[Donaldson Tan]

It's a big question.

I am not sure how to answer, but I have a gut feeling love is a biochemical phenomena.

We know body smell has something to do with physical attraction.

We also know the brain reflects different physiological responses when a person is subjected to pictures of his loved ones, versus that of friends.

We also know that oxytoxin is registered in relatively high concentration when a person is in love.

What are your opinions?

[Borek]

Every aspect of life is a biochemical phenomena - even solving differential equations boils down to biochemistry in brain. I thnik that's not what you wanted to state

[Albert]

Define love, please.
Otherwise, just meaning sexual attraction, my answer will be 'yes'.

[Donaldson Tan]

Define love, please.
Otherwise, just meaning sexual attraction, my answer will be 'yes'.

I am refering to love to family love and love between a couple (hetero- or homo- sexual)

[Equi]

That's all genetics - the selfish gene (sin altruism)

[Albert]

By the way, looking at the results, it looks like a comprehensive defeat for Romanticism, doesn't it?

[Alberto_Kravina]

By the way, looking at the results, it looks like a comprehensive defeat for Romaniticism, doesn't it?

We're all chemists, that's the reason

[Donaldson Tan]

One of the goals of my life to build a computer that can simulate human behavior to a very good degree. I hope, in doing so, I can prove that all human behavior boils down to complex mathematical and chemical equations and thus providing a scientific proof that ideas such as romanticism, religions, and various philosophies are complete rubbish.

[Albert]

One of the goals of my life to build a computer that can simulate human behavior to a very good degree. I hope, in doing so, I can prove that all human behavior boils down to complex mathematical and chemical equations and thus providing a scientific proof that ideas such as romanticism, religions, and various philosophies are complete rubbish.

It's one of the saddest things I've ever heard in my life. None the less, I understand you.

[Donaldson Tan]

It's one of the saddest things I've ever heard in my life.

Why should it be? Nobel Laureate Professor Abdus Salam once said that science is the shared heritage of all mankind. Science will eventually eradicate all the sources of our differences and unite mankind.

[Baseball_Fan]

It's one of the saddest things I've ever heard in my life.

Why should it be? Nobel Laureate Professor Abdus Salam once said that science is the shared heritage of all mankind. Science will eventually eradicate all the source ofl our differences and unite mankind.

Don't fool yourself. Science will always boil down to military power. Every advance in science has been exploited by government to advance their race, people, system, etc...

[Baseball_Fan]

Define love, please.
Otherwise, just meaning sexual attraction, my answer will be 'yes'.

I am refering to love to family love and love between a couple (hetero- or homo- sexual)

I would not group those two together. One is normal and the other is a disease. It was only through a political process that the second was removed from the DSM as a disease (the DSM is the clinical handbook of psychological disorders).

[Baseball_Fan]

Every aspect of life is a biochemical phenomena - even solving differential equations boils down to biochemistry in brain. I thnik that's not what you wanted to state

There is the Gestalt viewpoint, that we are more than the sum of our parts.

Can a thinking person force a different arrangment of chemicals in the brain? Is thinking enough to cause an increase or decrease of neurotransmitters?

[Borek]

Every aspect of life is a biochemical phenomena - even solving differential equations boils down to biochemistry in brain. I thnik that's not what you wanted to state

There is the Gestalt viewpoint, that we are more than the sum of our parts.

No contradiction here. "Parts" are biochemistry, "more" can be classified as emergent properties. Ting is, this new quality is often treated as something that can't be explained by interactions of the parts - which is obviosuly not true, as there are no other parts and no other interactions. Complexity of the explanation may be well beyond our understanding or beyond processing power of our computers, but it doesn't mean there is no explanation.

Diffusion is a good example. Diffusion is a macroscopical scale process, described by Fick's laws that doesn't tell a thing about single particles movements, as if the diffusion was something completely new and different, independent of the particles interactions. Yet if you know how, Fick's laws can be derived from random particles movements/bouncing.

Can a thinking person force a different arrangment of chemicals in the brain? Is thinking enough to cause an increase or decrease of neurotransmitters?

Yes - when you think there are measurable chemical changes in the brain. That's how large part of neuropsychological research is done these days.

[Baseball_Fan]

Every aspect of life is a biochemical phenomena - even solving differential equations boils down to biochemistry in brain. I thnik that's not what you wanted to state

There is the Gestalt viewpoint, that we are more than the sum of our parts.

No contradiction here. "Parts" are biochemistry, "more" can be classified as emergent properties. Ting is, this new quality is often treated as something that can't be explained by interactions of the parts - which is obviosuly not true, as there are no other parts and no other interactions. Complexity of the explanation may be well beyond our understanding or beyond processing power of our computers, but it doesn't mean there is no explanation.

I hope we're more than skinner boxes. I'm sure one day, some scientist will break love or the sensation of love down to light particles hitting the rods and cones, which causes chemical changes in the brain which reacts to dna to produce another chemical. I know that light can make sugar when it hits chemicals in plants. 

I've read a book on superstring theory which claims we live in more dimensions than we can sense. If that is the case, then maybe science will never be able to have true explinations, but only theories. Perhaps, some of what happens occurs in ways we can't measure or percieve.