Is life really meaningless? Or does Woody Allen just not have a high enough hedonic set-point to find it meaningful? Hedonic set-point is simply the average level of well-being/happiness that a person experiences. This set-point is largely genetically determined and is controlled by the reward circuitry of the brain. Dopaminergic neurons in the mesolimbic pathway mediate wanting/motivation/meaning and endorphinergic neurons in the ventral pallidum and the rostromedial shell of the nucleus accumbens mediate liking/pleasure/reward.These two systems in the brain control how meaningful (dopamine) and rewarding (opiod/endorphins) we find every experience to be and increasing the function/tone of these systems (all other things being equal) makes things more meaningful and rewarding. Increasing our hedonic set-points (and thus our sense of how meaningful and rewarding life is) is simply a matter of increasing the function/tone of these systems in the brain. So Ill ask again: Is life really meaningless? Or does Woody Allen just not have a high enough hedonic set-point to find it meaningful? I think that if we increase our hedonic set-points high enough then the very meaning of the word meaningless will become, well, meaningless. ;) buzzfeed/alisonwillmore/woody-allen-believes-that-life-is-meaningless If our happiness is taken care of - whether genetically, pharmacologically, or electrosurgically - then the meaning of life seems to take care of itself. -David Pearce wireheading/hypermotivation.html
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 15:54:40 +0000
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