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The Science of Love
Xyde writes "Economist.com has a story just in time for Valentine's day called 'The Science of Love'. Presumably the difference between love and lust is little more than a bunch of chemicals, which can be controlled with injections (in voles anyway). Quite an interesting read."
...I'm ready to accept the idea that voles are capable of what we call "love", no matter what you inject them with. Even in humans, mating for life and loving someone aren't necessarily the same thing.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I remember back at school when I studied economics, the textbook claimed the definition to be: The study of human behaviour. I suppose that people being in love, that it affects their behaviour.. means that it falls into the definition of economics.. that and the extend to which valentines day is now just a market driven spend spend spend event.
Ok you get your Spouse a love injection but how does that tie there love to you? :/
Imagine waking up one morning only to find shes ran off with the milkman!
Here is a key empirical observation from the article: Mating between prairie voles is a tremendous 24-hour effort. After this, they bond for life.... However, another vole, a close relative called the montane vole, has no interest in partnership beyond one-night-stand sex. What is intriguing is that these vast differences in behaviour are the result of a mere handful of genes. The two vole species are more than 99% alike, genetically.
Imagine the implications for churches if it turns out that fidelity is based on genetic propensities rather than moral choice. On the other hand, if the concept of "original sin" is to be believed, perhaps that is what they have been saying all along.
I'm not sure I'd draw the same conclusions as the author here. They start off by saying that sex will enduce certain chemicals which will in turn help to cause a feeling of lust or love in the voles. Then they go on to say if they inject certain chemicals in voles, it will cause them to "fall in love". But people (believe it or not) often fall in love sometimes without having sex. In other words, their thoughts produce the chemicals, which obviously is opposite of saying the chemicals produce the thoughts. It's a which comes first, the chicken or the egg problem. I think injecting chemicals in people would produce the euphoric state they mention in the article, but there needs to be thought processes along side of that to produce love.
I'm probably missing something here from their logic. Please correct me if so. Thanks.
But this might be going a little too far. Love is one of those things that I'm comfortable not understanding - and uncomfortable understanding.
Call me crazy...but I'm happy knowing that I love my fiancee, and thinking that it's because of her humor/mannerisms/beauty/etc.
Chicks dig my good /. karma.
Why is it that whenever neurologists discover some section of the brain or chemical that causes physiological condition X to come about, they seem to automatically assume that they have found the actual CAUSE of Condition X? Maybe I'm just silly, but I can't so blindly accept that brain in such an easily-mapped organic machine.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
if you've got endless cash, and the ability to purchase medical devices and pharmaceuticals without a presciption then you're golden.
However, I should point out that most pharmacies will NOT sell syringes, needles, and a bag of Pitocin to you (Pitocin is synthetic Oxytocin). In fact, I think they'd be quite skittish if they found out you were planning on using them on your hot date...
Besides, without any research to reference, do you know how much oxytocin to give? 1000 Units? 10000 Units? Do you know where and how to administer it (IM, SQ, SC, IV)? Can you adminster it to a woman without being charged with assault/battery? How many dates are going to let you shoot them up with some random drug? (well, OK... I guess there are some of those women out there, but you don't want one of them falling in love with you...)
*sigh* I wasn't going to say it, but you could just use the time-honored (and poor man's) method of producing oxytocin... in a word: foreplay.
This discussion can now officially go nowhere but downhill...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
go away :o) my english spelling is probably better than your spelling of czech language
SHE does throw dice.
I can think of no misinterpretation of the biological sciences more dangerous than the notion that propensity is choice.
Human beings - especially though perhaps not uniquely - through self-reflection have the capacity to choose actions contrary to our biological propensities and inclinations.
You are not a slave to your genetic and biological predispositions and inclinations.
To be a self is to constitute in one's mind and through one's actions what it is to be an individual person.
It is the drive to dignify, love, and exude - to be - this inner self, this individual person, by which propensity and inclination are overcome.
I didn't used to believe in love, I always equated it as basically what this story is trying to get people to believe - "love" was just biology fucking with us to get us to breed. There was nothing else behind it. Then, I met the love of my life and that little world-view got tossed on its ear. There /is/ something "else" behind real love, and I cannot dare to hope to explain it to those who had never experienced it. It wasn't just lust! It was well beyond sexual, even from the start. I was more then merely smitten with her personality, I became addicted to her very being. I wished to know everything about her, and began to care more about her then myself. Its easy to think we love only to be loved, that as with biology everything is essentially selfish - but I'd sacrifce it all for her on the drop of the hat. Love must be real because I can see two distinct periods in my life, before her and after, and who I am now bears little to nothing in common with who I was before. Shes challenged me to my very core, my long held assumptions questioned- everyting is different. She is my one, and not because being apart may drive me nuts. I felt, this will sound corny, "complete" with her. It all came full circle. I'm sure there is plenty of biology involved in all of this, we are biological creatures, but science can never explain the human soul. Its much more then just our minds, or our ego.