Humans cannot achieve permanent happiness. Earthly pleasures do not ultimately satisfy us. The Bible said it. The neuroscientists have proved it.

A non-stop pleasure-filled life is not possible. Death alone does not end human pleasure — the brain does. Research about dopamine explains why.

Dopamine is a molecule, a neurotransmitter that carries information between neurons in the brain. Sometimes called “the feel-good neurotransmitter,” dopamine energizes our mood, motivation, and attention. It helps us think and plan, and especially to strive, focus, and find things interesting.

The Ups and Downs of Dopamine

So, if our brain produces high dopamine levels, then we are happy as long as they remain high, right? Actually, no. Dr. Anna Lembke in her 2021 book, Dopamine Nation, reviewed here previously, explains the bigger picture:

In simplest terms, the more dopamine the brain produces, the more excited we are to do, get, or experience something. Except the dopamine’s effects are relative to a “set point.”

There is a neutral, basic dopamine level in the brain. When we imagine and engage in a desirable pleasure, the dopamine level increases. Unlike the pleasure of the actual experience, like tasting a beef steak, dopamine gives us a motivating pleasure. We naturally want more of that pleasure. If we trigger many and continuous dopamine increases, however, the brain raises the “set point.” It then takes more dopamine to sense the same pleasure.

On the flip side, after we have obtained and enjoyed the experience we sought, the dopamine levels fall below whatever the “set point” was. Dr. Lembke suggest we think of a pleasure-pain spectrum, with the two starting in balance. Dopamine tips the balance toward pleasure, but that pleasure is temporary by design. Dr. Lembke writes:

Every time the balance tips toward pleasure, powerful self-regulating mechanisms kick into action to bring it level again. These self-regulating mechanisms do not require conscious thought or an active will. They just happen, like a reflex. Basically, this process is the work of homeostasis, the tendency of any living system to maintain physiologic equilibrium.

The brain counteracts the dopamine but does so by reducing it substantially below the “set point.” We may feel that effect as the “let down” after a “high,” whether it was achieved by winning a race, making a sale, finishing a performance, or ingesting a drug. In that decreased dopamine state, we tend to feel unhappy and unmotivated.

Research shows that dopamine is released when anticipating not only a physical or mental pleasure but also a risky, scary, even physically painful event. Dopamine “hits” can come from watching scary movies, engaging in extreme sports, gambling and losing money, and even from jumping into an ice cold pool of water.

The Elusive Endless Kicks  

Addictions occur when a person craves the dopamine hits even as the “set point” is set higher and higher, and the post-pleasure dopamine level crashes get increasingly painful. A person driven by dopamine desire typically seeks quick, even immediate gratification in other parts of their lives as well, not thinking much about long-term plans or consequences.

Brain neurochemistry research confirms we humans cannot create pain-free, constant-pleasure lives for ourselves. No matter what the earthly pleasure, the brain first supplies chemical motivation to obtain it, but later chemically reverses that motivation to a less-than-happy state. We cannot defeat the brain’s system with more stimulation for more dopamine. The 1966 song, “Kicks,” by Paul Revere and the Raiders, described it simply: “All your kicks ain’t bringing you peace of mind … you better get straight!”

Dopamine is Not the Cause, Only the Messenger

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter chemical, not an intelligent process. It is easy to slip into thinking that “dopamine causes” mental states. Cheering or blaming dopamine for thoughts and feelings leads us to misunderstand the brain and mind. Here’s why.

Think of an electric garage door opener. You push the button on the remote transmitter in your car, and the receiver in the garage triggers the opener to engage its motor and lift the door. An electromagnetic radio wave traveled from the transmitter to the receiver. When the receiver detected that radio wave, the receiver messaged the opener to operate. The radio wave did not open the garage door; the radio wave only carried the message.

Dopamine is like the radio wave: It is a neurochemical signal. A function in the brain (or mind) decides to increase dopamine levels, for example, and another brain function reacts to the dopamine level’s message.

The radio transmitter that sends the signal has at least two intelligent actors behind it: (1) The intelligence that designed and built the transmitter that converts information into radio signals and sends them; and (2) the intelligence that decides when and what the message to be sent would be. The radio receiver has the same types of features except on the incoming message side.

The same must be true for the dopamine system. An intelligence designed and built the system that decides when to increase or decrease dopamine, as well as the system that receives and acts upon the dopamine levels to affect brain operations of thinking and mood.  The dopamine is the signal; the intelligence appears in the decisions, encoding, transmitting, receiving, decoding, and acting upon the signal’s meaning.

Immaterial Thoughts, Chemical Responses

When we imagine something pleasurable and think of how to obtain it, typically dopamine is released.  The imagining and thinking, however, are brain (or mind) functions that are immaterial, not mere products of physics and chemistry. The idea of a pleasurable thing is an element of qualia, the purely subjective experience of life. The neurons in the brain sensing the dopamine increases trigger other brain functions that give us the feeling of pleasure in seeking the goal. That pleasurable motivation sets still other brain functions into action, as we form a purpose, devise a plan, and get our body and mind to do things to obtain the goal. Purposes and plans are also immaterial, goal-directed information, not merely physics and chemistry.

Dopamine is also associated with other mental subsystems, such as cognition, attention, sleep, movement, and learning. The interplay among thoughts and feelings, which are immaterial, and finely-tuned brain chemistry, which is material, makes dopamine a fascinating crossover element in the mind-brain dichotomy.