Slashdot Mirror
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."
Well, there are sites such as fastseduction.com that provide guides that are based upon the premise that lust and love are remarkably similar and can be installed in people by using using certain patterns of behavior. Click, whirr, anyone?
I have two eyes, I have two feet.
for some people, particularly women. Interesting to note that the article mentions oxytocin as one of the chemicals that promotes person to person binding... yet they fail to mention breast-feeding.
Mothers who advocate breast feeding often say that it's a bonding experience for them and their baby... perhaps they're more right than they know, since Oxytocin is released in the human body by nipple stimulation.
If Oxytocin truly promotes interpersonal bonding in people, that opens up all kinds of interesting avenues of research.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
"Parts of the brain that are love-bitten include the one responsible for gut feelings, and the ones which generate the euphoria induced by drugs such as cocaine. So the brains of people deeply in love do not look like those of people experiencing strong emotions, but instead like those of people snorting coke."
I'd suggest reading about the economy of orgasms as well.
Science is wonderful, isn't it?
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
Yeah, right...
These ain't scientists. They're researchers in the marketing department. I fell for your female attracting hormone scents in the back of magazines years ago. And all I got for it was a rash and had to bathe myself in tomato sauce to remove the stink. And, by the way, if you ever had to rub yourself all over with tomato sauce for hours, you will discover true love. Trust me on that one...
Now, it's off to the grocery store. I see my pantry is running low on Hunt's again.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
I'd like those guys to explain to me how they will explain how people can fall in love over the net if their theory is so strong... How do you start getting "addicted" to loving someone you haven't met in real life before? I mean, how would they explain the fact that before even meeting the other person you have realistic dreams (not involving any kind of sexual scenes)? I have been chatting with webcams and talking on the phone with a girl since October, and I know she is the one, and I haven't seen her anywhere in my life before... Anybody else thinks that science is and will always be limited, whereas the human mind can go against it?
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
"To "cure" depression, you could inject chemicals to balance things out, or you could think thoughts that do the same thing. The injection technique is likely more effective for many."
They're about equal in effectiveness, actually. Current studies on depressed patients treated with cognitive therapy, antidepressants, or a combination of both, show that both methods have about equal efficacy, with the combined approach working best.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
A great book by Mil Millington
8 12 966678/qid=1076794438//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104 -1945870-9039113?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
? id=ns23634) that basically says conciousness is just a whiteboard we use to work out things like morals, and socal interaction. Most of the time, we are not conscious at all.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0
called A Certain Chemistry focuses on this very subject.
Its the tale of a guy who cheats on his long-term g/f told from the perspective of god. Its a great book for anyone who's just been dumped or has turned all bitter. ^_^
It explains alot of the chemical theories behind love and lust.
Although personally i dont have a problem with love being controlled by chemicals. Humans are, after all, just animals. I read a new scientist article that read "conciousness is a illusion", (no article avadable, but here are the responses http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opletters.jsp
Does it make love any less real? Does it somehow detract from the magic of it? i doubt it.
*first post, be kind
While you've been modd'ing me down, Ive been not caring.
So, women may not yet be able to check our genes for risk of contracting alzheimers, but they can now find out if we'll cheat on them? This is looking dangerous....
It's probably worth pointing out that genetic predisposition does NOT indicate what will happen in a particular case.
All that being said, there are perfectly legitimate women's rights reasons why polygamy is wrong. No woman wants her husband to take a second wife, and even among the "mormons" (in quotes because the recognized church would say they're not mormons) in Utah who do have multiple wives only achieve that status by bullying, threatening, or simply psychologically dominating their first wives.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Actually, you speak out of ignorance.
I have been married once before and raised two children on my own. I'm now a grandfather.
My son is a minister. And all this despite everything.
I divorced my ex because she turned out to be a slut and a whore and would not accept responsiblity for her own actions.
So you see, I'm far from naive and I do not go into my new marriage blindly. I stayed single for 10 years after I divorced the ex, feeling that I did not want to ever do it again. But love has struck and I care not how or why. I will not look the gift horse in the mouth. I am just happy that things have taken the turn that they have and I don't give a *SHIT* what anyone else thinks.
And to all the "need-a-life" mods that flagged my OP as a troll, get a life.. You're pathetic...
with the combined approach working best
:). It is more about being realistic about your thoughts and not projecting your own feelings on others.
:)
Which is sort of logical. While cognitive therapy can teach you to recognize and eventually avoid distorted thinking, it does not do much to help get out of a depression you're in. Medication can help to get out of the cycle of depressed thinking => depression => more depressed thinking. When back in a 'normal' frame of mind, it is a lot easier to see the patterns and avoid slipping back.
The wikipedia article you mentioned does a good job of describing the therapy and the thinking behind it and I'm sure you know this, but because of the gist of this thread I'd like to clarify that it is NOT about thinking happy thoughts to be happy. Peter Pan is NOT involved in any way
Anyway it worked like hell for me, I've been of medication and any sort of therapy for about a year now and I find it increasingly harder to imagine how I felt 2 years ago.
Anyway, posting this AC because it is a bit personal, so please don't hate me.
Shit everybody hates AC's, they must all hate me. I'm sure the editors can find out who I am and they'll all laugh at me (oops *dashes back to the meds*
more than that, the comments in the first paragraph were a little, er, loose with the science. In schizophrenia the social implications come from the brain not getting other information correct. It's difficult to handle social interaction when your reality is different from everyone else's. Whether or not this is the case in autism is more debateable, but I think if you floated the idea that autism is caused or would be significantly helped by an increase in bonding hormones, you'd have to provide far more evidence than handwaving to be taken seriously. There's too much evidence for other causes (like scrambled sensory input during the years where social interaction schemes are first put down -- this also explains why some infants/toddlers in institutions where they do not receive significant interaction from caregivers display 'autistic like' behavior -- they do so because they don't get the interaction that an autistic child does get, but can't take advantage of because of the sensory scrambling -- I'm not saying that this set of theories is correct either, but there's a hell of a lot more evidence that that approach than a hormonal imbalance).
But it sort of quietly echos the refrigerator mother hypothesis, which is well disproven now. It also implies that people with autism or schizophrenia have some innate issue with falling in love or bonding, caused by their illness, which isn't generally the case and is a problematic assumption made by people who don't have these conditions who then manage to project them on those that do.
bah. rantrant
valentines day is now just a market driven spend spend spend event.
Considering that its a completely artificial "holiday" created to give the economy a consummerism boost exactly between xmas and easter, you shouldn't be surprised.
My favourite valentines tradition is discovering yet another bogus origin story to valentine's day.
You can't take the sky from me...
They certainly aren't idiots themselves, but they are digging in a wrong direction.
;-).
;-).
Try not to perceive it as a flamebait, but the whole point of many branches of Western applied science is to allow idiots to stay idiots and not change themselves.
For example, eat Viagra each time before sex instead of learning Daoist or Tantric techniques and getting a rock-solid erection. Or eat Prozac instead of using psychology in order to get out of depression by eliminating its root causes.
Another example - medicines that allow someone who have never exercised and ate crap at McDonalds to live till their retirement age.
Thus, the entire civilization becomes one of degenerates (or, even better word, CONSUMERS. I consider this word an insult) on prescription drugs because there is only a certain small percentage of people who will do something that is not required for survival. Then longer I look at this world, then more I get disappointed in the effectiveness of a certain socialized institutions. This makes me wish the world be more succeptible towards libertarian ideas that are based on self-responsibility for your being.
And now the right direction
Everything said above brings us to one word that describes the place that is the key: Psyche.
Psyche is the part of us that manages the levels of hormones, chemicals et al, and in most cases it is the level where the problems should be attacked.
Here is the explanation why geeks don't get women. This is a "physical"/"lustful" side of love.
(when reading it, think of Kramer versus George Costanza as the example of high/low rank, and of Klingons versus Vulcans as the example of high/low primativeness)
There is another one - "spiritual"/"psychological" that can be understood upon reading "Games people play" by Eric Bern.
As one can understand, all of this "chemical crap" that we eat in a form of medicine and supplements is just a way of bypassing the psyche and emulating its work. Smarter readers will understand that modern Western medicine often heroically fights with the shit that our own subconscious brought us into (think of a very typical situation with people who nobody needs, and who get sick in order to get attention of their relatives, professionals from medical institutions or good samaritans. Also read this ). And the general population pays through the socialized healthcare. And everyone is happy since everything is a good business for certain groups whithin the society. At the same time majority is swayed by the false ideals of humanism et al.
Sorry for being that vicious and arrogant, but I'm really tired of idiots with bright eyes cheering yet another expensive achievement of the pharmacology that allows somebody to do even less real work for themselves gobbling pills instead.
And, finally, here is the way to change your bad luck and become what you can become: link
One does not need to become religious, but the "correctional" part of mysticism might help one to get both the body and mind healthy and live much more fulfilled life that will sure have some love in it
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
here at my univ we have a Biochem department populated with creationists. I know several engineering students who are extreme fundamentalists (the bible says jump then I must jump! Right now! Again and again!).
So, I would say you should worry. L: -----
-------
A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems. - Paul Erdos