threatens safety, acceptance, and esteem = dopamine repel.

Unconscious expectations of having to give up favorite dopamine-triggering substances, behaviors, and beliefs = dopamine repel.

The resulting dopamine ignorance makes it possible to ignore the obvious, deny the undeniable, believe the unbelievable.

Ignoring the obvious, denying the undeniable, and believing the unbelievable isn’t a new phenomenon. Heliocentrism and evolution had so much dopamine repel that two obvious and undeniable observations were ignored and denied for centuries while countless millions continue to believe the unbelievable.

The difference between past and present is that we no longer have centuries, or even decades, for safety/acceptance/esteems addicts to rise above their dopamine ignorance and accept inconvenient but obvious truths simply because they threaten dopamine flow.

“What makes you think that human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told – and become upset if they are exposed to any different view.”  
               – Michael Crichton

As per Wikipedia.org, “The term [zombie] is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli.”

Wikipedia’s definition describes most Homo sapiens, starting with our primitive ancestors who had more in common with apes than human beings. Countless generations later, all man-made problems can be traced to creatures who grew increasingly addicted to the dopamine-induced survival behaviors that we share with chimpanzees. Abraham Maslow called these survival behaviors deficiency needs for food, sex, safety (power), acceptance (approval, attention), and esteem (status).

Our more recent ancestors indulged their inherited hungers by flooding the dopaminergic system with gratuitous dopamine triggered by drugs, gambling, beliefs, and money. The drive to satisfy insatiable dopamine cravings turned our progenitors into dopamine zombies (d-zombies) who spent their waking hours protecting and triggering dopamine flow. Unconscious, unaware, and inhumane, the d-zombies plundered, massacred, propagated, and sidetracked human evolution.

Real-life d-zombies behave like fictional zombies because dopamine usurps free will. Sans free will, seemingly intelligent d-zombies think they‘re thinking when they’re actually reducing all choices down to “dopamine good” and “no dopamine bad.” “Dopamine good, no dopamine bad” might sound simplistic but those five words explain why the information on this site isn’t common knowledge. Cursed with defective dopaminergic systems, d-zombies crave the dopamine triggered by illogical deceptions that inflate esteem and loathe the dopamine disruption caused by logical observations that threaten to reduce esteem. And nothing reduces esteem (and dopamine flow) like the mounting evidence linking dopamine and addictions to safety, power, acceptance, approval, attention, esteem, status, money, and deceptive beliefs.

Zombie and D-zombie Similarities

“Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.”  – Gore Vidal

• Irrational, mindless, brutish destruction, plundering, and killing. 
• Calloused indifference to the havoc wreaked.
• Incapable of assuming responsibility for mistakes, deceptions, and failures. 
• Barbaric flesh eaters. 
• Attack threats who try to stop inhumane behavior.
• Lack the free will required to comprehend how dopamine usurps free will.
• Unable to grasp how lying, cheating, stealing, collusion, wars, bigotry, racism, xenophobia, hatred, killing, destruction, and drug, sex, food, gambling, and other addictions are symptoms of a widespread brain disorder that’s been undermining human evolution since the dawn of humankind.

Zombie and D-zombie Differences

Zombies

“A zombie film is not fun without a bunch of stupid people running around and observing how they fail to handle the situation.”   – George A. Romero

• Easy to spot because they walk, talk, look, and behave inhumanely.
• Poor conversationalists.
• Driven by insatiable cravings for human brains.
• Never discuss or dress up as living beings.
• Indifferent to being called inhumane or zombies.
• Not a threat to our species’ survival.
• Fictional, only attack in books and movies. 

D-zombies

A considerable percentage of the people we meet on the street are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead. It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew what a number of people are actually dead and what a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror.  – George Gurdjieff

• Difficult to spot because they look like humans and many inhumane behaviors are considered logical, acceptable, and even admirable.
• Driven by insatiable cravings for a neurotransmitter manufactured in their primitive brains.
• Use rational brains to rationalize dopamine-induced irrational choices, decisions, and deceptions.
• Lie, cheat, steal, and kill to protect and trigger dopamine flow.
• Obsess over and dress up as zombies.
• Become upset, defensive, and dismissive when called inhumane or zombies.
• Major threat to our species’ survival.
• Seized control of our species’ fate eons ago.
• Dangerous and frighteningly real.

How to Deal With and Influence Dopamine Zombies:

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudice, and motivated by pride and vanity.” – Dale Carnegie

Dealing with d-zombies starts with raising dopamine awareness to a point where it’s possible to understand the significance of a single observable fact — d-zombies reduce all decisions and beliefs down to protecting and triggering dopamine flow.

That observation is as easy (for rational beings) to grasp, and as impossible (for d-zombies) to ponder, as heliocentrism was for Galileo (who was willing to take an honest look) and his contemporaries (who protected their dopamine flow by refusing to look through the astronomer’s telescope). Galileo’s opponents weren’t rational beings concerned with truth, religion, facts, God, scriptures, or science. They were safety, power, and esteem addicts who demeaned, dismissed, and condemned a pioneer because that’s how 17th and 21st century d-zombies react when their dopamine flow is threatened.

It doesn’t matter if d-zombies use nicotine, alcohol, heroin, gambling, money, food, sex, safety, approval, status, money, and/or beliefs to trigger dopamine. If and when they fear, rightly or wrongly, that anyone is, or might be, threatening their dopamine flow, even the nicest, friendliest, most charming, and seemingly rational d-zombies unconsciously transform into bristling, irrational, dangerous creatures. Logic and facts never work with d-zombies because logic and facts threaten safety and esteem which shuts down dopamine flow.

You can’t beat d-zombies and you don’t have to join them. But you can influence them. The key is to avoid threatening their dopamine flow with inconvenient truths, facts, and observations. Instead, provide their favorite dopamine-triggering foods, sex, safety, acceptance, status, games, money, deceptions, and/or drugs.

Do it correctly and you’ll have d-zombies eating out of your hand instead of biting your head off.