The Science Behind Love
July 4th, 2007How Can We Understand the Science Behind Love?
Surely science can’t explain why we love? Apparently it can - there’s a science behind love that Helen Fisher has dedicated her life research on. The 45 years worth of research is truly staggering and she’s tested many guinea pigs that prove this science behind love.
Guinea Pigs? Confused? I hear you ask . . . well she didn’t literally test guinea pigs . . . BUT she did:
- Put 32 People Madly in Love through a fully functional MRI brain scanner
- Tested a further 17 who were madly in love and their love was accepted
- Tested a further 15 people who were madly in love and had just been dumped
Discover the Science Behind Love
Shakespeare famously said:
“What it is to Love?”
What do you think of this subject?
Enjoyed the Science Behind Love? You should read a previous article of ours
make your relationships more fulfilling
July 5th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Very interesting
July 5th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Interesting info, some insight into the uncontrolable craziness
July 5th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Now there’s a half an hour of my life I’ll never get back. How dissappointing.
July 5th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
I loved your speech. It was innovative. I heard about the cocaine think in a boook by dr Amen about spect scans. Everything you say is true but you might want to mention that all of these feelings do NOT come from the brain but are supported by the brain. The feelings of romantic love are deeply spiritual and brain systems support them, so to speak they keep them in place. I love a girl and I have had out of body experiences in which I love her even more and deep theta dreams where I experience that love 1 million times as intense as I do in the physical world. I think if you added a spiritual undertone to your work, youd be famous. I know you are slightly famous but I mean Deepak Chopra, Byron Katie, Esther Hicks Famous.
July 5th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
I would get an F in Dr. Fisher’s class. Her presentation is a dichotomy: She treats humanity mechanistically, even referring to us as “animals.” Then she makes the mistake of saying that we are “returning to the ancient human spirit” through equality in marriage. She should have stuck to her mechanistic guns. Now, I can attack her presentation.
Esoteric ancient and advanced science as well as ancient spiritualism tell me that we are spiritual beings intimately connected to physical bodies. If we were nothing more than spiritless sacks of flesh, then we would have diminished as a drug oriented race long ago because of our addiction to dopamine and vassopresine while leaving true love behind.
As spiritual beings, we seek out those who are similar to us, so we can fulfill the spiritual function known as true love. The spiritual functions are so much more intense than any animal functions found in the brain; true love is a transcendent function that also exists beyond the physical realm.
This is why we can sense what our true love is feeling at a distance; true love is integral to the spiritual sense of extra sensory perception. There’s so much more to love than mainstream psychology can possibly fathom.
July 5th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Psychology might make a great art; it sure makes a lot of bad science.
July 6th, 2007 at 3:00 am
Randolph:
Although, Dr. Fisher has her right to her POV based on her research, I so much agree with you. True love is the most amazing experience a human being can have. True love is capable of transforming lives for the higher good.
July 6th, 2007 at 8:09 am
[…] « The Science Behind Love […]
July 7th, 2007 at 12:39 am
I found this subject somewhat interesting but would not care to learn more about it. In my opinon, thois woman gave thirty years of her life to this project, and to what cause? If we were to fall in or out of love, who cares about the dopimine? Could we alter our feelings, by knowing our chemisty levels?
I think her research was futile, society has nothing to gain by this knowledge. If the speaker would have spent her time and our money to find a cure for cancer or alsheimers disease, it would have been a benefit.
Joan
July 7th, 2007 at 4:03 am
I agree 100 % with her reg the anti-depressants. Interesting point of view.
July 7th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
I find Dr.Fisher’s work quite fascinating and useful. Considering that many of humanity’s most positively incredible feats have been produced under the influence of love or infatuation,I for one would like to harness the stuff this “drive” is made of.
Maybe one thing our society does have to gain from this research is the return of our sanity. Maybe by understanding these mechanisms, we would have less shootings in schools and less war mounglreling paranoia towards the rest of the world.
Dr, Fisher’s concern with anti depressants is genuine. Not only are people with medical need being exposed to dopamine tampering drugs(good luck and get well folks!) but healthy you and your kids and me as well thru drinking and food irrigation water. I’ve just read an article where scientist found antidepressant drugs in our water supply allegedly from waste produced by users. Guess whose food and drinking water will eventually be saturated with the stuff?
As for personal gain, how many people have “fallen madly in love” with someone inappropriate and ruined his or her lives and that of their families? Do you think that they would have a better chance of warding off destructive behavior if they knew they are DUI, acting upon a primitive drive than if you think its “heaven-sent-miracle-once-in-a-lifetime-magical-experience”?Hmmm…
You go Dr.Fisher!
July 8th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
love, in all its facets, is the only true answer/cure to all dis-ease & the key to unlocking the doorways between veils. B nice & love
July 8th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Dr. Fisher is correct…we are animals. We can indeed have spiritual possibilities (some people have not developed their spiritual side). But we are animals. We are, as she said, built to reproduce. The dopamine connection is an eye opener, and as scientists have indicated, our body chemistry rules our bodies.
July 19th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I totally agree with Randolph. The sad thing is that not everybody is able to find this “spiritual” counterpart that is the completion of their beings. Most of so called “happily married” couples are just, like Dr. Fisher said, tolerating each other. Exactly like Dr. Fisher
mentioned, many couples only last enough to raise children, and then they fall apart, because they had not found their real spiritual partner or so-called “soul-mate”.
A lot of people just settle for the minimun necessary, like a companion to grow old together, but very few people really are able to experience the true partnership that is necessary to grow as a human being.
I agree that there are “chemical” components to the initial feeling of love, but that chemical reaction is definitely not true love. Anyone who has ever been in love for a long time definitely knows this. They have experienced the initial rush, and also experienced the long-lasting feeling of love.
She is quite contradictory in some issues. For example when talking about human evolution and then the same time about lack of loyalty in our feelings for our partners.
I definitely don’t believe that people are not going to love because they are on antidepressants. There is much more to love than chemical reactions.