Have they solved Love?, page 1
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reply posted on 20-3-2010 @ 04:34 PM by RuneSpider
I'm not going to try to go into it myself, but yes, science has looked at it pretty deeply.
I defer to
Wikipedia's Scientific Views on Love for this.

One of the best quotes I can think of is from Bioshock 2.
"Love is just a chemical. We give it meaning by choice."
Eleanor Lamb


I think if we get to the point where we understand our emotions and what causes them, then what they mean to us, is ultimately up to us.


reply posted on 20-3-2010 @ 04:42 PM by Aggie Man
Originally posted by RuneSpider
I'm not going to try to go into it myself, but yes, science has looked at it pretty deeply.
I defer to
Wikipedia's Scientific Views on Love for this.

One of the best quotes I can think of is from Bioshock 2.
"Love is just a chemical. We give it meaning by choice."
Eleanor Lamb


I think if we get to the point where we understand our emotions and what causes them, then what they mean to us, is ultimately up to us.


All emotions are nothing more than responses caused by chemical reactions in the brain. And by chemicals, I mean hormones, etc...

However, one must look deeper to determine the biological purpose for those chemical releases...so, yes they are chemical but those chemicals have a biological function that we have adapted/evolved into our bodies since the dawn of mankind.

It has more than just a meaning...it has a purpose. That purpose...well, I don't know...all we can do is speculate based upon observation & deduction.


reply posted on 20-3-2010 @ 04:46 PM by hippomchippo
Originally posted by Aggie Man
Originally posted by RuneSpider
I'm not going to try to go into it myself, but yes, science has looked at it pretty deeply.
I defer to
Wikipedia's Scientific Views on Love for this.

One of the best quotes I can think of is from Bioshock 2.
"Love is just a chemical. We give it meaning by choice."
Eleanor Lamb


I think if we get to the point where we understand our emotions and what causes them, then what they mean to us, is ultimately up to us.


All emotions are nothing more than responses caused by chemical reactions in the brain. And by chemicals, I mean hormones, etc...

However, one must look deeper to determine the biological purpose for those chemical releases...so, yes they are chemical but those chemicals have a biological function that we have adapted/evolved into our bodies since the dawn of mankind.

It has more than just a meaning...it has a purpose. That purpose...well, I don't know...all we can do is speculate based upon observation & deduction.

Based on observation i'm going to say that love is for the purpose of recreation, and perhaps happiness to a lesser extent.


reply posted on 20-3-2010 @ 04:48 PM by For(Home)Country
reply to post by Misoir



I think referring to Love as a chemical is very accurate, but at the same time, does not do the term justice. Indeed, we choose to make love a very big deal, but for a darn good reason. At the same time, cultures label love very differently, and the term itself can envelope an entire diverse array of emotions, decisions, and actions. I believe that love can be a choice, and at the same time a very powerful link between humans and other humans (or animals and unfortunately sometimes material things).

Love seems to me to be the very root of the reason people do things that bring them no benefit sometimes. Love can be a very external motivator.

In terms of evolutionary behaviour and survival, it is no secret that stable homes have the healthiest and most successful children, and the healthiest children in turn breed more healthy and successful children. It can also be said that health homes are derived from a security blanket of love between spouses and children and that love is a powerful bonding force within relationships. Thus, in the past, the healthiest and loving of homes bred the healthiest and most successful of children. Of course here, I mean healthy in an emotional term.

However, the counter argument could be said that if our goal is survival, quick and multiple counts of reproduction would result in the highest chance of survival, thus a loving bond and commitment to a single mate would be a hindrance, but I prefer to disregard this argument.

From a spiritual point of view, I myself do believe that it proves the existence of God as well, whereas without love, our lives would be flavourless and we'd all be driven by the stimulation of preceptive stimuli, but this isn't a religious debate forum so I'll keep it at that.

Regardless, I've been honoured with the pleasure to experience love in many different forms within my life from many different people and religious affiliation, and I believe it really enriches my life and makes it even more worth living!

Good thread! S + F!


reply posted on 20-3-2010 @ 05:13 PM by EnlightenUp
Originally posted by RuneSpider
I'm not going to try to go into it myself, but yes, science has looked at it pretty deeply.
I defer to
Wikipedia's Scientific Views on Love for this.

One of the best quotes I can think of is from Bioshock 2.
"Love is just a chemical. We give it meaning by choice."
Eleanor Lamb



If love is just a chemical, then we give it meaning by chemistry. Your chemicals will choose the proper branch of that equivocation for you, or you will make a choice about which you find more to your liking-- whatever the chemicals do or what ever your choice is, you decide.



reply posted on 20-3-2010 @ 05:34 PM by Xcalibur254
reply to post by sparrowstail



Looking at it from an evolutionary stand point love is on the same level as anger and stress. Under certain circumstances they are essential for our survival, but at others they can cause us to act irrationally and potentially do ourselves harm. To say that only bad things come from negative emotions ignores the fact that if they only had negative effects they wouldn't be propagated through the species. However, there are many cases where a negative affect can produce better results than a positive one.


reply posted on 20-3-2010 @ 05:47 PM by sparrowstail
Originally posted by Xcalibur254
reply to
post by sparrowstail



Looking at it from an evolutionary stand point love is on the same level as anger and stress. Under certain circumstances they are essential for our survival, but at others they can cause us to act irrationally and potentially do ourselves harm. To say that only bad things come from negative emotions ignores the fact that if they only had negative effects they wouldn't be propagated through the species. However, there are many cases where a negative affect can produce better results than a positive one.


I agree, however to play devil's advocate, are you focusing more on the exception to these interactions instead of the norm? I mean the collective good that has come from the everyday collective experience of love seems to me to far out weigh the negative and vise versa. It seems to me far more bad has come from negative emotions, than the case that can be made for the reverse, albeit I agree a case.






reply posted on 20-3-2010 @ 06:12 PM by dusty1
reply to post by Xcalibur254



However, there are many cases where a negative affect can produce better results than a positive one.


I think if beneath the negative effect, there lies a positive motive (love), it could produce a positive result, in some cases.

But if your motives are negative, the long term outcome will always be undesirable.


reply posted on 20-3-2010 @ 06:18 PM by Xcalibur254
reply to post by dusty1



Not true. I've spent the past year researching the effect of affect on cognition and in many cases there is not a difference between positive and negative affect. If there is a difference, it usually involves people who are in a negative affect being more focused on detail, whereas those who are in a positive mood tend to have a broader focus. So, if you are in a new situation it is better to be in a negative mood than positive mood. However, if you are in a situation where you are able to rely on heuristics then positive mood is ideal.


reply posted on 21-3-2010 @ 02:33 AM by DarkCyrus
Can you imagine if we could go back in time and give cavemen the information that science gives us now. Can you imagine an advanced culture giving a primitive one the information that, everything you feel is just the response of chemical interactions with your brain. TIY

They are not going to know how it works, they are not going to understand why it works or even how or why it controls and sustains itself, all they will know is, "everything you experience is a chemical reaction"

Now think about the future of those people as hypothetical. Cold, mechanical, where death is life, where life is the consant fight and struggle of death. You will see in that society that they never learned to give, in that they could not give themselves, not but life as a fight for death absolute. Instead of not knowing how things work and living a life full of experience and discovery, where life is the turning blocks of each step. They lived a life that was a look only at the end point where in one second, in one moment, in the future you die. And not looking at the point for existing, becuase they were never given that.

Knowing that through life, each step along the way is truth. When you give people all things they need to stay alive, they should know that through life experience is the true golden nugget of information, and the end result. That the true leaps happen through life experience everyday, so the goal of each citizen in a free society is just that, to experience the joy of everyday life through your individual experience, otherwise you would be fighting for life as the end result is in all you are able to see, which allways leads to death from that perspective, and never changes.

Life is a constant ever changing process throughout moments in time where you learn and recgonize something, is in the most important aspect of life and brings wholeness to a society

I change my statements almost on a by minute process these days, and I see change constant in my interpertation of things, that im coming to clearly difine in a way that I never thought possible. Go back, re-read your posts, re-read your thoughts, your ideas, these things CHANGE, that is life, that is love, the expression of life through love.

It's not about fooling anyone, its about giving people too much. Where they have not been able to reach yet, and they lose everything in an attempt to understand nothing, where they think in terms of only loss.

Sometimes people ask me who I am. If I cannot give you an answer, then how can you? All I know is that regardless of all technology. I am still living, that everything who we are is right in front of us and around us.

I love interacting with others, because it allows me to grow, and see myself. You show me. Expression is the experience you gain after you learned. Learning is the growth you experience after you experience. Oh its a lot of hard living experience, alot of living death, to learn living life. I need to learn not to be affraid of what life is teaching me, that why I am here is like trying to explain why doing nothing is everything in the world, and that explaining how doing everything is like doing nothing for anyone. That having regret, having fear, is not looking at you now.

I know I will have fully learned when I stop holding onto my hurt, that I realise that I hurt becuase I hold onto my love. That love is not only all I have, love is all that I am, and holding it in HURTS ME. I dont want to hold it IN anymore. Please dont ever make me hold it in ever again. I have only YOU to thank for SHOWING ME how I FEEL. So thank you. I will 'live' or 'die' a happy man. If thats not love, not life, I will never know what is. And I would be content with that for the rest of my life and beyond.

The cavemen are going to miss the journey, and the experience that it took, and they will miss the fundemental reason for being and understanding life, and this will surely be greatly missed by our society.

When they in truly, never could see both sides, only the mechanical one that they chose to look at, not one that had chosen them. But one that they saw and accepted which created the world we now live today.

You will turn and ask the scientist who is god, and he will return and say. "I'm not god, I'm a scientist"

Most of the time when I write something, I do not know where or how, I do not know even what im going to say when I first type. It changes around alot and information comes and goes. But you allways give me the inspiration I need. Its like asking me a question, propels us foward in time. I wish there was a place where we could all come together and combine, for good or for worse, all of our thoughts and ideas, well I guess ATS is just that kind of place. Let's appriciate other people's ideas, even if we appose them. They are the foundation for discussion and part of the backbone of our culture. The most monumental discoveries often come from the most non-monumental answers.

[edit on 21-3-2010 by DarkCyrus]



reply posted on 21-3-2010 @ 11:29 AM by Xcalibur254
reply to post by Faiol



We actually have a decent idea of how love develops. When one falls in love, or when one gives birth, or anything along that line, the brain releases the same chemicals that it does in infants that allow the brain to go through dramatic changes. This is why when a child is born, the parents views on parenthood are able to change almost overnight. One day they think they could never be a parent, but when it finally happens they are ready to raise their child. Scientists have actually managed to take monogamous species of animals and have them simulate falling in love by injecting them with certain chemicals.


reply posted on 22-3-2010 @ 06:50 PM by drew hempel
reply to post by Misoir



The male energy is electromagnetic and the female is electrochemical. If you want more details just ask.


reply posted on 23-3-2010 @ 03:44 AM by Astyanax
reply to post by Xcalibur254


We actually have a decent idea of how love develops. When one falls in love, or when one gives birth, or anything along that line, the brain releases... chemicals...

Great stuff. Now all we have to do is figure out why those chemicals get released when, and in whose presence, they do. Any word from the lab on that?
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