Finding "the one"

[Aemilius Paulus]

I do not doubt the legitimate nature of the article, only the conclusions you are drawing from it.

We disagree on comparatively minor issue of definition, I do not see why this matters so much, but I will provide the quotations

[Reenk Roink]

I have a christian friend. She believes that God will magically come along and show her who she should be with. God created her and him for each other. They were meant to be together.
Some people think that they are fated to be together. It was destiny.

Does it work like that?

Well, every single thing was predestined from eternity by God so technically, everything works like that and if she finds "the one" who she should be with and it’s for real and not gonna end up badly sometime later…

However, that doesn’t seem to happen for a lot of people.

Aemilius Paulus, holy crap dude, you really got brainwashed with all that anti-vitalist and reductionist bull**** they implicitly smuggle in intro psychology and neuroscience books.

Let's just have a go at some of your more outlandish statements:

I will clarify, however, and point out that love is nearly entirely a chemical state of mind - even the long-term affection as a matter of fact. For example, lust, or initial love - whatever you call it, starts out with dopamine and serotonin. Another interesting fact is that a person in love exhibits prolonged significantly heightened levels of serotonin. Dopamine is the more instant-acting chemical while serotonin maintains your obsession over longer periods of time. Now, what the interesting fact I was going to say is that the state of the brain suffering from love is very, very similar to that of an OCD person, down to the levels of serotonin.

Verdict? Love is a mental disorder. And it is, one cannot deny this - people do all sorts of stupid things under the influence of this drug. Finally, even the long term love is a result of chemical imbalance, namely the excess of the hormone of oxytocin. Oxytocin is presnt in all sorts of long-term attachments, including but not limited to lengthy marriage, sibling-sibling, parent-child, and close friend relationships.

Leaving behind the idea of love being a mental disorder (some others have already jumped on you on that case, appealing to current scientific consensus which you seem to acquiesce to as an authority), love is also not at all even a chemical state of mind. This is exactly what the reductionists would have you believe, and furthermore such an idea cannot even be called scientific (if that distinction carries weight with you). It just happens that many neuroscientists and psychologists hold a metaphysical belief in reductionism, and furthermore, it is widely prevalent in the scientific community and they allow it to influence their conclusions.

Love also isn’t a ”drug” (the chemicals you mention are naturally occurring chemicals that are not introduced into the body so that’s just a poor term to use). Essentially you fall hard into the problem of associating chemical levels with emotions. Like SFTS pointed out earlier (in a different avenue, I’m going to extend its use) correlation does not equal causation. Your reply back will probably be that ” the scientists agree with the conclusions” which doesn’t at all change the fact that correlation does not equal causation (just another meta-reasoning fallacy that science falls into by attributing natural causation to statistical correlation).

The quick answer would be the February 2006 National Geographic article 'Love: The Chemical Reaction''. If NG does not satisfy you, which is understandable, since it is no scientific journal, much less a peer-review one, it is possible to examine the sources cited by the article. But this is chemistry observations, and it is difficult to go wrong here - or at least in comparison to a very impure and subtle science of sociology.

I remember hearing about that NG article. Never bothered to read it in full before and thank god I didn’t. I did google it, skim it, and then skim this reply to it: http://www.ppzq.net/kaz/Alchemy/LSreview.html

I tend to agree with the reviewer (his pro scientific slant aside) that the author of the article you mentioned is just stretching at a lot of things to draw far fetched conclusions. The love = OCD thing that you purported earlier is particularly attacked here.

Right. My point was that this attraction is arbitrary - in the sense that it is not so much the physical/personality traits that affect us, but the circumstance as well.

How do you conclude this?

Of course it is not, the chemicals still have to be touched off. But the point is, once they are touched off, we lose quite a bit of independent thought.

What do you mean by independent thought? Do you believe that we can actually have thoughts divorced from our brain chemistry at all? Our own ‘free will’ thoughts for lack of a better term?

We become addicted to the chemicals in a certain sense. They are a mind-altering chemical, and they do affect us more than we would be comfortable with. This is not an intellectual decision we make here. We do not weight the pros and cons, logically examine the situation. Well, we do, but the deleterious influence of the chemicals prevents many from thinking straight – males in particular.

You use terms like ‘addicted’ and ‘deleterious’, I’d wager that’s a contentious idea to hold among reductionist neuroscientists for one.

Then again it seems you seem to assume that the best decisions are based on (paraphrasing you here) some ”rational” and ”economic” sense. Ok.

This was my argument, and I used this to dispel any romantic or deterministic arguments which the OP pointed to.

How did you do this at all? You seemingly jumped from the conclusion that ”All emotion is related to the chemical balance of our minds” as Myrd put it to your own conclusion that it is the chemical balance that not only cause love but are used to define love.

Alternatively, if one believes that God is so involved and so prone to meddling that he actually manipulates the chemicals and genetically imprinted responses for the sake of our romantic harmony, then that implies that God regularly alters the very rules he created. This line of thought will swiftly veer off into absurdity, also known as ‘Last Thusdayism’ where there is no limit to how much a deity twists the universe to fit into various dogmas. Really, I see little choice but to accept agnosticism or atheism as a reality.

Why is this absurd at all? Perhaps it doesn’t fit into your paradigm that all must be nice and ”logical” ? Ok.

Also agnosticism makes no ontological claims about the reality of God.

My main point was as I have stated it before. No such thing as true love. As for this point, I will say that all emotions are simply releases of various chemicals, and that yes, in part, that makes them less valid.

I wish you had stated this before, you typed a whole bunch of stuff which kinda meandered in different places, and while one got the impression that this was your belief, it wasn’t really clear.

Aside from you own belief that all emotions are releases of chemicals which I have addressed earlier, why does it make them ”less valid” and what does that even mean? I mean, I guess you will find neuroscientists and psychologists who share you metaphysical underpinnings and your conclusion, but I don’t know how many would agree with the less valid thing. But first you need to elaborate more on what exactly you mean.

I very much understand the point you are making, but regular emotions are not the same as no emotions. Emotions are normal, and the brain signatures are fairly balanced, with normal activity. The scientists are not comparing lust with a blank slate – they are comparing it with regular brain activity. Severe depression and certain powerful disorders have an immense effect on those brain activity patterns/signatures. So does love, and its signature is very similar to OCD. The activity is intense, and can never be rivalled by regular emotions, which register a comparatively insignificant and momentary impact on the brain activity.

This would be a very interesting line of inquiry to pursue. What is used as the baseline as defining ”normal brain activity”?

Also here I believe you begin to conflate the word normal and use it in two senses to conclude that since the brain activity is supposedly abnormal when experiencing love, then it is not normal behavior and thus a mental disorder.

This point, is undeniably true. But I never attempted counter this point. It would be most stupid of me to say that chemicals cause love. No, they maintain it, and perpetuate it, but they are still triggered by outside forces. Since I am not a professor on a lecture, I did not go into every detail and thus left off the part about the causes of the release of those chemicals.

Your conclusion was that I view us as total slaves to chemicals. No, the chemicals are still released based on non-random factors, but alas, too much of that is genetics. Infatuations are not logical and we do not have much control over them. The only decisions we really make are the personality/intelligence/interestingness-of-a-person type factors. But those carry influence after the initial impact of lust has been made, as research shows. Sadly, these factors are secondary.

And here you go and change what I thought was your previous position to one that takes away the idea of chemicals causing the emotion though it keeps the idea that the emotion is defined by the chemical balance.

And at this point I kinda got tired of going through the posts saying much of the same covered before.

I think this puts it best:

Sounds ground shattering, but it really isn't. All emotion is related to the chemical balance of our minds. Does this mean that emotions are somehow less valid? That love is nothing but a mental disorder? That the only normal state of mind is cold and without emotion? Of course not, the relationship between emotion and chemical balance is undeniable, but that relationship is a little bit more complicated than "the drugs in your brain caused you to fall in love". Have you considered that these chemicals are not released at random, causing you to fall in love at some random time? Imagine that you were alone feeding your fish when that random burst of chemicals came? Perhaps, it would be more sensible to say "dopamine was released because you found this person attractive" rather than "you found this person attractive because of a burst of dopamine in your brain". Yes yes, I know it's not as sensationalist as "we are all slaves of the Mind Chemicals!" so I must be wrong.

To simply say: there is dopamine in the minds of those in love => love is a mental disorder is at best sensationalist, at worse crass.

[Strike For The South]

Main Entry: re·duc·tion·ism
Function: noun
1 : explanation of complex life-science processes and phenomena in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry; also : a theory or doctrine that complete reductionism is possible
2 : a procedure or theory that reduces complex data and phenomena to simple terms

[Aemilius Paulus]

Aemilius Paulus, holy crap dude, you really got brainwashed with all that anti-vitalist and reductionist bull**** they implicitly smuggle in intro psychology and neuroscience books.

Look, I could care less about erotic love, as I have yet to experience it (or I never will, who knows). I like toying with certain theories, and I have gotten quite caught up in this argument. But to say that I actually sincerely believe in the things? I would not go there. I find it nearly impossible to explain how I feel on this topic, but the impression several people here formed is an erroneous one. I am, however, glad that I do not experience infatuation.

As for the rest of your post, I have already answered it most of it in my posts and I will not repeat, at least not right now - perhaps later this evening (6 hours away for me).

[Reenk Roink]

Look, I could care less about erotic love, as I have yet to experience it (or I never will, who knows). I like toying with certain theories, and I have gotten quite caught up in this argument. But to say that I actually sincerely believe in the things? I would not go there. I find it nearly impossible to explain how I feel on this topic, but the impression several people here formed is an erroneous one. I am, however, glad that I do not experience infatuation.

As for the rest of your post, I have already answered it most of it in my posts and I will not repeat, at least not right now - perhaps later this evening (6 hours away for me).

Fair enough although I think it was understandable how many of us interpreted your views on neuroscience and emotions given some of the statements you gave. My bad for attributing to you views you don't really espouse.

Then again, I think there are several major points of contention with your posts and some of the others including myself. I pointed out the idea that emotions are somehow defined by chemical balances in the first place and the comparison of love and OCD and the labeling of love as a mental disorder.

For the first, it really boils down to how you interpret the correlations of certain experimental results of chemical balances alongside admittedly subjective reports of emotions in an abstract sense.

For the second, I believe the author of the article you mentioned wrote a poor piece that stretched the conclusions of the work of the neuroscientists she cited. Again, I submit this critique of the entire article for your review: http://www.ppzq.net/kaz/Alchemy/LSreview.html

Lastly, I believe you were guilty of equivocating the word normal when applied to the chemical balances of the brain during certain emotions being different from baseline, and then jumping to the conclusion that since the brain activity wasn't at baseline during this emotion, it must be abnormal and then again equivocating the use of the word and then jumping to the conclusion that love is a mental disorder.



For some more sober pieces espousing the same general idea you brought up that emotions are basically chemical reactions, I would turn to: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/...ove_02-13.html.

For a cautionary look at the whole idea: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan...on/op-lehrer20

[Aemilius Paulus]

For the second, I believe the author of the article you mentioned wrote a poor piece that stretched the conclusions of the work of the neuroscientists she cited. Again, I submit this critique of the entire article for your review: http://www.ppzq.net/kaz/Alchemy/LSreview.html

Point - counterpoint. There is always two sides to any argument . As a matter of fact, I did not like the article either, for its unscientific tone, but the data was alright. Anyhow, the most important point is that you referred to some poorly-written (the html is very simple and the general stylistic similarities point to the possible home-written nature of the site) and questionable, unsourced site, and I referred to a Harvard and Boston doctorate-holder, author of numerous, writing for one of the leading popular science (among many other things) magazine in the US. Sure, popularity and credentials far from guarantee veracity, but face it - your source is not hot at all, unless you can find something notable about the author.

Lastly, I believe you were guilty of equivocating the word normal when applied to the chemical balances of the brain during certain emotions being different from baseline, and then jumping to the conclusion that since the brain activity wasn't at baseline during this emotion, it must be abnormal and then again equivocating the use of the word and then jumping to the conclusion that love is a mental disorder.

Wrong conclusion from my posts, but you are not the first one to think in this manner. I am too tired to explain it any longer.

For some more sober pieces espousing the same general idea you brought up that emotions are basically chemical reactions, I would turn to: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/...ove_02-13.html.

Yes, I read the article and all of it makes good sense, especially the part about the the quacks marketing the chemicals, which should not have any effect on humans.

For a cautionary look at the whole idea: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan...on/op-lehrer20

Inappropriate&insufficient credentials with regards to Mr. Jonah Leher, and on a different topic. No doctorate on psychology or neuroscience - only an undergraduate in both neuroscience and English - and an unrelated are of study which he did not even finish (Lit and Theology for two years). Anyone can argue on this topic - you and I are doing it right now - but very few are actually qualified. Dr. Slater certainly is, regardless of what she wrote in the article.

[Reenk Roink]

Point - counterpoint. There is always two sides to any argument . As a matter of fact, I did not like the article either, for its unscientific tone, but the data was alright. Anyhow, the most important point is that you referred to some poorly-written (the html is very simple and the general stylistic similarities point to the possible home-written nature of the site) and questionable, unsourced site, and I referred to a Harvard and Boston doctorate-holder, author of numerous, writing for one of the leading popular science (among many other things) magazine in the US. Sure, popularity and credentials far from guarantee veracity, but face it - your source is not hot at all, unless you can find something notable about the author.

The data was just data from other scientists (of course the author herself doesn't have the capability to work in the laboratory). How it was interpreted was terrible. And that interpretation is one of your conclusions most unfortunately.

As to the veracity of my source, you are quite mistaken if you believe it is poorly written, as the syntax and grammar conform to the highest standards of the modern style and the diction is elegant while at the same time managing the highest levels of perspicacity. The vivid color scheme shows a great command of aesthetics as well as graphical user interface design.

Anyhow, the author of my source visibly has a better grasp of the science than Ms. Slater (note how the original studies are referenced and this time actually analyzed with sobriety). One therefore is led to the conclusion that Ms. Slater gave head to a lot of people to get those degrees she holds, because she certainly couldn't have been able to obtain them due to mastery of her subject matter.* Thus her credentials are absolutely meaningless (as if they weren't before, as I judged the articles' content themselves, and not the author - just personal preference).

*For those wondering about this comment do note that Slater in her article begins by awkwardly describing an equally awkward sexual escapade which furthers my conjecture on how Slater got her doctorate.

Wrong conclusion from my posts, but you are not the first one to think in this manner. I am too tired to explain it any longer.

I did have a hard time drawing conclusions from your posts, as there were many contradictory assertions as I've noted above.

Inappropriate&insufficient credentials with regards to Mr. Jonah Leher, and on a different topic. No doctorate on psychology or neuroscience - only an undergraduate in both neuroscience and English - and an unrelated are of study which he did not even finish (Lit and Theology for two years). Anyone can argue on this topic - you and I are doing it right now - but very few are actually qualified. Dr. Slater certainly is, regardless of what she wrote in the article.

I'm afraid that Slater's qualifications become completely irrelevant with the drivel that she wrote and I've already cast probable doubt on the legitimacy by which she obtained her credentials above.

As for the erudite Jonah Leher and his background, firstly, it is plainly apparent that the topic of the article has nothing to do with psychology or neuroscience per se anyway. It has to do with the philosophy of the methods of neuroscience, namely reductionism, which an English degree would go much farther than a psychology/neuroscience degree in preparing one for. You see, I've noticed in my own studies that scientists (especially the weak 'sciences' like psychology) in general are not really able to think abstractly about the metaphysical values they adhere to. At least with an English major you know somebody is capable of deeper analysis and better writing than Slater.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Doctorate is not that impressive. And articles in popular magazines are often superficial, with "interesting" conclusions tacked on. Many times psych studies con only provide a narrow amount of information, and it's interpreted however the article writer feels like interpreting it.

@AP: just to be clear, what is the conclusion you draw from "love is a mental disorder"? What I was pointing out was that you were using a bunch of loaded words that all implied a certain conclusion (just as "aroused" implies sexual arousal). You may not be using guilt by association intentionally, but that is the effect. I don't think I've really been pushing the "correlation is not causation" angle.

[TinCow]

We disagree on comparatively minor issue of definition, I do not see why this matters so much, but I will provide the quotations

It matters because you have been insisting that you are holding to the scientific and medical definition of the terms, and the rest of us are using the wrong terms. When people start throwing around medical and scientific evidence, that evidence needs to be accurate because by its nature it has the propensity to shut down debate by sheer weight of authority. This particular issue caught my attention because it is closely related to what I do professionally. I am often similarly animated when I see what I consider to be inaccurate statements of the law.