Love More About Science than Luck
Check out the story at the following link: "The Science Behind Falling in Love"
The accompanying can be seen by clicking HERE.
Check out the story at the following link: "The Science Behind Falling in Love"
The accompanying can be seen by clicking HERE.
12 comments:
In my opinion there is a certain chemical component to love. Our touch, smell, visual apearance all trigger chemical hormonal reactions that cause us to act with passion. The one that i know to be one that is certainly true is smell, me and my girlfriend have been going out for almost ten months. At the beginning of our relationship she wore this perfume that I really liked, several months later when she wears that same perfume, i can recall all the wonderful times we had together. I cant really explain what it is inside of me that clicks, but it just puts me in a world of peace and euphoria. As for the rest, I think that there has to be a definite physical attraction, and an even greater emotional attraction to balance out the relationship. But without the chemical component in the relationship would be plain and emotionless.
To me it seems that the article and video imply that love, supposedly one of the most complex emotions, really only boils down to one's sense perception. Love, and the way senses affect it, is only there to help a person pass along their genes. Would this not then lessen the position of emotion from a way of knowing to simply just a survival instinct?
Prior to this, I could really only take emotion as a way of knowing how you feel. But now, I'm more inclined to go further along the path of throwing out emotion since it seems that even the most complex of emotions is only a result of knowing through your senses. Basic emotions as well, however, like fear as an example, also must be based on senses as fear results due most often to sight and touch.
Maybe emotion serves the purpose of promoting the seeking of knowledge, because without emotion, there is no motivation to do much of anything. But emotion does not actually seem to serve much purpose as a way of knowing itself if it relies completely on sense perception.
On a different note, mentioned in the video is that touch is "the mother of the senses". Yet normally, due to language, we tend to associate perception more closely with sight. Rare is it that we will say that one has perceived anything with their skin. But then why does touch play such a large part in love then? Does touch really stimulate a large portion of the brain or is it just that we are more unused to the touch of another person in comparison to sight, so that when we do touch, it becomes a new sensation?
Well, once again, the brain is an extremely complex organ and our inability to fully understand it will always be a hindrance to us. It is not something simple like the stomach or heart, and even though we have been able to dive into the world of hormones and create our own medical versions of these chemicals, we can't be overconfident. I think there is more to love than just science. Saying one of our most sacred emotions is based solely on scientific explanations is a very atheist way of looking at it. In public education we are taught that there is a scientific explanation for everything. Don't get me wrong, science is all right. It has been right several times and has led to many great achievements. But there are things that transcend science like love and you can believe that it is a scientific phenomenon, a human creation, or a gift from God. Perhaps one of the sad ironies of our existence is our inability to understand that which makes us understand.
we read a article a lot like this in collins' tok class last semester and i have to say it has been stuck in my brain the entire time. i've been trying to match it with my own personal relationships and question how this could possibly be true. love is about affection isnt it? and the more i compared and thought about it... and from what i can tell, it seems perfectly right. romantic love which is portrayed in movies and books is the only thing we have formed our ideas on for such a long time. but really, why shouldnt love be about making sure we have good healthy kids? the other article i read brought up the idea that women are attracted to men by their smell, and their smell can tell what their immune system is like. and the women tend to chose the men with the most opposite immune systems. the other day i was talking with a friend of mine (who is dating my boyfriends step brother) and we were complaining how we are always sick, and however, our boyfriends are not. and this brought back that idea into my head. is it possible that it boiled down to her and i choosing boyfriends who would help us produce the healthiest children?
This article seems to reduce the supposed "magic" of falling in love to nothing more than a chemical response between two people. This however being unromantic and not in the least bit magical, seems the most logical. It seems the most reasonable, because as a society we have been indirectly or maybe directly taught that falling in love leads to sex, which causes most of the time a child. And it is that right there is suppose to be one of the main drives of the human mind. Love it seems really only appears to be a chemical response which makes it easier for people to have a child together, love puts somewhat of a purpose or a meaning behind having a kid. After all after 25 years or more of marriage, a married couple that started in love, they at this point just seem to be more like good friends than they actually seem like their in love like the beginning of their relationship. It appears more like love doesn't necessarily exist, except as a psychological belief in choosing the right person you love.
I am sure that there is some truth to the thesis of the article; the thesis that love is based off of genetics, hormones, and chemicals. To put such a degree of certainty into the thesis without assessing the counterclaims is a mistake that should not be repeated, however.
Standing directly against this article's thesis is the concept that love is something that is developed over time and experience, something that is not pure chemistry or sensual attraction.
I believe that quite possibly the most difficult problem with assesing the validity of this thesis is the definition of love. In the end, any debate over this thesis will eventually ask the question:: What is love? This article seems to suggest that love is not a well thought out thing but rather a concrete, set in stone inevitability under the right chemical and sensual situations. This article's interpretation of what love is completely strips any logical thought or reasoning from love; reducing it down to perception based on chemical, hormonal, and genetic relationships.
To me, It seems that every day there is something new in the news about how scientists have found out "this or that" and have found some simple explanation for the way that nature and humans work. In most cases, where science has found the highest degrees of truth, it's answers have been nothing but simple. For example, people often state that Newton's law of inertia states that a body in motion will stay in motion unless acted on by an outside force. While this is a simple summary of a concept, this statement does not even begin to explain or account for the implications of it's declaration. The concept that love is regulated by chemicals and hormones has similar holes in its validity. While the theory seems semi-valid and there has been some explanation by scientists, this (and many other) concept is by no means established by much more than speculation.
A simple observation from the article was that it (similar to many other "scientific" articles) is almost completely narrative. It explains what doctors think, and maybe gives a slight bit of evidence (or a hint of evidence) and then mixes in pieces of one love story.
Personally, I believe that chemistry is something that CAN be a factor in love. In stating that it CAN be a factor, I am not implying that it ALWAYS IS or that it PLAYS A LARGE ROLE IN THE AVERAGE HUMAN. Instead, I believe that love could potentially occur completely without this chemistry and in some cases love can be almost completely based on reprecussions of a person's chemical make-up. I think that there are many determining factors to the extent that chemistry affects love; primary among them are likely cultural settings, age, personal experiences, ect.
This article suggests that sense perception may play a larger role in desicion-making than we previously thought. It downplays the role of emotion in choosing a partner in favor of the senses and a scientific explanation. Personally, I think there is some truth to this. It makes sense that some people are more attractive to others because of their genes. There are some people my friends are attracted to that I would never date. Perhaps this is because my genes are too similar to those of the guy in question. But I also think that you can't completely rule out the role of emotion in love. To commit to a particular person, an individual has to commit psychologically as well as physically, and that takes emotion.
However, now that I think about it, the emotions of love could perhaps be a psychological manifestation of the responses of the senses, and emotion and sense perception could instead be relient on each other.
I'm kind of torn on this subject. Part of me believes what is being said in this article. Sense perception is used in finding love. The significant other has to be appealing in some way to you otherwise it would be difficult to have a relationship. What we have learned about the brain this year has also pointed to this being true. But the other part of me has a hard time buying in to the fact that love is entirely chemical. There are other things like personality that get factored into whther or not there is love between the two people. In all honesty it's probably a combination of the two. People are always trying to find a scientific explanation for everything and these may be interesting claims and fun to discuss but sometimes it is better to leave things a mystery.
The fact of the matter is that science is telling us more and more each year that all of the sensations that we experience are created by our brains. For example, the only reason why we perceive something as "hot" when we touch it is because our brain tells us that it is hot. In all reality, one could argue that all sensations do not really exist in a physical form, but rather only on a mental level (since our brain creates this sensation). As Plato might say, perhaps their is no such thing as hot but rather the essence of something that is hot.
Yes, I will agree with this article in the sense that the chemicals that are involved in attraction do play a significant role in the way we fall in love, or think that we fall in love. However, there is one thing that science cannot deny: the ability of the individual to choose. For example, how many times have you ever heard the expression "he's perfect in so many ways, but I still like [blank] more." Some of us have heard this more than others.jk.
Anyway, the point is that although the chemicals in our mind truly play a significant role in the way we perceive to fall in love, the fact of the matter is that we can still make conscious decisions as to what we want/can do, and for that reason alone, I think that love is just as much influenced by chemicals as it is by choice.
I think that science does play an important part in love, however i believe that emotions play an even bigger role. The way your partner touches you or talks to you and even the way they smell make you react to that person differently. If that person touches you gently and is sensitive you will feel differently than if they are careless, and that is when science comes into play. I also agree with the nose's job when it comes to love, if someone wreeks there is no way you can stand to be with them let alone fall in love. And yes, kay is right when your partner has acertain smell you remember that and the memories that you attach to that sent are of the two of you and that can sometimes be romantic.
Wow...you know how rediculous that sounds to say that there is a specific chemical in one's saliva that acts as an aphrodesiac and lets a woman know if that man is the "perfect" match for reporducing... The whole thing sounds WAY to complicated, especially when I start to think about where and when kissing started and that God (or whatever Higher Power) intended human beings to kiss... I think it all sounds a little too scientific to be true... I think when it comes down to it, the majority of men and women will pick a mate that is phisically attractive, and that a low percentage of people will pick a mate with a specific personality... That's kind of sad to think that it comes right down to looks for most people but it's the honest truth in this society.
In my opinion, this article seems pretty accurate in what it is talking about. I t shows the scientific side of falling in love and what really happens in the fairytale stories, such as what happens with the first kiss and the love at first sight thing. This shows how love is all about the senses of the body, or in the Four Ways of Knowing your sense perception. This article does not show that love can only be determined through one perception, but that it is a complex ambiguous thing. Your sight, touch, and even taste play a role ion love, it is not a simple matter and I am sure there are far more things at play than just the things that the article mentions.
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