Thread: Love is a chemical reaction

I'll tell you after September next year! At the minute i'm definitely not a fair study...doped up to the eyes and loving it!

Yep, that initial sense of attraction is indeed chemical, as is that happy floaty feeling. These chemicals are quite useful in that they keep you interested until you get to know the person better.

Unfortunately, people tend to forget about the second part, rush quickly into marriage, and end up divorced when the production of these chemicals wanes.

Seems to make sense. Chemical lust and intellectual love. Have heard the same about
female orgasm producing a chemical that creates a feeling of attachment to the partner
involved. As far as monogomy is concerned, to each their own, but it does seem more
societal than natural. The Mormans have a cure for that though.

I resent that.
Love isn't a consequence of a chemical reaction; the chemical reaction is a consequence of love.

But after a year with the same lover, the quantity of the 'love molecule' in their blood had fallen to the same level as that of the other groups.[/b]

Well that explains it then...I have a NGF deficiency, because I rarely feel euphoric after the first two weeks.

That post would make an excelent valentines day card inside. They shoudl edit it a bit to make it rhyme. lmao.

For real though, that is very interesting. I concur with seeker's view on the chemical.

Falling madly in love with someone is a chemical reaction, sure, but that doesn't mean that when the euphoric feeling wanes the love goes away......Of course, everyone goes through the euphoria stage, but devoted people who are really in love in the first place don't just leave one another because they 'don't feel it anymore'. Real love, after the stage mentioned in the article, is experienced in a different more meaningful way.

So then we could speculate that love is simply an addiction - you need more and more "chemistry" to keep it going?

Originally posted by kimpossible
So then we could speculate that love is simply an addiction - you need more and more \"chemistry\" to keep it going?

might as well face it your addicted to love!
I do love my chemicals

Originally posted by BradyBaker
So it would appear that love is simply a chemical reaction in the brain...furthermore, since it only lasts a year, it suggests that monogamy is unnatural.

I have wondered this. Considering we can conceive all year round where most other mammals have a season. Has our minds evolved to consider the real truth? Has compassion, greed, lust, love, empathy and many other emotions a result of an unnatural evolution do to the fact that we have the abilty to reason and ponder things in advance??

Originally posted by Seeker
Yep, that initial sense of attraction is indeed chemical, as is that happy floaty feeling. These chemicals are quite useful in that they keep you interested until you get to know the person better.

Unfortunately, people tend to forget about the second part, rush quickly into marriage, and end up divorced when the production of these chemicals wanes.

That's one theory. The other is that we're designed to move on to another partner after a year or so.

Funny how people assume humans are on a fancy pedestal above the rest of the animal kingdom when it comes to personal matters, such as love.

Chemical reactions rock. Without chemistry, none of us would be here.

Anything that rocks can still be used irresponsibly, though.

Originally posted by bradybaker

That's one theory. The other is that we're designed to move on to another partner after a year or so.

Funny how people assume humans are on a fancy pedestal above the rest of the animal kingdom when it comes to personal matters, such as love.

Well, though I do not think my self-importance overrides that of a dog or a cat or any other animal, I do know that I could never bring myself to ever move on to another person after having met my fiance. With him, I was never in the euphoric, idealistic stage. I just loved him; that was it. Now it's the same. I love him, and though I know I could get by without him, I wouldn't want to have to. Yes, I know that love is a chemical thing. But so is everything that humans think and feel. It's all electricity and chemicals. I accept this. I also accept the fact that for some, non-monogamous relationships work. It just isn't right for me. All I am saying is my attachment to my fiance is something I don't think I could just forget, or move on to someone else for. Of course, if moving from partner to partner was what all human beings were meant to do, I must be seriously messed up.

Anyway, though, Robert Heinlein has a book entitled, Time Enough For Love. He obviously has the same veiw that you mentioned above. It's actually a wonderful book.

Originally posted by kimpossible
So then we could speculate that love is simply an addiction - you need more and more \"chemistry\" to keep it going?

Ahhh, I see where you're goin'. I like the sound of that.


We could speculate that love isn't just "a" chemical reaction, but any number of chemical reactions occurring over a long period of time. And I mean the number could get astronomical when we consider chemical reactions that specifically lead to physical actions in the environment. Love takes action. These physical actions could even then in turn create more chemical reactions the environment. I mean, who here has had the privilege of tasting a cake baked with love?

Yeah, you know it.

Flavor of the month. Just because there is an increase of NGF in people that are supposedly "in love" doesn't mean that "love" causes the increase. Sounds like lust? I've known scores of people who swore that they were "in love" with someone one day and "hated" that same person the very next day. So much for increased NGF=love.
What a joke. Next month it will be chocolate again.
Anyone that has true feelings(love-whatever, it's just semantics as far as science is concerned)for someone else knows.

Love as a feeling is wishy-washy, but I'm not denying the strength of it. It's very convincing, and when you do experience it, you drop any devotion to your previous notions of "love" that was preached to you by adults while growing up. Only the feeling matters then. But after that happens, whether it's good or bad of an aftermath experience, you see the bigger picture.

Any emotion has a chemical component to it, love is no different. Just because it involves it, does not dehumanize it or take mystery out of it. When you're having a feeling like intense love or anger strongly, does really matter then about the chemical reactions concerning it? Didn't think so.

You mean it took a scientific study to come to this conclusion about love? I figured any neurologist or anyone with a hint of knowledge about how the central nervous system works would be able to tell you that everything that humans do or feel has a chemical reaction to it. For a person to pick up a cup there first has to be millions of neurons firing to send the signal to the proper muscles.

NGF for the courthsip, then Viagra.
We're heading towards a doped society

eXistenZ

Is that the best article you could find on the subject.......

I do not know of any robot that is capable of "love" as it is properly defined.
So I can't say that we know exackly how the process works or how it can be artifically created yet. Hence we do not understand what chemical reaction or process love involves. So I can't say we understand it at all.

That artical that was posted is researching LUST, and not proper selfless love. Lust is more involving the solar plexis charka, which is of a a lower energy. I'm not suprised lust produces and creates chemicals in the body. So does adrenaline
and other powerful emotions.

It is in describing the precise process in detail, that we can conclude how it fully works and functions. Then this can be more practical knowledge that we can use.

Simply stating. "love is a chemical reaction" is no-where near precise enough to be useful to us. If you think about it. You can say anything is a chemical reaction. But it won't help you understand the process any better.

For example I can say Aids is a chemical reaction. But it won't help me to find any cure just by knowing this much about it. You need to be much more precise in order to understand how a cure might work.

Same with understanding the process of love or anything else. Generalizing does little to help practically understand the purpose of what you are studying.

Overall, one can't be foolish enough to be able to conclude all aspects of love are completely known, by concluding and defining the full process as somehow involving a few chemicals that happen to pass through the body as a reaction to some stimuli. While this may be part of the process.....I think its obvious a big chunk of the fuller picture is missing here. And that that massive part of the picture not seen here, is the critical part. In understanding its purpose. While the physical chemcial process is not all that important to consider compared to the core cause of the power, its purpose, and its results.

http://www.newscientist.com/backpage.ns?id...=mg18825282.300

The latest NewScientist speaks out:

Originally posted by NewScientist
Having a chemical formula for a process can be useful. If we find all the elements and determine all the mathematical expressions applying to them, the whole process can be determined. But this is not the whole story. Life is characterised by extensive, adaptive self-regulation of its own structural order, and utilises feedback control. An organism uses its resources in its own emergent way. The chemical reactions work, but how they are brought together is a matter of emergent control systems. This means that not only is it impossible to write an accurate formula for a human being, it is unnecessary and can be misleading to try. Life is what it does with chemical species, not just which ones it is made from.

Damn straight.

That was in response to a question asking what the chemical formula for a human being was, which, if broken up into individual atoms, they gave as...

H15750 N310 O6500 C2250 Ca63 P48 K15 S15 Na10 Cl6 Mg3 Fe1

Call me crazy but I thought we had more than one atom of iron. Are they just using iron as the "base number," setting it equal to one, making the other values into ratios?

Originally posted by Ex Nine
H15750 N310 O6500 C2250 Ca63 P48 K15 S15 Na10 Cl6 Mg3 Fe1

Yeah that's the reduced chemical formula. It's all ratios. For example, for every 15750 Hydrogen atoms, there is 1 Iron.

Originally posted by newScientist
This means that not only is it impossible to write an accurate formula for a human being, it is unnecessary and can be misleading to try. Life is what it does with chemical species, not just which ones it is made from.

This is a particually useful statement made here in regards to this thread about love. What it mentions here is basically how it is not accurate or even possible to define a chemical composition precisley for all processes involving the spiritual concept and feelings of \"love\" themself, and what they result in their varies levels and degrees within a human being, as experienced, and misleading to even try.

Originally posted by NewScientist+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NewScientist)</div>

Having a chemical formula for a process can be useful. If we find all the elements and determine all the mathematical expressions applying to them, the whole process can be determined. But this is not the whole story.[/b]

I certainly agree chemical formula for a process can be useful if understood and correctly applied, is predictable due to natural law and truth.

<!--QuoteBegin-newScientist
Life is characterised by extensive, adaptive self-regulation of its own structural order, and utilises feedback control. An organism uses its resources in its own emergent way. The chemical reactions work, but how they are brought together is a matter of emergent control systems

indeed systems are complex, thus 'emergent control systems' as stated here. Means the definite detailed process of what is being studied in complex systems, Overall is impossible to know or define with our understanding of the process. The organism works in its sort of unpredictable own way due to the emergent structural order using its resources. What this means is this aspect cannot be defined and studied in more detail. If it could be, what we would find about the process and structure of life itself would indeed be revolutinary to our understanding of those systems.

Thanks, Brady. My chemistry education amounts to one semester of high school. Definitely not proud of that.

Starseed, I especially like the point where they mentioned life forms utilizing "feedback control."

When people take feedback from their environment, especially regarding their views on spirituality, only good things can result.

Well, responsible feedback, anyways.

Another sidenote, when the author refers to 'feedback control', I'm pretty sure, though not positive, that he's reffering to "feedback inhibition". This is a method of controlling metabolic pathways in cells where the end product interacts with the first enzymes, rendering this enzyme inactive. Just another chemical process, fully predictable.

Originally posted by bradybaker

That's one theory. The other is that we're designed to move on to another partner after a year or so.

Funny how people assume humans are on a fancy pedestal above the rest of the animal kingdom when it comes to personal matters, such as love.

OH yes! I was JUST thinking that! Think about it, we are designed to reproduce, its our mission in life!