A thread through the archive
Essays tagged “dopamine”. Follow an idea across the archive.
Scott Alexander explores various commenters' insights on the neuroscience of reward, happiness, and relationships, expanding on his original post about unpredictable rewards.
Scott Alexander proposes a Bayesian theory of willpower as a process of weighing evidence from different mental processes to determine actions.
Scott Alexander uses the Jewish legend of the Chamber of Guf as a metaphor for subconscious thoughts, exploring its implications for behavior, OCD, and self-defeating thoughts.
Scott Alexander explores the motivational system as described in 'The Hungry Brain', connecting it to dopamine, willpower, and predictive processing theory.
The post explores how Bayesian processes in the brain might explain perception and various mental disorders, linking neurotransmitters to different aspects of Bayesian reasoning.
Scott explains how the Sinclair Method treats alcoholism by using naltrexone to block the brain's reward response to alcohol, breaking the learned association between drinking and pleasure through temporal difference learning.
Scott discusses the neuroscientific split between 'wanting' and 'liking', showing how wireheads might not actually be happy, and explores the troubling implications this has for economics, philosophy, and AI alignment.