9/13/2008

Anthrolopogist Helen Fisher Explains the Bio-chemical Foundations of Love and the Effects of Antidepressants


What is love?
People kill for love and die for love, why?

18:00 Antidepressants and love

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4 comments:

Vikram M said...

I don't subscribe to the chemical foundation of life.

I am not anti-science. I love science, have been eating, breathing science ever since i was a child....am classfied as a *geek* by many!

I am an engineer, but have a working knowledge of medicines (but not an expert!).....because I have 7 doctors in my family.

This question about the bio chemical foundation of life has come up with many of the doctors in my family and they seem to be convinced that the foundation of life is indeed biochemical.

They believe in this paradigm, they use this paradigm to evolve their understanding of life.

But I cannot accept this paradigm as correct. Love cannot be a chemical. Love is a feeling.

Feelings can be confused, influenced and suppressed by chemicals, but feelings in themselves are not chemicals.

The question that I always ask the people with whom I end up in such a conversation.....

"What is the difference between life and machine, if BOTH can be reduced to atoms, electrical currents..."

Biochemical foundation means the deepest level of life is just atoms and electrical currents, doesn't it? If not what else is the essence of 'biochemical foundation'.

The doctors in my family are silent as far as this question is concerned. No answer has come so far.

Abiogenesis seems to suggest an origin of life that is not in biology.

Mysticism of course talks of transcendence.

Incidentally, Arthur C Clarke/Stanley Kubrick's movie '2001 - A space Odyssey' - its central message to humans is - 'you will not get anywhere unless you evolve to a level where you transcend your biology, your physical form'.

Arthur C Clarke was, like you would know, a man of science.

I have a post coming up in which I will discuss this Stanley Kubrick/Clarke movie, using a beautiful flash animation that I found on the net, that explains this movie in detail....

I do agree with what Helen says about the differences between men and women. Men and women are very very different, and that's a beautiful thing. Apples are beautiful, so are oranges. There's no competition here. Just wonderful interactions that can be joyous...or torturous!! The entire joy-torture routine makes life colourful and interesting. An intriguing package.

Interesting rickshaw story.....perhaps the next time the guy will drive the rickshaw himself...or check to make sure its someone his date won't find interesting! :P

This story points to the fact that love is spontaneous, and anything can happen, anytime, to anyone. Love may not follow the patterns that we think it usually does.

Vikram M said...

I don't subscribe to the chemical foundation of life.

I am not anti-science. I love science, have been eating, breathing science ever since i was a child....am classfied as a *geek* by many!

I am an engineer, but have a working knowledge of medicines (but not an expert!).....because I have 7 doctors in my family.

This question about the bio chemical foundation of life has come up with many of the doctors in my family and they seem to be convinced that the foundation of life is indeed biochemical.

They believe in this paradigm, they use this paradigm to evolve their understanding of life.

But I cannot accept this paradigm as correct. Love cannot be a chemical. Love is a feeling.

Feelings can be confused, influenced and suppressed by chemicals, but feelings in themselves are not chemicals.

The question that I always ask the people with whom I end up in such a conversation.....

"What is the difference between life and machine, if BOTH can be reduced to atoms, electrical currents..."

Biochemical foundation means the deepest level of life is just atoms and electrical currents, doesn't it? If not what else is the essence of 'biochemical foundation'.

The doctors in my family are silent as far as this question is concerned. No answer has come so far.

Abiogenesis seems to suggest an origin of life that is not in biology.

Mysticism of course talks of transcendence.

Incidentally, Arthur C Clarke/Stanley Kubrick's movie '2001 - A space Odyssey' - its central message to humans is - 'you will not get anywhere unless you evolve to a level where you transcend your biology, your physical form'.

Arthur C Clarke was, like you would know, a man of science.

I have a post coming up in which I will discuss this Stanley Kubrick/Clarke movie, using a beautiful flash animation that I found on the net, that explains this movie in detail....

I do agree with what Helen says about the differences between men and women. Men and women are very very different, and that's a beautiful thing. Apples are beautiful, so are oranges. There's no competition here. Just wonderful interactions that can be joyous...or torturous!! The entire joy-torture routine makes life colourful and interesting. An intriguing package.

Interesting rickshaw story.....perhaps the next time the guy will drive the rickshaw himself...or check to make sure its someone his date won't find interesting! :P

This story points to the fact that love is spontaneous, and anything can happen, anytime, to anyone. Love may not follow the patterns that we think it usually does.

om said...

Love is one of the most fantastic things in life, completely impossible to explain or understand, especially in common words.... It (usually) happens with no planning, pattern, expectation or thought, and occurs very suddenly with no logical space or time frame to support its occurrence, and this can be highly disturbing!.....carumba, and there it is, an overwhelming thought abducting force that takes you, and takes you completely..... with no calling card, pedigree, sense or reason and never an excuse.

The two elements of emotion and chemical release leave out a third element, this is yet undiscovered, but will reveal itself as the catalyst that heightens the emotions and produces the chemical flood.......the third element is the magic, it dissolves time and space, it does away with linear thinking and creates a holy and transcendent space without constraints of society, culture, ego, space, time or thought.....

I believe the third, unnamed, element is the the real 'thing' everyone is trying to figure out, but they look to the side effects-emotion and brain chemicals to explain third element, not realizing there is a third element, or maybe even more.........

Vikram M said...

Hi Dev,

Now I understand how you approach it all, I was a bit confused earlier.

Yes, this third element that you talk of can never be reduced to protons/electrons/electric fields.

It is nothing but magic, like you say.

The founding principle of my mysticism blog is 'truth lies in the realm of feelings, not the realm of the intellect'.

And it follows that my blog strongly insists that the real nature of feelings cannot be electrochemical impulses or electromagnetic waves.

This theme shows up openly in many of my posts.

Life and Love and the Cosmos... its all a grand, beautiful, magical, mystical phenomenon, not some dry mathematical dance.

The fibonacci series might show up in how my digestive system works, the theory of self-organisation might be able to explain how my mind works, but that does not mean that everything about me can be reduced to numbers.

Magic is the keyword. Mystery is the keyword.

Vikram