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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 don't know about you.. but you won't catch me going to any doctor asking for a love injection!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The one day of the year where I am not the tarket market.
Love injection? No need. Attractiveness injection? Now there's a seller.
But don't all guys give love injections?
Kevin
"It's not the cough that carries you off, it's the coffin they carry you off in" O. Nash
As Dr Fisher explains, "you can feel deep attachment for a long-term spouse, while you feel romantic love for someone else, while you feel the sex drive in situations unrelated to either partner." This independence means it is possible to love more than one person at a time, a situation that leads to jealousy, adultery and divorce--though also to the possibilities of promiscuity and polygamy, with the likelihood of extra children, and thus a bigger stake in the genetic future, that those behaviours bring. As Dr Fisher observes, "We were not built to be happy but to reproduce."
Ah, that explains politics in Utah.
> the victim i keep in my basement *will* love me. ;)
Don't you love yourself already?
Injections cause love? This is great news! Finally I can love my abductor, Conner, who's keeping me in his basement.
Its amazing how research these days has such a superb sense of timing.
------
I believe in freedom of thought. I have no other choice.
Found in fortune file.
Tell me why the stars do shine
Tell me why the ivy twines
Tell me why the sky's so blue
And I will tell you why I love you.
Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine
Phototropism makes ivy twine
Rayleigh Scattering makes sky so blue
Sexual hormones are why I love you.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
How long before some conservative mad scientist :) releases a retrovirus which makes us all pair-bond for life, inescapably? If I were still with my first love, I'd have to fucking kill myself now.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well, this axiom holds...
Attraction = Lust + i*Love
Lust is the "real" part, and "Love" is the imaginary part.
Evolution of Language Through The Ages: 6000 BC : ungh, grrf, booga 2000 AD : grep, awk, sed
...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/
an enamored vole following me around?
KFG
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.
...have to be administered directly to the cardiac muscle? If so, that would explain Cupid's strange behavior.
Me: "Boss, please don't send my job to India."
[Poke!]
Boss: "Oww! What was that?.....Don't worry darling, you are safe with me."
Table-ized A.I.
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!
I rather see an article on the science of casual sex.
Although, when she's in heat, you'd rather wish her to stop, as this can get quite exhausting, but just in case...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Lollipops and candy usually work for me!
..... would you like to see my puppies =)
Followed by
(i am not trolling i don't think)
Are you one of the 80% of men who has a lower than average ability to get your partner to fall in love? Well boy do we have a product for you! Liagra! With Liagra you can finally get both your secretary and your wife to love you and each other!! only 6 easy payments of $49.95!
i wonder how long before we see this
wait, i thought beer was already invented.
~To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. -Yann Martel
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.
...Is the ink they print money with.
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.
A: A sixpack.
"Alcohol: Helping men get sex for thousands of years."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
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.
The difference betwen Windows and Linux is just the order and quantity of bits in RAM. Every human experience is just the difference of a few chemicals in the brain. But why go to such lengths, when love (or lust) can be injected into your target with $10 of organic chemicals, inserted as flowers into her hands? Try it today, in a cocktail therapy with labial skin molecules applied topically.
"When I see the way you paint your lips
and I smell your perfume
when I see the brand new color
that you've dyed your hair, too
I know, you know, it's more than physical
My love, my love, my love, love is chemical"
- Lou Reed, "My Love Is Chemical"
(my love is chimerical)
--
make install -not war
The science of love
Scientists are finding that, after all, love really is down to a chemical addiction between people
OVER the course of history it has been artists, poets and playwrights who have made the greatest progress in humanity's understanding of love. Romance has seemed as inexplicable as the beauty of a rainbow. But these days scientists are challenging that notion, and they have rather a lot to say about how and why people love each other.
Is this useful? The scientists think so. For a start, understanding the neurochemical pathways that regulate social attachments may help to deal with defects in people's ability to form relationships. All relationships, whether they are those of parents with their children, spouses with their partners, or workers with their colleagues, rely on an ability to create and maintain social ties. Defects can be disabling, and become apparent as disorders such as autism and schizophrenia--and, indeed, as the serious depression that can result from rejection in love. Research is also shedding light on some of the more extreme forms of sexual behaviour. And, controversially, some utopian fringe groups see such work as the doorway to a future where love is guaranteed because it will be provided chemically, or even genetically engineered from conception.
How love makes voles of us all
Feb 12th 2004
St Valentine's day revenge
Feb 10th 2000
Another way to say "I love you"
Sep 24th 1998
Ask Dr Tatiana
Dec 18th 1997
The Journal of Comparative Neurology publishes an abstract of Dr Young's article on prairie voles. Northern State University has a profile of the prairie vole. Test how loved-up you are with Economist.com's love quiz.
The scientific tale of love begins innocently enough, with voles. The prairie vole is a sociable creature, one of the only 3% of mammal species that appear to form monogamous relationships. Mating between prairie voles is a tremendous 24-hour effort. After this, they bond for life. They prefer to spend time with each other, groom each other for hours on end and nest together. They avoid meeting other potential mates. The male becomes an aggressive guard of the female. And when their pups are born, they become affectionate and attentive parents. 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.
Why do voles fall in love?
The details of what is going on--the vole story, as it were--is a fascinating one. When prairie voles have sex, two hormones called oxytocin and vasopressin are released. If the release of these hormones is blocked, prairie-voles' sex becomes a fleeting affair, like that normally enjoyed by their rakish montane cousins. Conversely, if prairie voles are given an injection of the hormones, but prevented from having sex, they will still form a preference for their chosen partner. In other words, researchers can make prairie voles fall in love--or whatever the vole equivalent of this is--with an injection.
A clue to what is happening--and how these results might bear on the human condition--was found when this magic juice was given to the montane vole: it made no difference. It turns out that the faithful prairie vole has receptors for oxytocin and vasopressin in brain regions associated with reward and reinforcement, whereas the montane vole does not. The question is, do humans (another species in the 3% of allegedly monogamous mammals) have brains similar to prairie voles?
To answer that question you need to dig a little deeper. As Larry Young, a researcher into social attachment at Emory University, in Atlanta, Georgia, explains, the brain has a reward system designed to make voles (and people and other animals) do what they ought to. Without it, they might forget to eat, drink and have sex--with disastrous resu
"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.
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'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.
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.
> which can be controlled with injections
The injections for humans are chocolate, booze and pot.
Someone once said, "Love is for animals. Only humans can truly appreciate lust."
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
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.
This paper is published in The Economist magazine as basic research behind the Bush administration's $1B program for oxytocin in Halliburton "flu injections" program to "defend the traditional institution of marriage".
--
make install -not war
A new finding has been made in the field of mathematics: it's just electrical currents. Scientists studied computers engaging in mathematics and found that if they disabled the electric currents inside, it ceased the behavior. When they re-enabled the electric currents, the behavior resumed. They have done other studies on other species of computers, including small nomadic units and large plant-like machines which couldn't even move, and found the same results. They have concluded that "mathematics is nothing more than electrical currents". They dismissed those who specialize in the field of mathematics as weasel-wording when they described that mathematics is at a different abstraction level than electrical currents. The mathematicians pointed to a similarly-flawed study about human love, but the scientists had already stopped listening.
Breast milk kegger at my place, bring leather pants and an open mind. Later, Vitamin D
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
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.
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