Neuroscience of Happiness and Pleasure -- Morten L. Kringelbach and Kent C. Berridge

    I just started reading this article "Neuroscience of Happiness and Pleasure" and here is an excerpt:


    Quote

    The available evidence suggests that brain mechanisms involved in fundamental pleasures (food and sexual pleasures) overlap with those for higher-order pleasures (for example, monetary, artistic, musical, altruistic, and transcendent pleasures) (Kringelbach 2010).

    From sensory pleasures and drugs of abuse to monetary, aesthetic and musical delights, all pleasures seem to involve the same hedonic brain systems, even when linked to anticipation and memory. Pleasures important to happiness, such as socializing with friends, and related traits of positive hedonic mood are thus all likely to draw upon the same neurobiological roots that evolved for

    sensory pleasures. The neural overlap may offer a way to generalize from fundamental pleasures that are best understood and so infer larger hedonic brain principles likely to contribute to happiness.

     

    The Neuroscience of Happiness and Pleasure
    www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

    "From sensory pleasures and drugs of abuse to monetary, aesthetic and musical delights, all pleasures seem to involve the same hedonic brain systems, even when linked to anticipation and memory."


    You mean there's no special mechanism involved in the pleasure of contemplating the majesty of Zeus, or considering yourself to be a flickering part of the Divine fire? That won't please the Stoics if they find out! ;)

    "All pleasures seem to involve the same hedonic brain systems" -- that would support PD 9.


    Ha, I didn't get to the end of that article yet to see if it says anything about importance of meaning (but "Divine fire" would probably fall into that category). ;)