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What causes love?

Is it simply a hemical proces, a spiritual thing or is it a mix of the two?
But this is the effect, what causes this effect in the first place? If I talk to a girl, how can it be that I like her and not the girl next to her... even with twins this semms to be true.

Illustrated this would be:
1. (Opposide) Sex
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V
2. Selection criteria
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V
3. Proces
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V
4. Love

The human mind intrigues me. What exactly causes steps 2 and 3 and what happends?
Plus, what really is love?

I don't believe in love, so i am not sure how to answer this question. But Attraction is based on alot of things. Face, dress the way the person stands or handles themselves. Heck even a smile can be a turn on. For a more scientific answer you gotta as CE. I have always wondered how chemcial processes can affect and illicitu emotions like love for example.

Love at first sight is nothing but lust in my opinion. You just want to boink her. I mean how can you fall "in love" with someone you just met. Later on you build a flow chart of what you like and what you don't line mentally and ignore what is bad. Thus the phrase blindly in love.

Not sure if that made sense.

Good question. For myself, I use a number of things to determine whether or not someone is worth going that extra step in attempting a relationship to see if I love them.

I need someone who connects with me on a spiritual level, this both includes someone who I can at least discuss such beliefs with without it degenerating into an argument and just that closeness you feel with someone that just can't be explained.

Personality is most important, I need to connect to how the person acts and thinks. It defines a lot about a person, including how the appear in a lot of little ways, from smiling to how they move and such. Not only that but you need someone who intrigues you, keeps you interested in them personally, draws your attention you know? I need someone I can talk to, whether it's mindless babbling, a deep and enlightening conversation, or just some dirty comments. A sense of humor is really important, along with honesty.

Physically, granted you want someone who you are attracted to. I have to say though, with love, the physical thing is isn't all that important if you have the connections above.

I'm going to have to go with based on that, it's a combination of things. First and foremost, your wants and needs at the time. You keep growing, and as such, you can, and a lot of people do, grow out of whom it is you've fallen in love with. So, depending on what part of your life your in, you may actually end up falling in love with someone, growing apart, and falling in love with someone else. Your mindset, lfiestyle, needs, wants and what your capable of all come into play here.

Also, I have to say, IMO at least, there is a spiritual thing involved in, I don't know how else to put this, "true love". For those people who just happen to fall madly in love and stay that way for the rest of their life. Then again, I'm a very spiritual person, so it could be just me.

Unfortunately, a lot of people mistake attraction, compatability, and opportunity and being lonely all for love. I've made that mistake before and thoroughly regretted it and haven't made it since. When your lonely, or upset, or depressed, someone coming into your life who makes you happy and feel wonderful tends to have this somewhat magical presense taking all of those bad things away. I've watched my friends make this mistake repeatedly, and tried to warn them about it. You mistake that wonderful feeling of going from miserable to happy around this person for love, and it usually doesn't work out, and isn't love at all.

@ CM, why don't you believe in love?
I'm sure most animals primarily mate to reproduce, but some also choose a partner for life. Some birds do this, dolphins too I think and naturally humans do this. If not for love, why choose a partner for life then?

Have you never been in love, never expirenced that strange feeling in your stomach, like butterflies? If you haven't then what do you think that feeling is that others do claim they have hade?

Not judging or anything, but do you put yourself out there or are you more a closed person? My guess could be that a person who doesn't believe in love is afraid to be hurt or doesn't allow himself to fall in love for one reason or another.

I have fallen in love in the past, that was puppylove, but love none there less. So I'd say love does exist. Everybody has a need to fall in love IMO, to find a partner. This partner stand by you and your best interest always comes first. Perhaps this is a gap that people fill by finding a partner, and that the feeling of loves comes from this.


This bringes me to Magrus' post. Is love a desision of the heart or does your mind also has a say in it? From your post I'd say that you use your head to filter those girl out from the rest and your heart can then pick one of these girls. But on the other hand you mention true love. These two seem opposites to one another.

Also, you mention needs of the moment. If one is lonely, one would try and get a partner to fill the gap mentioned earlier. Aren't all relationships based on the gap peeple feal they need to fill, the gap of someone to stand by you?

In response to a similar question at another forum I was recommended a book called "Why We Love" by Dr. Helen Fisher. You might want to take a look at it, if you are genuinely interested in the topic.

[QUOTE=Rob-hin]This bringes me to Magrus' post. Is love a desision of the heart or does your mind also has a say in it? From your post I'd say that you use your head to filter those girl out from the rest and your heart can then pick one of these girls. But on the other hand you mention true love. These two seem opposites to one another.

Also, you mention needs of the moment. If one is lonely, one would try and get a partner to fill the gap mentioned earlier. Aren't all relationships based on the gap peeple feal they need to fill, the gap of someone to stand by you?[/QUOTE]

The first part you got right, you need someone that is good for you, which you need to reason out mentally, but also someone you care for deeply, which there enters your heart as well.

The true love thing, I find that to be different than what most people find and have. To me, thats something when you find that person who you were fated to be with, and you'll end up being with again in more lifetimes than just one. Now that involves beliefs and such outside of this thread, so I won't go into that any further.

As for the needs of the moment, thats true. However, there is a difference between falling in love with someone who fulfills what your needs and wants are, and mistaking love for someone who just happens to make you forget your troubles and makes you feel good doing so.

I mean, really, how many guys, if they got dumped, would be thrilled if a gorgeous women came up to them and dragged them off to bed and wanted to just get drunk, hang out, and not make things complicated? It takes your mind off the last girl and makes you happy. She may be wonderful to spend time with, but chances are, not spend your life with. See the difference? You may love how a person makes you feel and want to keep that person around, but thats different than loving the person directly.

@Rob-hin: Love, like any human behaviour which has both an overt behavioural part (we act in a certain way with certain functions) and an intrapsychic, experience part (in our private minds, we experience certain feelings), is both a chemical and a "spiritual" thing. Unless you believe in mysticism and transcendence, the brain and the mind is one.

Every thought you think, every emotion you feel, every act you do, will elicit a lot of chemical events in your body. Many chemical events in your body, will elicit phenomena you can experience. Our bodies are the fields where our genetic disposition and environmental factors interact throughout all our lives.

Love can be described from a functional evolutionary perspective. Every species must reproduce in order to survive, and for humans, reproduction include long term rearing of offspring since humans are born with earth's most undeveloped brain and most dependent offspring. Humans are a group living species, so we need to bond, to form attachment to each other in order to survive. What psychologists and evolutionary antropologists call attachment, is what many people call love.

Apart from this, love can also be described as an intrapsychological experience, an emotion. Emotions are drives that makes us behave in certain ways. A behaviour must be rewarding, otherwise the organism will not do it. Thus, eating, having sex or loving is rewarding, ie it feels pleasurable.

Love, as any other behaviour, can also be described in a biochemical way. There is however not one single emotion or one single behaviour, we know so much about so we can describe the entire process. We can however describe parts of some emotions, for instance it is known that the hormone oxytocin and the monoamines dopamin and norephinedrine are involved in the chemical events that are in action when we love.

So what is love? It is a functional behaviour which developed during evolution. It elicit certain behaviours, emotions and internal experiences that in turn are more specifically formed by sociocultural norms. These behaviours and internal experiences are mediated by biochemical events that are only partly known. However, at a phenomenological level, the effect is well known

[QUOTE=CM]I have always wondered how chemcial processes can affect and illicitu emotions like love for example.[/QUOTE]

Our brains function with biochemical events and processess, our entire bodies function with biochemical processess. If an emotion we experience are not mediated by chemical events, how would we then feel it?

Emotions are chemical events, chemical events that we experience and interpret in a certain way.

[QUOTE=C Elegans]
Emotions are chemical events, chemical events that we experience and interpret in a certain way.[/QUOTE]

In that case, do you think that it's possible to artificially create the emotion love?
Like in a love potion nr 5 sort of way.

Today I heard people are attracted to people with a different immunesystem. People constantly ooze hormones through the air and other people pick it up and can determine the other's immunesystem or something. I don't know how it exactly is, but I found it quite remarkable.

[QUOTE=Rob-hin]In that case, do you think that it's possible to artificially create the emotion love?
Like in a love potion nr 5 sort of way. [/QUOTE]

Not with current level of knowledge, but perhaps some time in the future.

@IK: I haven't heard the immune system thing, but if it is correct, I think it is similar to the study that demonstrated that women are most attracted to men who have genetic variants that are maximally unlike their fathers. Sexual attraction must include a lot of (for the individual unconscious) evolutionary viable factors for the species to survive. Thus, inbreeding and genetic variance must be avoidede. Perhaps different immune system types make a more viable offspring.

[QUOTE=C Elegans]Not with current level of knowledge, but perhaps some time in the future.

@IK: I haven't heard the immune system thing, but if it is correct, I think it is similar to the study that demonstrated that women are most attracted to men who have genetic variants that are maximally unlike their fathers. Sexual attraction must include a lot of (for the individual unconscious) evolutionary viable factors for the species to survive. Thus, inbreeding and genetic variance must be avoidede. Perhaps different immune system types make a more viable offspring.[/QUOTE]
Isn't it wonderfull how animals (and humans) work. Everything is made for reproducing and evolution. That's why there's men and women, while it would be so much easier to only need one person to reproduce. Things like that make you believe there just HAS to be some kind of genuis behind it all...

[QUOTE=Rob-hin]In that case, do you think that it's possible to artificially create the emotion love?
Like in a love potion nr 5 sort of way. [/QUOTE]

There's no such thing as a love potion, but you'll get a similar effect if you do a lot of ecstacy and hang around people you don't hate..

[QUOTE=ik911]Isn't it wonderfull how animals (and humans) work. Everything is made for reproducing and evolution. That's why there's men and women, while it would be so much easier to only need one person to reproduce. Things like that make you believe there just HAS to be some kind of genuis behind it all...[/QUOTE]

When American fundies say "Intelligent design" I say "scrotum"

[quote="Jopperm]
There's no such thing as a love potion"]

It has been reported that GHB can have this effect, too...that's why those drugs are sometimes called "date-rape drugs".

[QUOTE=C Elegans]When American fundies say "Intelligent design" I say "scrotum"
[/QUOTE]

This isn't word ascociation!

I don't think that love in and of itself is an emotion. I think it's a concept reinforced by a series of emotions, instincts, and memories all combined together. I think the English language falls short in this regard as it assigns one word to such a subjective concept. Other languages, such as Greek, are more descriptive and differentiate between different concepts of love. Love can be generated by an intense attraction - immediate. Love can be developed for something or someone over time - familiarity. One loves their parents, but do they love their partner in the same regard?

I think love is what we want it to be. It can exist, or not exist, by our own choice.

[QUOTE=C Elegans]@Rob-hin: Love, like any human behaviour which has both an overt behavioural part (we act in a certain way with certain functions) and an intrapsychic, experience part (in our private minds, we experience certain feelings), is both a chemical and a "spiritual" thing. Unless you believe in mysticism and transcendence, the brain and the mind is one.[/quote]

And if you're mystically inclined and believe in some kind of transcendence, the brain and the mind are also frequently one. Depends upon your flavor of mysticism, @CE. I follow the body/brain-and-mind as one concept, myself. But for some folks, spirituality isn't (in part) a method of embracing reality. It's a method of running from it. To them, the brain and all those vile chemicals has nothing to do with truth, love, soulmates, eternal bliss, angels, Barney, etc.

So what is love? It is a functional behaviour which developed during evolution. It elicit certain behaviours, emotions and internal experiences that in turn are more specifically formed by sociocultural norms. These behaviours and internal experiences are mediated by biochemical events that are only partly known. However, at a phenomenological level, the effect is well known

Science can describe love and measure the physical processes linked to it, but I doubt science will ever figure out what love is. In part, because science is a series of extremely useful tools designed by the subjects themselves, who have no outside reference point from which to view the cultural norms of humanity. Ethnologists and cultural anthropologists can compare individual societies to show differences between them, but the general characteristics that are common to all societies, such as love, lack comparatives. So it's possible to speak of the mating rituals of the Lemba and how they differ from those of the Biaka pygmies, but we can't explain what the mysterious emotion love is that nearly all people in all societies feel, at some point in time, involving a mate.

[QUOTE=fable]And if you're mystically inclined and believe in some kind of transcendence, the brain and the mind are also frequently one. Depends upon your flavor of mysticism, @CE.[/quote]

Exactly. For us who do not believe in any transcendence, the brain and mind must by necessity be one, but among people who believe in any kind of transcendence, the variability is much larger since the brain and mind may, but must not necessarily, be one. Many who believe in New-age reincarnation, believe love is part of your immortal soul which is part of the transcendence, and thus it is immateral and not dependent on your brain.

Ah, I have to run, I will continue on this post later from another computer.

[QUOTE=C Elegans]Exactly. For us who do not believe in any transcendence, the brain and mind must by necessity be one, but among people who believe in any kind of transcendence, the variability is much larger since the brain and mind may, but must not necessarily, be one. Many who believe in New-age reincarnation, believe love is part of your immortal soul which is part of the transcendence, and thus it is immateral and not dependent on your brain.[/QUOTE]

This is a holdover myth from the 19th century Age of Romanticism. Dumas, Poe, and countless writers inferior to both used it on a regular basis. And it's a subset of that whole Destiny myth, which still clogs our cultural arteries--as witness the endless games, fiction, and movies (as that Star Wars mess demonstrates) that emphasize how *your* life should be filled with color, drama, and defeats that always turn into victories. Is it any wonder so many attempted relationships end in failure, when both parties are intent on realizing their own dreams of 24/7 fun with themselves as the destined center of the universe?

But I want to emphasize that people who follow newer religions--or religions that attempt to revive old beliefs--don't necessarily believe in these myths. Transcendence in itself implies that part of each human survives death, but this doesn't mean that we're not fully integrated people, here and now. Or at least, should be fully integrated; those who refuse to mentally accept this integration (many people in various conventional religions fall into this category) suffer IMO from various psychological damage at early ages, perhaps during toilet training or early adolescence. Reinforcing the message that "sex is evil," or "the body is depraved" (one Dutch Renaissance writer/preacher referred to the body as "a sack of filth") causes one to view the Self as not including the body; the body is other.

This is one mainstream view, too. Hence, the soul is the receptacle of love, sayeth those who reject the body.

Arguement is that mind and soul are one.
Also, it is said that a feeling like love is caused by chemicals in our body, like adrenaline.

Though this sound logical, I do have another point of view. I do believe that the mind and brain are two diffent things. IMO the brain is just a casing, a home, for our soul. The soul is a higher thing that enables the body to live and love.

If in years time man could build a man, like Frankenstine's monster, it have every reason to be alive, phisically. Still it would not, because it has no soul. The soul fills the gap that enables it to live. I won't go to deep into this as it's a bit off topic.

Therefore I feel that the chemicals in our body are not the cause of how we feel, its the soul that causes how we feel. The chemicals are a follow-up. The soul feels and the body responds. The soul loves a certain person and when you meet her/him, your body responds by example: shakeing and being nervous.

So you know where I'm coming from on this: I am not a regigious person and I don't believe in unexplainable things. This is one point I do believe in however. Main cause is that I believe in the power that lies in the soul. A man can do so much more then he phisically can when he put's his heart into it. Dramatic example: to lift a car when a friend is stuck under it after an accident.