How did Love Evolve

[Pah]

I suppose. Is one of your gods the supreme God and therefore making it's statements fact?

From my view, yes

 

[Feathers in Hair]

I suppose. Is one of your gods the supreme God and therefore making it's statements fact?

Several of them are, though they're content to share the title with one another. If you'd like to debate about whether there is one true god or not, though, that might be better saved for a different thread.

 

[Sunstone]

Are these chemicals the root cause of love or are they activated by something else?

It's my understanding that they can be activated by something else. For instance, oxytocin is released by skin stimulation. When you sleep next to someone, in contact with them, your body releases oxytocin, creating a warm and fuzzy feeling. Also when you make love to someone, your body releases oxytocin, causing the same feelings. In both of those cases, oxytocin is released by an outside stimulus. But the stimulus does not need to be actual. Oxytocin is also released in some cases merely by thinking about ones lover.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

How rude.

How so?

 

[Quiddity]

It's my understanding that they can be activated by something else. For instance, oxytocin is released by skin stimulation. When you sleep next to someone, in contact with them, your body releases oxytocin, creating a warm and fuzzy feeling. Also when you make love to someone, your body releases oxytocin, causing the same feelings. In both of those cases, oxytocin is released by an outside stimulus. But the stimulus does not need to be actual. Oxytocin is also released in some cases merely by thinking about ones lover.

Here is what I don't get (although attempting to grasp it with JerryL). I understand how it's triggered from a tangible perspective, but when I just sit here and the feeling of Love rushes through my body (not literally) when nothing in the external world triggered it. What is it exactly that triggered it? No body contact, no light, no nothing. Something triggers the first chemical. I just can't grasp it.

~Victor

 

[Sunstone]

Here is what I don't get (although attempting to grasp it with JerryL). I understand how it's triggered from a tangible perspective, but when I just sit here and the feeling of Love rushes through my body (not literally) when nothing in the external world triggered it. What is it exactly that triggered it? No body contact, no light, no nothing. Something triggers the first chemical. I just can't grasp it.

~Victor

That's a mystery to me, too. I haven't read anything that would explain a "random" feeling of love.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

It's my understanding that they can be activated by something else. For instance, oxytocin is released by skin stimulation.

So why is it that something like my clothes stimulating my skin doesn't cause me to love the world? There must be something else that causes release of the love drug.

 

[JerryL]

Are these chemicals the root cause of love or are they activated by something else?

Six of one, half-dozen of the other. They are not, for most people, on all the time; ergo they have triggers.

Some foods, chocolate for example, release some

 

[painted wolf]

Sandy - you've obviously never snuggled with a really soft fuzzy blanket... mmm... happy snugglies

 

[AtheistAJ]

I don't think "love" did evolve, we still have it. But I can't imagine a world without it since I spent my whole life with it.

 

[Darkdale]

What is that chemical makeup? If love is nothing more than a chemical reaction why not come up with the "Love Drug?"

Well, eventually you may very well see something like that. I've taken drugs that have given the effect of the feeling of love.

However, a majority of what we call "love" today is really "commitment" which is a cognitive choice based on mutual benefit and the establishment of a family. I personally think "commitment" is more valuable than the feeling of love, which is often prone to withering.

 

[JerryL]

I don't think "love" did evolve, we still have it. But I can't imagine a world without it since I spent my whole life with it.

So, do you think for the firs couple billion years, when the dominant lifeform was blue-green algie, that the algie loved? Or is it that you cannot imagine a world of blue-green algie?

 

[Pah]

I don't think "love" did evolve, we still have it. But I can't imagine a world without it since I spent my whole life with it.

Which means it worked for us in the evolutionary sense

 

[painted wolf]

The problem with all this is this... What is love?
How do you define this complex emotional responce and behavior?

is a parent risking its life to protect its children love?
is showing greef at the death of a child or mate love?

first you have to determine what "it" is before you can think of how "it" happined.

wa:do

 

[michel]

Very good point painted wolf. What is love ?

From the perspective of someone who suffers from depression, one of the side effects is to be able to distance myself from emotion. I used to do this subconsciously, not knowing why; even now that I know why I can be tempted to do it, I can still enter into that 'mindframe'.

I have seen Love for my family as being first and foremost a duty to them. A duty to protect them from financial problems, to ensure that they are careful about their health, and to make sure nothing bad happens to anyone of them - if it does, then I have to 'fix' it.

Note the total lack of any form of emotion in that. It was, as I now see it a form of 'logical love' . In fact, at one time, I thought along the lines of the benefit of 'Victorian-times marriages'; marriages purely based on convenience, in which both partners sought 'infatuations' outside the marriage. I find it hard to imagine that I could have thought that, but think it I did.

 

[Angama]

I asked a Christian friend of mine the same question and she said 2 words:

CONTINUAL SACRAFICE

AA

 

[Quiddity]

I asked a Christian friend of mine the same question and she said 2 words:

CONTINUAL SACRAFICE

AA

Your friend Catholic? :woohoo:

~Victor

 

[ChrisP]

I asked a Christian friend of mine the same question and she said 2 words:

CONTINUAL SACRAFICE

AA

This is Agape, self giving love (or duty), and the basis of Christianity and many other religions. The Japanese concept or Giri (or an unrepayable debt) is also similar. Eros, or romantic love, is supposed to be different.

 

[Cynic]

Here is what I don't get (although attempting to grasp it with JerryL). I understand how it's triggered from a tangible perspective, but when I just sit here and the feeling of Love rushes through my body (not literally) when nothing in the external world triggered it. What is it exactly that triggered it? No body contact, no light, no nothing. Something triggers the first chemical. I just can't grasp it.

~Victor

Have you visited the Neurologist lately? Just kidding

 

[painted wolf]

So if you arn't continuously sacrificing then you don't know what love is?

hmm... love isn't very common then is it?

wa:do