Because it's not actually anyone's truth. If "thinking" was more pleasurable than, say, skydiving, or playing with a baby, or a drug-fueled orgy, than you'd see a lot more people dropping out of society to go be hermits than anything else.
Instead, we look around, and see that vices fall into a handful of categories: trick the brain into making the feel-good chemicals (risk-taking, sex, good food) or sticking the feel-good chemicals in there yourself (drugs, booze).
I'm not going to assert that I know the greatest pleasure possible. Someone's probably out here stretched out on MDMA while cliff-jumping into a volcano or some likewise truly insane shit. But I can assert that that person is experiencing pleasure unfathomable by anyone who asserts that the greatest pleasure is "thinking".
I don't know if it's so cut-and-dry. By that logic why doesn't everybody just do amphetamines all day.
Probably some integral of pleasure is part of the equation, and it depends on you preference for pleasure distribution. But maybe I'm blurring the line between pleasure and fulfillment.
The brain is made up of modules and happiness in essence comes from what can be characterized as two different modules. For alignment both modules need to register happiness.
The animistic or instinctual side of happiness triggered by drugs is not purely a module but it can be encapsulated into a concept called the the mesolimbic dopamine pathway. This pathway can be mechanically manipulated to make you feel a certain portion of happiness via drugs sex or the natural secretion of dopamine.
The thing about this module is that it lives separately from another module called the neocortex. The neocortex encompasses the higher functionality of your brain with things like higher order thoughts, perception and consciousness. The unique thing about the neocortex is that it can self actualize. It can see signals being sent by other parts of the brain and it can override or interpret those signals as false. This is what happens when you do something like exercise. One part of your brain tells you you're tired, but your neocortex overrides this and forces you to continue because you're aware that the feeling is an illusion. Exercise is actually healthy.
For someone to feel truly happy the mesolimbic dopamine pathway and the neocortex need to be in alignment. The dopamine hit must register AND the neocortex must validate that feeling as well. Signals of happiness from one module but not the other register as sort of an invalid false happiness.
For example when you're an addict and you're doing heroin the reward pathway sends a signal, but the neocortex denies it. The addict is generally unhappy even though he gets "high" all the time. For the parent poster, the neocortex is telling himself he's happy by "thinking" but there's no dopamine hit from the mesolimbic pathway. The in-congruence from both modules in the brain form a happiness that isn't quite real. To truly be happy you need both.
Also note that the brain additionally develops tolerance to dopamine so any feeling of happiness is relatively fleeting. You need to use different stimuli and go through long periods of "no dopamine" to feel happy. Humans are biologically designed this way by evolution.
I'm sorry to tell you this, because in general being aware of all of this generally makes people less happy. Ignorance is part of what makes all of this work, because it is your neocortex that is determining all of this. Knowledge of this influences how your neocortex chooses to override certain signals from the mesolimbic pathway... it's all very very meta.
No need to be sorry, I'm aware we answer to our biology (not that I have as deep of an understanding of it as you).
We may be splitting hairs because this stemmed from a comment saying thinking is the most pleasurable thing in the world and you said anyone who thinks that way is lying to themselves.
Through your biological lens I have no choice but to agree, the thing that is most pleasurable in the world is mesolimbic dopamine pathway and the neocortex alignment (or so I'm told).
But through a conversational lens I guess it's all how you get there. And thinking->problem solving->success is a plausible path to get there which is why I disagree with your statement that they are lying to themselves, ignoring the existential truth that we are always lying to ourselves.
>And thinking->problem solving->success is a plausible path to get there
Sure, if this is what he means, then he is correct. But what he wrote is just "thinking" which is false.
>which is why I disagree with your statement that they are lying to themselves, ignoring the existential truth that we are always lying to ourselves.
It is a bit. The success of problem solving usually comes with only a mild dopamine hit. There are way more situations that create a greater surge of dopamine. Parent stated "thinking" was the most pleasurable thing ever which obviously not the case for people in general.
For example it's much more pleasurable to win a billion dollars or successfully bed the hottest girl in the club or to dominate everyone else in some competition. Clearly our biology is geared towards giving huge rushes of dopamine for situations that aren't exactly tied to "thinking" or strictly "problem solving". I find it hard to believe that the parent is completely unaware of this. He must know on some level. That's why I claim he's lying to himself.
well you're wrong. My statement was categorically true. And if you follow the thread I reveal highly informative knowledge about it all. Your comment here is the one that is a casual dismissal and completely incorrect blanket generalization. Nothing is more casual then reciting the canned HN rules and not investigating further.
