The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity―and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race

Reviews

Dax

Even an object that is across the room (one that you can see), the desire to go and pick it up is driven by dopamine, because dopamine is the molecule that allows us to imagine a potential future. The world of science is similar.

Cody Allen

Scientists have similarly been found to have more dopamine in their brains than the average person. Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash made fundamental contributions to game theory, differential geometry, and economics, and also lived with schizophrenia (he is portrayed by Russell Crowe in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind based on the book of the same name). I'm now less caught up in the endless pursuit of "more" and more attuned to the simple joys of the present moment.

Is the steak you’re eating for dinner right now really that good, or will the pizza you’ve got planned for tomorrow night be better? Dopamine is the all important chemical for planning things in the future, and creativity is literally the process of imagining something new and creating it, therefore it makes sense that creative people have been found to have larger (or more populous) dopamine receptors in their brains. Dr Lieberman and Dr E Long don't just explain dopamine; they disclose it as the engine driving so much of human experience, from love and addiction to creativity and our very pursuit of "more. Dopamine is the molecule of more, which means the most important question to answer is this: When is more a good thing, and when is it detrimental?