A meta-analysis for the agnostic philosopher
Before explaining the pseudo-scientific attempt that would pretentiously be considered a title, I want to put emphasis on the fact that the ideas that follow to be presented here have been put together during a heated debate with some unknown but friendly people over a beer. Thus, I want to assure the reader that I have no formal training in philosophy, apart from a little self-education, instead, I merely want to present my opinion about how different branches of philosophy could be intertwined with seemingly non-related neurological studies. I would be more than glad to discuss any matter, tangent or not to the information presented here.
During a meeting of the local philosophy society, we discussed a variety of topics regarding Stoicism and Epicureanism. Apart from having the opportunity to learn different opinions about these systems, I also had the opportunity to analyze the arguments of a person whose character typology, from an excess of poetry, I will define as an “agnostic philosopher”. I want to use the term to denote the typology whose accentuated pragmatism does not allow them to believe or adopt a mentality, unless they grasp the underlying physical process to the very depths of it and are presented with tangible proof, but is not against adopting philosophy as a way to pursue one’s well-being.
Up to a certain degree, we are all “agnostic philosophers”: before changing our core ideas, we check if there is any real benefit to doing so, maybe we get a better understanding of reality or of what’s good or bad; why should we bother to follow any philosophy school? Why would the advice of someone who lived 2000 years ago still be relevant now? Why would one find true happiness in pure things such as friendship, knowledge, virtuosity while avoiding the vane, bodily ones, as Epicureans believe, or finding happiness in living a Stoic’s virtuous life? After all, just as Socrates said, a man’s choices are driven by his desire for happiness and there are plenty other ways of obtaining happiness that allow looser, if any restrictions on how one lives his life, so why would one believe that only certain types of actions that give us enjoyment, truly make us happy?
To truly answer these questions, we will have a small dive into a couple of basic neuroscience terms and analyze 2 studies. For simplicity, we will consider dopamine, which is a hormone and a neurotransmitter, to be the substance that activates the feeling of enjoyment. The underworkings of this simplified system are now easy to understand; every activity triggers the release of a variable amount of dopamine, which gives a feeling of pleasure and so, reinforces the individual to continue engaging in that activity to maintain the high level of the hormone. But sexual intercourse releases huge amounts of hormones, dopamine being among those, consuming alcohol or certain types of drugs also make the levels of dopamine skyrocket, one could even inject synthetic dopamine in order to maintain a constant state of euphoria and live the best life possible, so why should one abstain from these “vices” if they are the ones that chemically, have the biggest effect on humans?
The problem is that the threshold of dopamine at which an individual becomes content is not fixed; it fluctuates. For now, let’s get rid of all the technical terms and view the system from an intuitive point of view. Let’s say that we have a certain threshold of “happiness” at which we feel content, a threshold which varies, the more “happiness” we have, the higher the threshold goes and it is harder to feel enjoyment from the same action, thus starting to abuse that action and engage in exaggerated amounts in order to maintain that level of “happiness”, the higher the level goes in order to meet that threshold, the more it will fall when the stimulus will be interrupted or won’t provide enough “happiness” and the worse the withdrawal will be.
Therefore, sharp increases of the dopamine level will result in sharp decreases, that would go well below the already raised threshold, which is a very unpleasant experience and will lead to the use of more stimuli to raise the dopamine level again and thus, forming the vicious cycle of addiction. But not everybody has addictions, there are certain socio-economic groups that statistically, have a higher predisposition to addictions, and even within those groups, there are individuals that do not present them.
This was also observed in two different experiments, one on rodents and one on primates. “The Rat Park” as it came to be known, was a series of experiments that changed the perception of addiction. In the first part of the experiment, rats were isolated in unnatural cages and had the choice of injecting themselves with drugs such as cocaine and heroin by pressing a lever. Oftentimes, the only thing they did was to continually press the lever until they died of an overdose, the addiction having become more important than basic needs. The second part of the experiment had a drastic change in the housing of the animals. They were placed in big social groups along with elements from their natural habitat and the rodents hardly consumed any drugs, even though they had a constant supply of them.
The second study consisted of isolating primates and measuring their responses to cocaine by measuring the activity of certain dopamine receptors. After which, the primates were placed in groups where a certain social hierarchy has naturally appeared and their response to the drug was once again tested. They discovered that only the primates who came up as dominant had changes in their base dopamine levels, which were greater than before and were less interested in cocaine, while the submissive primates maintained the affinity for the drug. When I was presented with these findings during the meeting with the philosophy society, I remembered a Polynesian school of philosophy presented in a science-fiction book as “Ua lava”.
The school never really existed, the name might even be wrong by the grammar rules of the language it pretends to respect, but that could not mean less as it seems to be the intuitive explanation of the studies. In the book, “Ua lava” is presented as meaning “just enough” and views each living individual as having a threshold at which it is content, where “he has enough” and beyond which, he should start helping others achieve their threshold. Because it is not static, at one point in time, the same person might even go lower than their threshold, in such case, they should endure their current situation and continue to fight for achieving content again, as long as they can bear the current situation. When patience exhausts, one has to change his attitude, change jobs, homes, careers, until he meets his content threshold again.
Both rats and primates are highly sociable creatures and in their natural habitats, their main activities being establishing a hierarchy, reproduction and ensuring the safety of the pack. These actions represent their very goals, the activities that allow them to reach the state of “Ua lava” and once they were denied the possibility of engaging in those activities, their levels of dopamine dropped under the base threshold, they were not content with their lives and they could not change it. Therefore, when presented the opportunity of increasing their dopamine levels, they did so by using drugs, the only problem being that having constant spikes in the dopamine level leads to the dullness of the receptors, so they needed bigger and bigger quantities of drugs to maintain the same state of pleasure until they overdosed.
As humans, it is impossible to define a unified goal, a purpose of every human being or a series of actions that describe the state of “Ua lava” for every individual. Each person has its own threshold and its own activities dictated by DNA and mentality, these compose the nature of a man that Marcus Aurelius spoke about in his Meditations and it is “natural” to follow these activities in order to become content, because then we are true to our won nature, obviously, while respecting the moral norms imposed by the society. Indulging in vices will temporarily but greatly increase one’s enjoyment, their dopamine level, but that level is not sustainable, the threshold will go higher and higher until it won’t be reached, then a horrible withdrawal will follow.
Both aforementioned schools state that the path to being content is to refrain from vices and only to follow virtues and knowledge, being slightly similar to Buddhism by means of detaching oneself from the world so one will not be able to be hurt by unfortunate events. Personally, I feel that both schools have immense practical usefulness, but they lack one thing. They teach one how to be content with his current situation, no matter what it is, and that he has to work along with his nature, but a man’s “call” cannot be changed, his base content level cannot be altered, so while adopting these philosophies will help one face adversity, one must not forget that he can change anything he needs to in order to meet his natural state of being content.
