Published on October 1, 2025 12:12 PM GMT

A common objection to the idea of future neurotechnologies that could induce continuous states of happiness, joy, or even ecstasy is: “Wouldn’t you just get used to it? If the stimulation never changed, it would fade, become boring, and stop feeling good.”

This seems intuitive because it’s what we observe in ordinary life: a nice smell fades, a delicious food loses its charm after the tenth bite, and even intense highs from drugs eventually dull. Our lived experience is full of examples of hedonic adaptation. But I want to argue that this objection rests on contingent features of current neurobiology, not on some deep law of nature.

Habituation and tolerance are neuronal mechanisms, not metaphysical necessities. They occur because of concrete cellular and molecular processes: receptors downregulate, intracellular signaling cascades adapt, synapses scale their responsiveness. If you stimulate dopaminergic neurons too much, D2 receptors decrease in density; if glutamate is chronically elevated, synaptic scaling reduces sensitivity. These are specific adaptive responses to persistent perturbations.

If you could prevent or redesign these neuronal mechanisms, then nothing forces pleasure to fade. In principle, a state of sustained bliss could be indefinitely maintained.