The widely held notion that happiness (or lack thereof) is simply the result of chemical (im)balances is one of the greatest PR victories of the pharmaceutical industry.

Well, people consume cocaine for a reason. But I understand your objection. It is a bit reductive to think like this.

Would you say cocaine makes those people happy?

Yes, at least some of them for some time.

I remember an old addict speaking of cocaine as if it was his only true love. Waxed poetical about it, the way we remember our first kiss.

Seems that at least some people are wired this way.

He’s a comedian so it might just be a bit but Bert Kreischners comments on alcohol fit that description

https://youtu.be/MljeQzcmUfE

Drugs 100% make people feel happy.

... until the CNS homeostasis stops responding to them, which is why they keep taking bigger hits. Something more complex is going on.

What else is there?

Happiness chemicals are the end result, and end result we cannot cause directly, anyway. What leads you there, how the process involves your particular brain and environment, and how it acts as a feedback loop are a higher concern.

Even if one day you could just squirt the cocktail directly into your receptors or otherwise trick them, there's more to happiness as a part of life than turning yourself into a vegetable, but I digress.

Death is the ultimate happiness because you get to be relieved from endless suffering that life is. Other than that, yep just take some drugs.

Computers are just electrons moving. Biology is just phyics. See how little that explains? The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, even if it's still encoded in the parts.

I get the sentiment though. Happiness is a mix of the right hormones firing, so the question is: how does intelligence affect different types of hormones, if at all. Given how sensitive our hormones are, it would be difficult to control only for “intelligence”.

By that logic, "How does loved one dying affect different type of hormones, if at all. Given how sensitive our hormones are, it would be difficult to control only for 'loss of a loved one'".

If you have depression or another condition affecting your affect and your emotions, sure. Otherwise it's pretty obvious to anyone that concepts on orders of magnitude higher levels than hormones being correlated with happiness, or if you prefer, those concepts having a significant effect on the overall action of those hormones.

Loss of a loved one is a very specific event, intelligence is a very broad idea that isn't even well defined. I have no idea what this means: "concepts on orders of magnitude higher levels than hormones". I guess your intelligence is just much higher than mine.

Except happiness is a well-known thing, and there are substances like alcohol, cocaine, etc, that are optimized for it.

Putting aside that they are not optimized but just happen to have an effect, would you claim that these are the only things that affect happiness/its relevant chemicals?

I would claim all other things are far less effective, to the point where they have little to no effect.

I'm sorry, but I don't think that makes sense, and that it's pretty obvious that it doesn't.

I don't have experience with cocaine, but as a Bavarian I made plenty of experience with alcohol. I've never been addicted, but I had my fair share of Oktoberfest and beer garden visits. And yet you don't see my optimizing my life around it. In fact, nowadays I have a beer every few months if even, simply because most of my hobbies don't work well with alcohol.

As for cocaine: As I said, no experience, but it appears to me that even very wealthy people who probably consume it also still do other things in life, despite not having to for income etc.

In my experience that is the case. I haven't gone to the gym for a few weeks now, because after years of doing it, I no longer feel anything. I go to Walmart every day and buy Apple juice and Kit Kat, and that does very little, incomparable to taking pleasure-optimized drugs.

You just get used to chemicals as well and need more and more, and stronger ones. Alcoholics are not happy when drinking, they are miserable if they are not drinking. That's a completely different world.

> Happiness is just chemicals, it has nothing to do with that.

Your choices, (in)actions, and perceptions are things that can cause the release of said chemicals.

Your intelligence, as well as abilities and habits, can effect how (or even whether you can) do or do not do things.

But then there's cases where an intelligent person can devise a perfect plan to reach happiness. Do the right habits, sleep, diet, exercise, relationships, therapy, medications, do everything according to science that should make us happy. But still never be "happy" or feel "satisfied".

It has some because expectations and satisfaction of those alter hormones.

chemicals are released by one part of the brain and interpreted by another. the parts of the brain that release those chemicals release it when that part of the brain is stimulated. this kind of mental stimulation can be heavily reliant on quality of life.

Technically correct, but if that's what you reduce it to, why did you bother to reply? You only changed some light patterns on a bunch of atoms.

Are you not aware that many psych drugs that modify brain chemistry fail to work for people? Even when they are tested to have adequate or high levels?

Some people have two heads.

Has anyone ever not responded to fentanyl?

fentanyl doesn't make you happy, heroin does :)

Interesting, I would have thought they both had the same effects since they are both opioids.