What makes us happy? Travel? Recognition? A perfect relationship? Knowledge? A high h-index? And who should answer such a profound question: philosophy or neuroscience?
In their conversation on "The Art of True Happiness," neuroscientist Andrew Huberman and happiness philosopher Arthur Brooks draw on both, alongside personal faith. Their discussion raises fascinating questions: Does human happiness reflect something about how we are designed? Do the things that fulfill us reveal something about our origins?
The essence of Brooks' position is that humans experience happiness when our lives are in alignment with what we were designed to do, both as human beings and as individuals. Brooks identifies three “macronutrients” of happiness towards this end: enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning.
First, Brooks distinguishes enjoyment from pleasure. Pleasure rewards an immediate impulse; enjoyment requires that pleasure be brought into a relationship with other people or transcendence. Having a drink provides pleasure. Sharing that drink with old friends becomes enjoyment.
The ability to choose between pleasure and enjoyment, Brooks argues, comes from our “incredible prefrontal cortex.” He says the human prefrontal cortex is massive compared with other animals and allows us to choose between mere pleasure and moral aspiration.
From an intelligent design perspective, this is significant: human beings have a uniquely designed brain amongst the animal kingdom that can envision possibilities and deliberately choose one outcome over another.
Our happiness appears connected to how we exercise those capacities. Said another way, our brain is designed to make us feel happy when we’ve made choices that are in alignment with our moral aspirations.
Yet the capacity to choose behavior aligned with moral aspiration does not mean we always do.
The conversation turns to this situation when Brooks discusses leisure and asks what we seek when no one is telling us how to spend our time. He names four possible “idols” — money, power, pleasure, and honor — and invites Huberman to consider which one has the strongest pull on him.
Huberman eliminates the possibilities one by one until he identifies power. It is a vulnerable conversation to have in private, much less before this podcast's audience. Brooks refocuses the uncomfortability toward action: stating what tempts us gives us a chance to notice when it begins to challenge our moral aspirations.
The tricky thing about an idol is that neurochemically it delivers pleasure, but because we actually need enjoyment to be happy, it falls short in the end. Brooks says: “They won’t deliver the satisfaction that you seek, but your brain tells you that they will.”
We can therefore want something intensely without finding the happiness we expected when we obtain it. Recognizing this gap gives us an opportunity to reconsider what deserves our attention.
The second macronutrient, satisfaction, introduces another apparent paradox: happiness often requires struggle.
Brooks argues that the satisfaction of accomplishment comes through earning success, rather than merely receiving recognition. This says something about the origin and design of the brain itself.
For example, if humans evolved by Darwinian evolution, then why are our brains not made happy by rape (making lots of offspring), or survival of the fittest (destruction of genetically susceptible individuals)? Why, instead, is the brain satisfied through struggle that produces virtue?
Intelligent design (ID) theory holds that certain features of nature, such as the human brain, are best explained by intelligent agency. Just as coding Microsoft Word or building the "Huberman Lab" podcast requires foresight, planning, and persistence, ID argues that biological systems bear the signature of being designed by an intelligent agent.
Brooks’ reflections about what makes us truly happy actually provide clues about the purpose we were designed for. We find satisfaction in bringing something worthwhile into being. Creating in alignment with moral aspiration is part of what we were designed to do.
Finally, Brooks turns to meaning and the widespread human sense of the divine. He says, “There is not any evidence of societies that are systematically secular.” Rather, “all human societies that we've been able to ascertain have a sense of the divine.”
“This is not proof of God,” he says, “but it is evidence of something.” He offers an analogy: thirst points to water, and sexual desire points to sex. What might our persistent longing for the divine suggest?
From a design perspective, the longing for meaning reflects an orientation of the design itself. If humans evolved by Darwinian evolution, why is our happiness not simply tuned to maximize our ability to survive and leave offspring? Sure, children do bring us great happiness, but are people without children destined for unhappiness?
Brooks and Huberman suggest that the human mind is wired to not find happiness apart from enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning, all of which are rooted in moral aspiration toward the purpose we are designed to fulfill both as human beings and as individuals.
Brooks states that life poses ungooglable questions like: Why am I alive? What should I do with the life I have been given? For me, the answers to those questions are found in communion with God and others, in exploring creation, and in creating in ways that reflect my moral aspirations. It seems the one who designed my mind in the first place also intriguingly built it so I would feel most happy when I’m doing what He wants me to.
Emily Reeves is a PhD biochemist, metabolic nutritionist, and systems biologist. Emily works with scientists at Discovery Institute and in the greater scientific community to promote integration of engineering and biology.