Human design is constrained by natural selection to maximize performance for a given energy cost. The brain predicts
what will be needed and controls metabolism, physiology, and behavior to deliver just enough, just in time (allostasis).
By preventing errors rather than correcting them energy is saved. Predictive control requires learning. The process is
governed by an optimal rule that rewards each positive surprise with a pulse of dopamine, which we experience as a
pulse of satisfaction. That signal induces learning and encourages us to repeat the behavior.
But now we obtain food and comfort without surprise and are thus deprived of the dopamine pulses upon which rest
the whole edifice of behavioral regulation and mood. Lacking frequent pulses, we grow restless and seek new sources of
dopamine. One route is through consumption: more food and more drugs that produce great surges of dopamine. But
then the next surprise must be still more.
Meanwhile, our systems adapt to more by reducing their sensitivities, which drives them into spiraling addictions.
Standard medicine promotes drugs to treat addictions by blocking the reward circuit. But this is a strategy to prevent
satisfaction and it cannot work. Standard economics promotes “growth” for more “jobs”. But “jobs” devoid of challenge
are what now drive us to despair. To restore mental and bodily health, we must re-expand opportunities for small
satisfactions via challenging activities and thereby rescue the reward system from its pathological
regime.