What if Olds and Milner’s rats weren’t self-stimulating to exhaustion because it felt so good that they didn’t want to stop? What if the area of the brain they were stimulating wasn’t rewarding them with the experience of profound pleasure, but simply promising them the experience of pleasure? Is it possible the rats were self-stimulating because their brains were telling them that if they just pressed that lever one more time, something wonderful was going to happen?
