Is love just a type of addiction?

[idav]

Is love more than the chemical reactions and obsessions that come along with it?

[The Sum of Awe]

Love can be considered more than chemical reactions, as it is a chemical reaction. You could also go beyond and say love is the feeling caused by the chemical reaction, not the chemical reaction itself, in the same way the "trip" is usually more speculated than the chemical reaction created by inhaling or sniffing certain substances.



Could I ask what you mean by the obsessions that come along with love?

[idav]

Originally Posted by The Sum of Awe

Love can be considered more than chemical reactions, as it is a chemical reaction. You could also go beyond and say love is the feeling caused by the chemical reaction, not the chemical reaction itself, in the same way the "trip" is usually more speculated than the chemical reaction created by inhaling or sniffing certain substances.

Even when it comes to certain substances, ultimately we are just triggering similar types of reactions in the brain. We end up choosing and becoming addicted to whatever type of reaction occurs.

Could I ask what you mean by the obsessions that come along with love?

Other than the endorphins we get when the person is around there are other elements that cause us to obsess over an individual when we are in love. So that we miss them when they are gone but also that they keep going into your mind to the point that you can't stop thinking about them. Maybe thats just the withdrawal talking.

[Sunstone]

Originally Posted by idav

Is love more than the chemical reactions and obsessions that come along with it?

The word "love" is routinely applied to at least several different emotions and/or cognitive states. It is no more precise a term than "building" is. If you say you live in a building, that can mean you live in anything from an apartment building to a barn.

I think, though, that the feelings most people are referring to when they refer to feeling love for a spouse, partner, offspring, sibling or parent, are the feelings produced by oxytocin.

Oxytocin, like heroine, is addictive. And when we try to withdraw from people we are bonded to through oxytocin, we experience withdraw symptoms, just like we would experience withdraw symptoms from leaving heroine. That might be the obsessiveness you are talking about?

The feelings involved in other common kinds of love -- such as romantic love -- are produced by different neurochemicals.

As for the rarest love -- altruistic -- so little is known about altruistic love, that I've never heard anyone propose a neurochemical to explain the feelings associated with that kind of love.

[idav]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

The word "love" is routinely applied to at least several different emotions and/or cognitive states. It is no more precise a term than "building" is. If you say you live in a building, that can mean you live in anything from an apartment building to a barn.

I think, though, that the feelings most people are referring to when they refer to feeling love for a spouse, partner, offspring, sibling or parent, are the feelings produced by oxytocin.

Oxytocin, like heroine, is addictive. And when we try to withdraw from people we are bonded to through oxytocin, we experience withdraw symptoms, just like we would experience withdraw symptoms from leaving heroine. That might be the obsessiveness you are talking about?

The feelings involved in other common kinds of love -- such as romantic love -- are produced by different neurochemicals.

As for the rarest love -- altruistic -- so little is known about altruistic love, that I've never heard anyone propose a neurochemical to explain the feelings associated with that kind of love.

Withdrawal can be a huge factor but the romantic love is also interesting as that is the type that holds to obsessions especially with new love. How is romantic love different from obsession?

Altruistic love would still have some cause. Just like any other emotion. What do you think makes altruistic love different that it isn't just another emotion playing on our mental weaknesses.

[Sunstone]

Originally Posted by idav

Altruistic love would still have some cause. Just like any other emotion. What do you think makes altruistic love different that it isn't just another emotion playing on our mental weaknesses.

In the first place, I never said the things about altruistic love you are ascribing to me.

In the second place, what makes you think emotions are weaknesses? Are you mainstreaming Descartes?

[idav]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

In the first place, I never said the things about altruistic love you are ascribing to me.

I was asking what makes altruistic love different?

In the second place, what makes you think emotions are weaknesses? Are you mainstreaming Descartes?

More specifically I said that emotions play on our weakness. They can just as easily play on our strengths.

[Madhuri]

I don't know if I would say it is addictive. People can fall out of love pretty easily. Or maybe it affects different people in different ways.

[idav]

Originally Posted by Madhuri

I don't know if I would say it is addictive. People can fall out of love pretty easily. Or maybe it affects different people in different ways.

This is an interesting point I'm glad you brought up. When I was thinking of addiction I was interested in the fact that some people get addicted while some might have a brief obsession followed by boredom, like trying to figure why someone does or doesn't become addicted to gambling.

[Willamena]

Originally Posted by idav

Is love more than the chemical reactions and obsessions that come along with it?

Everything with meaning is more than the chemical reactions and obsessions that come along with it.