What is NeuroFelicitology?
Felicity – a life of Sustained Happiness and Joy is the ultimate goal for all humans. We seek many different things in life. However, those are merely means and not ends. The end that we pursue universally is Felicity – a life full of sustained joy, minimally tainted with sadness. NeuroFelicitology is the neuroscience and neurotechnology of Felicity – the knowledge of how to transform the brain such that it experiences increasing Felicity. As such, it is the Science of Neural Metamorphosis – from a brain structure incapable of experiencing Felicity to one that experiences sustained Felicity. NeuroFelicitology is a new science. However, our vision for NeuroFelicitology, the Neuro-Engineering of Felicity, is for it to become like Physics and Engineering – Universal, Unambiguous, Reliable and Precise.The Principles of NeuroFelicitology
The Neuro-Engineering of Felicity is based upon the following three bedrock principles
1. Experience – The brain is the locus of all experience. Its structure, i.e., content and connections, determines experience. Experience is nothing but the firing of a subset of neurons – a Neural Activity Pattern (NAP). The experiences of happiness and unhappiness are simply NAPs. An individual’s NAPs are shaped both by heredity – reflecting humankind’s evolutionary history, as well as lifetime experiences. Unhappiness NAPs are ‘de-formities’ – results of ‘evolutionary hangovers’ as well as life experiences. The origin and nature of evolutionary hangovers will be discussed later.
2. Neuroplasticity – The brain is not static. Its structure – both the mass of neurons as well as the connections between them, changes throughout life. ‘Neurons that fire together, wire together’. Consequently, connections are strengthened or weakened by use and disuse respectively. This is the basis of all learning.
3. Felicity is increased by ‘re-forming’ the brain. Re-form therapies are practices that INCREASE the frequency, depth and duration of Happiness NAPs and DECREASE the frequency, depth and duration of Unhappiness NAPs. Thus, the experience of happiness becomes deeper and more prevalent while the experience of unhappiness falls in frequency, depth and duration.
The Neural Roots of Unhappiness
The human brain has been sculpted over the billions of years that life has evolved on earth. Its present day structure is one that was most conducive to survival and reproduction in the hunter-gatherer culture that accounts for the bulk of human history.
The evolutionary purpose of brains is to promote the survival and reproduction of the organism. It is NOT to experience happiness. Brains function by identifying opportunities and threats to survival and reproduction; and, inducing the organism to act upon them. The inducement is accomplished via emotions – realizing opportunities feels good so we pursue them and experiencing threats feels bad so we either avoid or fight them. Thus, happy and unhappy feelings are how brains function. They conferred survival and reproductive advantages in our ancestral hunter- gatherer societies and, as a result, are deeply ingrained in the structure of human brains today.
However, the irony is that many neural traits that promoted survival and reproduction in the ancestral hunter- gatherer culture no longer do so. Yet, we are stuck with them. They are, so to speak, ‘evolutionary hangovers’. The ‘Fight or Flight Response’ to a perceived threat is a prime example. While critical to survival in the distant past, it is usually dysfunctional when evoked under current conditions. Another ubiquitous evolutionary hangover is our predilection for sweets. In the ancestral hunter-gatherer environment, a ‘sweet tooth’ was desirable because sugar, which is beneficial in small quantities, was scarce in nature and only available in low concentrations – mainly in fruits and some roots. But now, when sweets loaded with refined sugar are readily at hand, a sweet tooth is a major threat to good health!
There are five principal ‘Evolutionary Hangovers’ that modern human brains have inherited from our evolutionary past. These structural ‘de-formities’ are the root cause of human unhappiness.
- Self-Centeredness. Humans are overwhelmingly focused on self-interest. While altruism is also a part of human nature, it is, on average, much weaker. Most thoughts and feelings, which are nothing other than Neural Activation Patterns (NAPs), have self-interest as their foundation.
- Discontentment & Greed/Fear. In humans, contentment is conspicuous by its absence. Discontentment manifests as both Greed and Fear.
For the former, no matter how much a person has, he/she always wants more. Thus, many NAPs feature the emotion – ‘I want more A, B, C …’. The A, B, C’s change, but the ‘I want more’ is a constant!
On the other hand, a person motivated primarily by Fear experiences never-ending anxiety about failing – getting what they don’t want or not getting what they want.
Both types are not satisfied with the present. They both ‘live’ in the past or the future – never in the present. - Self-Gratification. Humans are slaves to many obsessions and compulsions. Addictions can be to food, drink, drugs, people, even ideas. These addictions cause us to compulsive seek sources of pleasure that gratify in the moment, but lead to longer-term suffering.
- Scattered Attention. Most people are unable to keep their attention focused on anything for long. Internal chatter is constant. The human ‘monkey brain’ jumps from thought to thought, feeling to feeling, in rapid succession. Nothing lasts. This is why even happiness is fleeting!
- False ‘I Feeling’. Humans feel that they are a stable, changeless entity, living in the body, going through life experiences. They feel that they are the entity in the body that is the doer of deeds, the thinker of thoughts, the feeler of feelings and emotions and the experiencer of all experiences. In other words, the –er in all happenings! However, the fact is that no such stable entity exists! Half a millennium of scientific investigations has failed to find it. The body is constantly changing. The brain jumps even faster from thought to thought, feeling to feeling. What is there about a person that persists over time other than some memories, likes/dislikes and habits? Even those are not fixed; the only difference being that the change is more gradual. So the belief that all humans have about what they are, at core, is False!
Why and how do these Neural Traits obstruct Felicity?
One can readily see how these traits conferred survival and reproduction advantages to humans in the ancestral hunter-gatherer culture.
- Self-Centeredness enabled the organism to focus on its own interests rather than anyone else’s.
- Discontentment & Greed/Fear enabled the organism to stockpile resources so as to be better prepared for periods of drought, famine, sickness, war, etc. Fear enabled the organism to be constantly on the lookout for threats to survival and reproduction.
- Self-Gratification promoted both the acquisition of precious calories in an environment of scarcity and the likelihood of reproduction.
- Scattered Attention was an asset in a culture where both opportunities and threats could arise without notice.
- False ‘I-Feeling’ was invaluable in separating the I from the not-I, thus making sure that the organism focused on the self rather than others.
No wonder these inherited traits are explained in the science of Evolutionary Psychology as – Humans who did not possess these traits failed to be our ancestors because they were eliminated in the struggle for survival before they could reproduce. In the brutal human ancestral environment, only the fittest survived – those who possessed these traits! We can also readily see why these traits, which were assets in the ancestral environment, have become major liabilities under current conditions of most human societies. They inevitably lead to discontentment, conflict and unhappiness. As a result, not only do individuals suffer, they inflict suffering on their near and dear ones too! Self-Centeredness and Greed lead to conflict as individuals or groups compete for finite resources. Discontentment and Greed keep us on the treadmill of always wanting more no matter how much we have – making sure we are never content and always envious of those who have, or are perceived to have, more. Fear leads to chronic anxiety. The urge for immediate Self-Gratification leads to behaviors that are inimical to both physical and mental health. Scattered Attention prevents us from really savoring any pleasure – as soon as one desire is satisfied, it is on to the next one. Equally, as soon as one fear is found to be unjustified, it is on to the next one! And last, but not the least, the False ‘I-feeling’ – the feeling that I’m an individual, confined to this body, condemns us to a life of suffering, plagued by physical and mental afflictions, fearing misfortune, old age and infirmity and terrorized by the prospect of death. It keeps us trapped in the prison of the body and the mind and robs us of the infinite pleasure available to us right now in this marvelous cosmos, if only we could be freed from the prison long enough to pay attention to it!