photograph of  an intra-cranially self-stimulating rat
Photo of an intracranially self-stimulating rat. Click here for video-clip
"What we express with the word suffering seems to be particularly essential to the nature of Man. Sharing in the sufferings of Christ is, at the same time, suffering for the Kingdom of God. In the just eyes of God, before this justice, those who share in Christ's sufferings become worthy of this Kingdom. Through their sufferings they, in a sense, pay back the boundless price of our redemption. Suffering contains, as it were, an appeal to Man's moral greatness and spiritual maturity"
POPE JOHN PAUL II

"At a purely chemical level, every experience humans find enjoyable - whether listening to music, embracing a lover, or savoring chocolate - amounts to little more than an explosion of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens as exhilarating and ephemeral as a firecracker."
J Madelaine Nash

"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heaven"

Satan, in Milton's Paradise Lost

"What does not destroy me, makes me stronger"
Friedrich Nietzsche
Twilight of the Idols


Hypermotivation
The Orgasmic Brain
The Good Drug Guide
The Hedonistic Imperative
Electrical Brain Stimulation
Critique of Brave New World
When Is It Best To Take Crack Cocaine?
Wireheads and Wireheading in Science Fiction
Pleasure Evoked by Electrical Stimulation of the Brain