#1
My friend was telling me recently he thinks that every human action can be boiled down to a simple biological craving to get hits of dopamine in their brain. Is this silly or reductive? It sounds like it should be but the more I think about it the more he has a point. Thoughts?
#2
class struggle
#3
sex (cycloneboy you are not human, sorry bro)
#4
Its mainly to get some pussy, i think. thats why people do things
#5
[account deactivated]
#6
the œdipus complex / penis ænvy
#7

angelbutt_dollface posted:

sex (cycloneboy you are not human, sorry bro)



Yes but this still boils down to dopamine, cycloneboy also gets dopamine hits from his ridiculous moralizing and faux-identity as an “asexual”

#8
you ask people what motivates them, or get them to do things and ask them if they feel motivated, then you make a big list of things that motivate people and things that don't motivate them
#9
eat fat so you can have energy to eat more fat
#10

swirlsofhistory posted:

you ask people what motivates them, or get them to do things and ask them if they feel motivated, then you make a big list of things that motivate people and things that don't motivate them



people aren't going to give you honest answers though

#11
serotonin > dopamine imo
#12

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

swirlsofhistory posted:

you ask people what motivates them, or get them to do things and ask them if they feel motivated, then you make a big list of things that motivate people and things that don't motivate them



people aren't going to give you honest answers though


some might lie, but as long as there's a possible criterion on which to determine what a lie and what a genuine response would look like, there's no problem. the list just has to be adjusted to better reflect honest answers

#13

discipline posted:

why do I do things then I'm a person too you asshole


to get pussy, probably. stop challenging my worldview

#14

swirlsofhistory posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:
swirlsofhistory posted:

you ask people what motivates them, or get them to do things and ask them if they feel motivated, then you make a big list of things that motivate people and things that don't motivate them



people aren't going to give you honest answers though

some might lie, but as long as there's a possible criterion on which to determine what a lie and what a genuine response would look like, there's no problem. the list just has to be adjusted to better reflect honest answers



but if it is all for dopamine then there's essentially no difference in motivation between say, distributing food packages in the Ogaden or raping your daughter in an Austrian basement.

#15
it's largely irrelevant
#16

AmericanNazbro posted:

it's largely irrelevant



i don't think so, attempting to understand human society without knowing what truly drives humans strikes me as putting the cart before the horse

#17
well sometimes that cart needs a good kick in the ass
#18
[account deactivated]
#19
lol if you think you can ever truly understand what motivates humans
#20
[account deactivated]
#21
the transcendent object of desire exists on the order of the Real and cannot be conceptualised, we're reaching for something but we will never know what it is. ultimately the object of desire is immaterial in all senses of the word, the will is significant only through the fact of its futility
#22
aesthetics
#23
Aesthetics.
#24

deadken posted:

the transcendent object of desire exists on the order of the Real and cannot be conceptualised, we're reaching for something but we will never know what it is. ultimately the object of desire is immaterial in all senses of the word, the will is significant only through the fact of its futility

what the fuck is wrong with you

#25
i read lacan which is probably symptomatic iono
#26

deadken posted:

Aesthetics.


#27

deadken posted:

the transcendent object of desire exists on the order of the Real and cannot be conceptualised, we're reaching for something but we will never know what it is. ultimately the object of desire is immaterial in all senses of the word, the will is significant only through the fact of its futility



nah, that's fluff. We're animals like all other animals, we must behave for observable reasons.

#28
oh yeah there is jouissance which is basically dopamine or whatever, i think lacan's point is that 'normal' human behaviour isn't reducible to simple pleasure-seeking, its just that the other component is, in being transcendent/'higher'/whatever, basically futile
#29
gets me pumped every time

#30

deadken posted:

oh yeah there is jouissance which is basically dopamine or whatever, i think lacan's point is that 'normal' human behaviour isn't reducible to simple pleasure-seeking, its just that the other component is, in being transcendent/'higher'/whatever, basically futile



but if you boil it down enough that desire for transcendence is probably just trying to trigger the same mechanism....you can't have drugs or get laid 24/7 but "big ideas" can keep giving you that hit, like a nicotine patch or wahtever

#31
what if im just a brain in a serotonin vat
#32

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

deadken posted:

oh yeah there is jouissance which is basically dopamine or whatever, i think lacan's point is that 'normal' human behaviour isn't reducible to simple pleasure-seeking, its just that the other component is, in being transcendent/'higher'/whatever, basically futile

but if you boil it down enough that desire for transcendence is probably just trying to trigger the same mechanism....you can't have drugs or get laid 24/7 but "big ideas" can keep giving you that hit, like a nicotine patch or wahtever



i dont think its so much a desire for transcendence (although it can manifest itself as that) as a desire that is itself transcendent.... i mean like the fact that i spend a non-insubstantial amount of time posting on an ironic politics forum for people who were successively exiled from two larger ironic politics forums doesnt give me any kind of 'hit' or make me feel that good and yet i keep doing it

#33

deadken posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:
deadken posted:
oh yeah there is jouissance which is basically dopamine or whatever, i think lacan's point is that 'normal' human behaviour isn't reducible to simple pleasure-seeking, its just that the other component is, in being transcendent/'higher'/whatever, basically futile
but if you boil it down enough that desire for transcendence is probably just trying to trigger the same mechanism....you can't have drugs or get laid 24/7 but "big ideas" can keep giving you that hit, like a nicotine patch or wahtever


i dont think its so much a desire for transcendence (although it can manifest itself as that) as a desire that is itself transcendent.... i mean like the fact that i spend a non-insubstantial amount of time posting on an ironic politics forum for people who were successively exiled from two larger ironic politics forums doesnt give me any kind of 'hit' or make me feel that good and yet i keep doing it



See you say that but my contention is that it does. When you post a funny burn, or a clever comment, or get positive feedback from one of your stories, it is delivering you that dopamine.

There's no shame in admitting that.

#34
Christianity or Natural Religion? The answer is dopamine.
#35
but the neurotic/masochist desires to not get his way. wasnt that in part the failure of a theory of motivation based purely on chemicals?
#36

animedad posted:

but the neurotic/masochist desires to not get his way. wasnt that in part the failure of a theory of motivation based purely on chemicals?



who is this referring to, i don't follow

#37
The nature of man is conflict. In a word?

War.
#38
woah
#39
there's more neurotransmitters than dopamine which are all 'built-in" to an individual's temperament (serotonin & . at the very least the flight-fight response, which is more common across species (afaik, thus more historic evolutionarily speaking and deeply manifested?), i think is affected by dopamine indirectly.

the TCI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperament_and_Character_Inventory) uses dopamine/serotonin/adrenaline dimensions to build a persons temperament, so the interaction of all of these helps form the biochemical basis for someone's "motivation."
#40
free goatstein already