How I solved the human reward-function

My family makes over 200,000 per year and has a 1M+ net worth, yet I spent over a year eating 0-1 cold meals per day, repetitively & consistently went over a full week straight without eating, suffocated myself, pushed myself to the point of passing out, drowned my pride, and lived in a modern hell-on-earth by using my own pleasure and pain as a test dummy. All so that I could learn & share this information with you. So that you can have the informational tools necessary to manipulate addiction, consistency, & life-satisfaction, as you see fit.

Core beliefs

The human brain has 3 primary reward-optimization systems^[1].

1. The belief-based long-term system

Nearly every single long-term conscious decision an individual makes is because of their beliefs about the future world-state with the highest reward-value for themself.

This is because the motivation for long-term decisions is based on pride/guilt motivations & liking/disliking motivations. So you make long-term decisions based on the information you have the highest liking of & on what makes you feel the most proud right now.

Often, the pride/guilt & liking/disliking motivations will be overtaken by social motivations. Effectively leading to individuals making long-term decisions based the life someone else wants for them, rather than the life they want for themself.

2. The dopaminergic and short-term system

Every single conscious action an individual takes is because of their short-term perception of reward & punishment. (This is ignoring serotonic effects on human reward systems)

Right now, you're reading this document. Do you think it's because you are so rational & conscientious that you just want to learn valuable things, or do you think it's because right now you are perceiving short-term reward from continuing to read this. Alright, I failed to convince you. Maybe real-world evidence will. Turn away from this computer right now. Go on a walk. Start stretching. Drink some water. Go exercise. Cook some food. If you're so rational and conscientious, you'll do those things immediately because you know they're healthy for you and you know that you should do those things for the sake of your health. But seriously, even if that wasn't enough to motivate you to actually take a break, do it anyways because you need to use this as an opportunity to learn. When you get up from the computer and start doing something else, you'll realize that you like how it feels less than you liked being on the computer. This is because we always do the things that we perceive give us the most short-term reward. It's not that rationality and conscientiousness don't play a factor in this, it's more accurate to say that your rationality and conscientiousness only exist, because it rewards you to be rational, and to be conscientious.

3. The serotonergic system & short-term system

Every single conscious action an individual takes in spite of their perception of short-term reward & punishment that's in alignment with their belief-based long-term system is modeled by this system.

Willpower ^[2] is limited, and the amount of willpower an individual has is determined by the potency and proximity of serotonic rewards.

What is a serotonic reward?
Serotonic reward is reward that makes you feel satisfied or content. Unlike dopaminergic reward, you lose desire to engage in reward-seeking behaviors. Additionally, you can be experiencing high amounts of serotonic reward while having relatively low dopamine levels.

What comprises a serotonic reward?
Serotonic reward is any reward that satisfies a bodily need. As reward increases & the degree with which bodily needs are satisfied increases, so does serotonic reward.

What is reward?

Reward = any chemical that humans perceive as "good" or "pleasure". Different motivations are comprised of these 3 types of reward in different amounts.

3 main types of reward
- Wanting-reward
  - High dopamine, high depravity potency, & low degree with which depravity is satisfied will cause high amounts of this reward. This is the worst-case scenario.
  - It is caused by getting a reward that your body has depravity towards, but missing crucial stimuli elements.
  - It's that little bit of pleasure you get from engaging in highly stimulating & addictive activities.
  - Example 1: Eating a big, fat, juicy steak vs eating a cold, old, artificial meatball from a public cafeteria. The juicy steak is full of vital nutrients & has a high calorie & protein content. The nutrients in the meatball are less bioavailable, it is harder for your body to digest, and it fulfills less bodily needs in the form of protein and micronutrients.
  - Example 2: Masturbation has a high ratio of wanting-reward to satisfactory-reward compared to sex.
- Liking-reward
  - Characterized by the degree with which your beliefs effect the stimuli-based reward experienced.
- Satisfactory-reward
  - Characterized by high degree with which depravity is satisfied.
    - Pleasurable perception of the experience is amplified by high dopamine and high depravity potency.
Rules for reward (All reward has the following in common)

Other core systems

The way an individual receives reward & punishment primarily varies based on genetics, hormone production, neurotransmitter qualities, neural networks, diet, & environment. It is necessary to break down these abstract concepts into more practical concepts in order for them to be useful as tools for pattern recognition or tactical implementations.

Common societal associations with the two systems

Serotonergic system

Pleasure
Satisfaction
Feeling good
Happiness
Goals/Status/achievement
Conscious mind

Dopaminergic system

Pleasure
Pain
Desire
Wanting
Addiction
Attention/focus
Subconscious mind

How this post's main topics relate to each other and control human decision-making

Perception of future world state with the highest reward value = the goal-directed optimization matrix^[3] for the serotonergic reward system.

Reader, what is your dream? Actually pause and think about it for a moment.

... Alright, if you manage to achieve that dream, will you be able to die satisfied? If not, then what would you have to do to be at peace on the hospital bed where you take your last breath?

... Whatever you thought of was necessary for you to die satisfied is the outcome you associate with the perception of the future world state with the highest reward value for you. Everyone is different, because everyone has lived a different life with different experiences, information, and values.
- Note that if your first answer was different than your second, than that's an autonomous response your brain uses to protect yourself from 3 things
  1. The painful dopamine spike that comes with the reminder/feeling of not being on track with your goals.
  2. External negative perceptions of you that result from other people's observed discrepancies between where you currently are, and where your stated goal is.
  3. How external perceptions of your ability or likelihood to achieve your goals affect your own perception of your ability or likelihood to achieve your goals.
When you make a long-term decision (Not influenced by identity, beliefs, values, attention, or perception of sacrifice) you make it using this reward system.

The serotonic reward system always makes the final decision.

Regardless of how low an individual's serotonic value is and how high a dopaminergic value is, the serotonic system gets the final say through an individual's perception of sacrifice.

Higher serotonic states just make it easier/more likely that the individual takes serotonic aligned actions.

Ex. Right now, I haven't eaten anything for the past 9 days and the primary rewards I have recieved have come from sleep, work, and music. It goes without saying that I currently have a low serotonic value. There is food right next to me, and I am very tempted to eat it. However, I am choosing not to eat it. Primarily because of the sacrifice I subconsciously associate with the action.
- I would be eliminating the future reward that comes with doing as I believe I should do in accordance with my values. And eating in a situation where I experience increased liking of my pleasured state.
- I would feel about myself because of what taking the action says about who I am, and consequent changes in my beliefs about my identity.

Values ^[4] Values are the medium with which your beliefs affect the reward values of stimuli. Values also play a large factor in determining liking^[5]

Perception of short-term future reward/punishment^[6] = the goal-directed optimization matrix for the dopaminergic reward system.

When you make a short-term decision (Not influenced by serotonin, identity, beliefs, values, attention, perception of sacrifice) you make it using this reward system

motivation/dopamine baseline affects the dopaminergic system in the following ways:

Higher baseline = lower perception of future reward for rewarding stimuli
- (Less motivation and willpower)
Higher baseline = greater perception of future avoidance chemical for painful stimuli
- Less willing to do punishing things
- Often results in defeatist perceptions, feeling depressed, hopelessness.
Lower baseline =
Lower baseline =
- Greater susceptibility to temptation due to increased potency of rewarding stimuli
- Lower susceptibility to temptation due to:
  - Less fear/weakened effect of the avoidance chemical on behavior
  - sunk-cost fallacy

satisfaction/serotonin & behavior affect the serotonic system in the following ways:

environmental state of reward-punishment

The environmental state of reward-punishment affects affects decision-making, the dopaminergic system, and the serotonic system in the following ways:

habitual state of reward-punishment

The environmental state of reward-punishment affects affects decision-making, the dopaminergic system, and the serotonic system in the following ways:

Attraction chemical

Released while baseline is going up. Intrinsically affects perception.
Affects a lot of society's core subconscious beliefs about the world

Avoidance chemical.

Released while baseline is going down. Intrinsically affects perception.
Affects a lot of society's core subconscious beliefs about the world

Associative reward

Encourages routine, consistency, & inflexibility
Encourages diversity of behavior, desires, and values between individuals

Associative punishment

Encourages change of routine
Encourages diversity of behavior, desires, and values between individuals

Identity.

Perception of reward & punishment

Decisions ^[7]

- High energy cost

Attention^[8]

controls what information you're able to make decisions with in a given moment.

Focus^[9]

Controls the degree with which an individual is able to manipulate their attention by choice.

To recap, the major levers underlying human decision making and behavior in a reward-modelling context are x, y, and z. And the relate to each other in the following ways

Practical elaborations on systems & functions of each of the above topics

Perception of future world state with the highest reward value

Determined by beliefs
Beliefs determined by available information & the way you process & percieve it.
(Beliefs also determined by heuristics. You believe something because you believed it before, but you don't know why)

Values

Rewarding qualities in information

determined by subconcious beliefs around utility/value of informational aspects

Subconcious beliefs = determined by what you believed was true in the past

Intrinsic values

Satisfaction
Suffering

Attention

Concentration of mental resources.

Awareness.

Can be optimized by controlling & changing enviromental factors. (Removing or changing cues/stimuli)

Focus

Skill defined by the degree to which you control attention by choice

Increased focus =

increased control of the concious mind & long-term reward system over self-actions.
Greater ability to manipulate perception

Motivation/Dopamine & Baseline

Imagine an ECG. (ER heart-rate measurer)

Above the baseline is pleasure or reward. Below the baseline is pain or punishment. Both reward & punishment spike dopamine. All increases in dopamine increase motivation. Dopamine IS motivation.

If you do nothing, the ecg does not rise or fall. the ECG is balanced, and you feel "at peace."

If you do something rewarding, the ECG rises. While the rise is happening you feel an intrinsic good, but the intrinsic good feeling significantly lessens or completely dissapears once the ECG stops rising. While the ECG has stopped rising, you may not feel that good, but the ECG is still above baseline. You can stay in that state for a long time, and as time passes, the reward you recieve for being above baseline will gradually decrease until it gets negative. At this stage, nothing can pleasure you for a significant amount of time and it feels awful. State can be broken by causing a sharp drop in baseline by engaging in vigorous exercise or some other activity that releases pain chemicals. Doing this can be particularly painful, as the avoidance chemical will be very high. However, doing this is far easier on your perception, as you are able to experience reward while you do this, and perception is based on reward-punishment porportionality, not flat amounts. The exact some process happens when you do something painful, just switch "reward" with "punishment". One notable difference is that endorphins release during & after you do something very painful, wheras serotonin will often release during & after very pleasurable activities.

Picture the ECG baseline again

We understand that the dopamine spikes happen when the baseline goes up, and when the baseline goes down, but what happens when dopamine drops? Imagine that the baseline becomes 3d. Dopamine drops can be modelled spatially by the 3rd dimension. Dopamine drops can generally be represented by a reduction in stimuli and consequently a reduction of the perception of future reward or punishment. Distinct from boredom, as boredom is a heightened dopamine state associated with pain. While the feeling of being "at peace" "satisfaction" and "needing nothing", are all low dopamine states.

Dopamine release rate

Different stimuli cause different perceptions of future reward & punishment, and thus spike dopamine in varied amounts. For example, the amount of dopamine associated with an addiction, for example, food, will be much higher than the amount of dopamine associated with something more evolutionarily available, for example, water.

Attention = As subconscious associations of sensory information with dopamine value increases, likelihood of drawing attention proportionally increases

Addiction = All rewards create addictions of different degrees. An addiction is defined by the following neurological process:

Cue > response > Reward > increased internal stimuli of cue > increased likelihood of response (Independent of belief systems) > (Decreased reward as depravity decreases & baseline average increases) > Cue + Absence of response = Withdrawal pain (potency increases proportionally to initial stimuli reward value) > all of Withdrawal pain endured = significantly lessened internal stimuli of cue, likelihood of response, and withdrawal pain.

Relation of cue potency in terms of increased internal stimuli and increased withdrawal pain to time seems to be nonexistent or part of a longer-system which's outputs are currently unclear.

Has significance in the form of cues which activate largely as a function of time Ex. = hunger, sex drive.

Excitement/fear:

Anticipation/perception of future dopamine spikes. Perception of reward = excitement, perception of punishment = fear. Focus can be manipulated to turn fear into a feeling in between excitement & fear under certain circumstances.

Ex. = you are about do undergo pain submission. You typically listen to music during pain submission and enjoy it a lot, irrespective of the amount of pain you're in while you're enjoying it. Controlling focus so that the reward is a larger part of your perceived reality increases concurrent proportionality of excitement to fear.

Intrinsic dopamine releasers

Unverified, but seems to be the same as serotonin depravity sources, except the dopamine release rate is unaffected by depravity.

Satisfaction/Serotonin & Behavior

Depravity potency x Degree to which depravity is satisfied x dopamine = serotonic value

High serotonin = strong conscious desire for repetition

Increased willpower
Increased satisfaction with life
Increased likelihood to prefer altruism

Low serotonin = high propensity for change

Low willpower. (You will do whatever it takes to get the smallest rewards that aren't even satisfactory, and you are unlikely to enjoy them.)
You perception will also react worse to all painful stimuli. You likely become more neurotic.
increased selfish tendencies

Compulsive/medical addictions: Dopamine is compulsively addictive in depressed and low serotonergic individuals precisely because dopamine is motivation. Low serotonic individuals have low motivation to do anything. Consequently, their perceptual reality/attention begins to become primarily or exclusively comprised of that rewarding thing. They lack the ability to control their attention, and consequently the high dopamine option becomes their only option, even if they violently despise the activity from a values perspective, or know that it won't result in satisfaction or feel-good feelings from an intellectual or awareness based perspective.

environmental state of reward-punishment

(Changes behavior via sensory information and neural networks)

external Sensory information > internal sensory information > perception of sensory information > Judgement/beliefs > decision > action > Beliefs about self & world as a consequence

Beliefs about the reward/punishment values that will be received upon taking a hypothetical action. (Determined by past actions, information, and heuristics)

habitual state of reward-punishment

external Sensory information > internal sensory information > neural network. (When you've gone through the next x steps multiple times in the past, and the outcome was rewarding, the process becomes subconscious & streamlined. Beliefs/Perception of sacrifice can still play a part in the action you end up taking, however it is significantly weakened proportionally to the strength of the neural network.

More reward & more sleep = quicker the neural network is established (This is intuitive theory)

Behavior in this context can be manipulated with focus. Particularly meditation & manipulation of perception of sacrifice.

Emotions

Emotions are largely imaginary abstractions we use to describe our subjective experiences. Emotions are caused by the combinations of various bodily hormones, and an individual's perceptions of them.

The primary bodily hormones individual's tend to care about from a reward-modelling perspective are all covered from a systemic/practical perspective in this post.
As emotions are imaginary abstractions & largely non-systemic in nature, they serve low practicality for this post's purposes. So this post will not go deeply into them despite the large societal interest in emotions.

Tactics

Reward-anchoring
For end of day reward maximization, stimulate your desire for specific rewards without actually indulging in them. This will cause a type of pain called depravity & it increases the pleasure you will feel upon receiving the reward disproportionately compared to other pains, as it refers to a different system. Wait until the climax of depravity-pain, then dig in at that precise moment.
Spicy food
Breakfast = pain submission first
Absolutely ball out before you go to sleep. (Bundle as much pleasure as you can and bring your bodies pleasure down to baseline.) (And you don't have to experience the crash, you'll just feel satisfied unless you wait a too long before falling asleep. And its really easy to fall asleep when you feel satisfied.)
Sleeping cold (being in pain while you sleep. With temperature, you can go to sleep warm and have it automatically get colder while you're sleeping. This is such a hack, trust me.)
Doing very painful things at the start of the day or before the start of the day (So that the pleasure chemicals happen while you're awake)
Focus management
pleasure perception management
pain perception management
Absolutely avoid hedonistic habits! Don't do anything for the sake of pleasure. Avoid pleasure like it's poison. Because it is poison, and it will take away from the pleasure you'll feel at the end of the day!
Teach yourself to crave painful things. The more pain you feel during the day, the more pleasure you'll be able to feel. And any pleasure that you don't feel until the end of the day will make your end of the day much better. Ever worked hard
If not sleeping cold, have routine that makes you choose to release pain chemical at the start of the day. (Even better if you can't choose. Doesn't need to be much. More is better, but consistency is the 80/20.)

Common Errors

allowing your perception of the most optimal future-world-state for self, beliefs, or values to be manipulated by marketing, media, and lies.

Combat with skepticism, patience, focus, and good research practices.

Believing any generalizations you can make about your current cognitive state or decision-making matrix will apply to you in future states

Combat by Increasing awareness of when you do this and recording the consequences of doing so

Believing you have infinite willpower

Combat by Increasing awareness of when you do this and recording the consequences of doing so

Believing that anything reward-punishment related is unique to you or identity related.

combat by learning more about human reward-modelling

Letting the first thing you do in the day be pleasurable

Combat with the habitification of the correct tactics, and beliefs around the first action in your day.

Ignoring that all reward is addiction & perceiving low cost with a one-off pleasurable activity as a result

Combat by Increasing awareness of when you do this and the consequences of doing so

Constantly fulfilling all desires & avoiding short-term pains so that depravity can never build up and you can't reward-anchor a high-satisfactory value

Combat by increasing awareness of how you feel about days that you do this, and how you feel about days that you reward-anchor for a high-satisfactory value.

engaging in pleasurable activities for a long amount of time.

Combat by using dopamine to force yourself to continue engaging in the activity even as it gets very painful.
Combat with beliefs about reward-modelling
Combat with serotonin/willpower
Combat by increasing awareness of triggers, and concentrating all sacrifice onto the trigger. (Commit to yourself that if you give in for 1 second, you will force yourself to keep engaging in the activity for x amount of time even as it gets painful. This way perception of sacrifice is concentrated into 1 point and you do the action less overall)

Sprinkling reward throughout the day

Combat with beliefs about reward-modelling
Combat by increasing awareness of how you feel about days that you do this, and how you feel about days that you reward-anchor for a high-satisfactory value.

Notes:

variable x variable or variable / variable indicates the state of proportionality^[10], not a specific rate

Additional vocab

System^[11]
Function^[12]
distractions ^[13]

Small note to self: Must be tailored to specific platforms if posting. Current version is for self-usage only.

Reqs:

Clickbaitiness
Top-of-funnel optimization
bottom-of-funnel optimization
relation to prior beliefs
add pictures to each section (can be small)

Empirical validity: (Skip this part if you are only interested in practicality)

This post makes many connections between practical systems & neuropsychological concepts. Due to the nature of the complexity of the human brain, and the necessity of information brevity in practical texts, there is information loss. Many complex topics were oversimplified or glossed over in favor of simplicity. However the systemic realities expressed in this post are all real, accurate, and expressed in their most utilizable forms.

For example:

Dopamine and serotonin operate in a complex manner in the human brain. They are both hormones & neurotransmitters & and their function in a neurotransmitter context changes based on factors such as the receptors the neurotransmitter binds to. This post glosses over various academic facts like this, as this post is about practical reward-modelling. So any information that is not related to that topic is not ignored. To further exemplify, when this post talks about Dopamine, it means so in relation to how it affects motivation. When this post talks about serotonin, it means so in relation to how it affects satisfaction. This post makes no attempt to explain the chemicals themselves as they relate to physics.

Additionally, this post makes no efforts to empirically prove any of its claims. Rather, this post demands that the reader does not view its claims through an empirical lens. Rather than doing so, the post demands that the reader asks when is this concept not true? When does this pattern not play out as described in the real world? If the reader does so, they will find that although the information in this post is not of empirical validity, it represents real-world patterns accurately.

Note to be made a comment:
It is expected for many of the concepts covered in the post to be difficult to understand. The intention of this post is for all concepts to be easily understood. If you find a concept that could be explained better, please comment what the concept was, why it is difficult to understand, what you think it means, and what you would do to improve it so that the issue can be promptly fixed.

Needs more learning: Specific neurotransmitters & receivers, Oxytocin, endorphins, adrenalin, systemic overview, pain hormones, other hormones (See learning reward)

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A reward-optimization system is a function of intelligence agents use to learn & optimize future behavior for the sake of an objective. E.g. reward = remember & repeat, punishment = remember & avoid, low reward/punishment value = forget. In a human context, the primary objective is to survive & reproduce, as any living creature without those two primary objectives in its learning optimizations seizes to exist. However, the real system in our brains is not accurately modeled by survival & reproduction, rather it is modeled by historical correlations our ancestors used to serve these functions. The real systems we optimize for are hormones, neurotransmitters, and receptors.
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Willpower = Refers to instances where an individual "brute-forces" through unfavorable circumstances in spite of reward & punishment for the sake of their long-term goal.
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Goal-directed optimization matrix = the set of informaion an agent is optimizing for. In the context of the long-term human reward system, an individual's perception of future world state with the highest reward value controls their decisionmaking.

Note: Despite this document conflating the long-term reward-system & serotonin, as one system, they have different functions.

Ex. Long-term decisions will always be made with the long-term reward-system, and the decisions will remain the same regardless of concurrent serotonic-reward values.

Concurrent serotonic reward values only affect the adherence to the previously mentioned long-term decisionmaking matrix
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Values = Information an individual finds important & often associates with personal identity. An individual's values are largely determined by liking and their perception of the future world state most optimal for them.
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Liking = Personal bias towards a set of information based on qualities subconsciously perceived as optimal for self. Or "good". Affects reward values & perception of cost/sacrifice/punishment.
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dopaminergic reward system goal = Reward ^[14]x likelihood of reward / time until achievement x punishment
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Actions you take with a particular goal in mind. The opposite of a decision is a habit, or reflex.
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Attention = the concentration of mental functions/energy. Distinct from awareness, in that it does not imply conscious functions being at play.
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Focus = the skill of controlling attention. It can be defined by the degree to which an individual is able to ignore Distractions and confine expended energy towards a desired objective.
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Proportionality = the quality of corresponding in size or amount to something else.
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system = the functional makeup of a thing as it corresponds to reality, its own functions, and the functions of other systems.

Another way to define it is that a system is a combination of smaller parts that creates a larger thing with a different function from the smaller parts themselves.

Atoms are the smaller part. Cells are the system.

Cells are a smaller part. Humans are the system.

Humans are the smaller part. Nations are the system.
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Function = the mechanisms with which a system changes itself or another system.

Humans are the system. heartbeats are a function.
Humans are the system. Walking is a function
Humans are the system. Society is a function.
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Distractions = external or internal stimuli with high dopamine values
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Reward = the degree to which something satisfies an intrinsic motivator. Increased dopamine release rate = increased reward. Easily distinguishable from serotonin release as it does NOT function on depravity.

example: scrolling TikTok all night consistently feels rewarding, but it does not feel good.

Picture the ECG example where the baseline rises and falls with dopamine spikes.
Reward is the degree with which the ECG is above the baseline.
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