PROGRESSin life is to maximize the rewards he gets when he pursues more. That’s
dopamine.
The artist says that the essence of her humanity is her ability to
create. It’s her godlike power to call into existence representations of
truth and beauty that never existed before. The springs from which that
creation flows are her being. That’s dopamine.
Finally, the spiritual person might say that transcendence is the root
of humanity. It’s the thing that rises above physical reality—the most
essential part of who we are is our immortal souls that exist beyond
space and time. Because we cannot see, hear, smell, taste, or touch our
souls, we encounter them only in our imagination. That’s dopamine.HOW TO SCRATCH YOUR HEADAnd yet, more than 99.999 percent of the brain is made up of
non-dopamine-producing cells. Many of them take care of functions
that are outside of our awareness, such as breathing, keeping our hor-
monal systems in balance, and coordinating muscles that allow us to
carry out seemingly simple motions. Think about scratching your head.
It starts out with your dopamine circuits deciding it’s a good idea. They
decide that scratching your head is the best path to an itch-free future.
Dopamine cells give the signal to do it, but that’s where dopamine—and
conscious involvement—come to an end.
Dopamine is the conductor, not the orchestra.
In some ways the dopaminergic command, do it, is the easiest part.
What comes next is so complicated, it’s hard to even imagine how we
get it done.
Lifting your arm to scratch your head requires the coordination of
dozens of muscles in your fingers, wrist, arm, shoulder, back, neck, and
abdomen. If you’re standing when you do it, the coordination require-
ments go all the way down your legs. Moving your arm upward changes
your center of gravity, so it requires balance adjustments. It’s compli-
cated. Each joint in your body has opposing muscles (similar to the
opposing circuits in the brain) so that the joint can be controlled with