DOUBLE H ONLOVE
Written by Harrison Homer (Project 80 Senior Editor)
For all those who weren't there last Thursday for Luke De’s presentation on Love is like a Heroine High, I would recommend checking it out here Youtube (Is Love a Heroin High).. The video is a little crappy and it starts after the first minute, but De brought up some interesting albeit far fetched points in his last presentation. . . Upon further thought, were they that far fetched?
De based his presentation on biological research. It turns out that two hormones, and the cells that receive them are very important in monogamy. In fact, altering them can turn monogomous animals in to much less reputable and racy animals. The reverse is also true. The opposite alterations can turn the heathens of the animal worls into god-fearing, reputable, single, sexually faithful individuals.
The two main questions that I have received regarding the topic of the presentation are:
“Can love be quantified?” and
“if there were to be a a pill for cheating would it be ethical to use it?”
I came home Thursday ecstatic. What can I say? I love to argue and De’s presentation gave me a whole new playing field to work with. When discussing the article with my family, I came across a common argument. Can love be quantified simply by faithfulness? Personally yes, it can. But then again, I am the one writing the science blog, not the creative writing major. I may take a more quantitative rather than romantic opinion of love. But why shouldn’t love be able to be quantified, even in a romantic sense? Love is faithfulness: love is how far you will go to meet someone, what you will go through to see someone, who you won’t sleep with to be with someone-and all of this can (and was) quantified.
The second question is, "If there was a cure of cheating, an injection or a pill to make someone faithful, would it be ethical to use it?" Should we treat infidelity medically? First of all, my view is that people should not take it, and that it shouldn’t exist in the first place. If couples have to take a pill to be faithful, than what’s the difference between simply cheating and taking the pill? If you’re not going to be faithful by your own will to your partner, than you two should simply not be with each other. Biologically, would it be healthy to take this pill? If this pill were to give you a love high, and make you faithful, what’s the difference between this love drug and any other drug? My opinion; This drug is not a good idea. I do, however, believe that the paper opens up a whole new world of opportunities for researchers to discover.
CARE TO DISAGREE, OR EVEN WORSE PERHAPS. . . AGREE?
Sources
Sorry for the inconvenience,
HH
The idea that love may be quantified by faithfulness is an interesting one, but arguing that love is faithfulness raises more questions, especially when you consider the different types of relationships out there. What about a couple in an "open" relationship, where monogamy is not an expectation for either partner? If this couple claims to love each other, are they lying? By the definition given above, they are. However, if they both agree with their arrangement, I certainly wouldn't be the one to jump in and tell them that they actually don't love each other!
ReplyDeletePersonally, I would argue that to an extent, love can indeed be quantified, but there is always some intangible element to it. How do you quantify someone's feelings? A person can have the will to be faithful to someone, and go out of their way to be with that person, without loving them. Analyzing WHAT a person will do for their partner may make love more tangible to an outside observer, but WHY they do what they are doing isn't explained.
Finally, on the subject of the cheating cure, I think that ethics must be argued on a case by case basis rather than making a sweeping generalization. Why is the couple considering taking the drug? Are we talking about a young couple who has been together for six months, or parents who have children to consider? If you need the drug at the beginning of a relationship, I would agree that those people really should not be together and shouldn't be taking the drug.
However, over time, people may stay together for a lot of reasons. Look at the parents. Perhaps they stayed together for the right reasons originally, but they have grown apart and changed over time and want to make things work out for their children? The temptation to cheat would be there, if the love they once had has faded, but if the drug helps them work out their marriage for the sake of their kids, I would be hard pressed to argue against it. Of course this doesn't solve their problems, but it may make them easier to fix and buy them time to work things out. Once someone cheats, the trust they shared with their partner is shattered, often irrevocably. This supposed cure could do a lot of good in situations like that, but it would need to be carefully controlled and monitored by experts to avoid the slippery slope that the rollout of any new drug faces.
Okay, so my name is Jacki, and in response to your first question of quantifying love, I don't think you can quantify the emotion. But then again, this is coming from an artsy romantic that has no passion for complex math and science at all. But the way I see love, I can't imagine putting a formula to it. Love is a complex idea, encompassing so many different sub-emotions.
ReplyDeleteLove actually originated out of mistake, meaning the idea of Love isn't supposed to exist. But people love in different ways, and it's quite possible that love is different for each person. We refer to the emotion as a single idea, but is it really the same? I know with finding your "soul-mate," the only way to describe the feeling is to just say, "You'll know it's the real thing when you feel it."
So, I think because there are so many variables, like the person, the sub-emotions associated with love, and the possibility that each person has a different definition, there's no way to calculate and develop a formula. There's no control to the feeling that drives people crazy. Everything about love is dependent on two people, and I can't really think of anything that would be considered a control variable that would allow you to have a foundation for developing a mathematical/scientific formula.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with Jacki in that it is hard (maybe even impossible) to quantify love because of its complexity and the way it varies for every person. However, monogomy is definitely something that can be studied scientifically, as you are either monogamous or not. I would be careful in making jumps from monogamy to love, but I would definitely be interested in learning more about whether humans are truly monogamous for life or not. As Mr. De mentions in his speech, why is it that over 50% of marriages end in divorce, and that the divorce rate is especially high around 4 years after marriage? Are we really (biologically) meant to spend the rest of our lives (which are, on average, significantly longer than they used to be) with the same person? Interestingly, four years is about how long it takes to raise a fairly autonomous child. Of course children need additional care beyond age 4, but think about what age most children start preschool. At that point, if one parent were to leave, the affects would be less damaging then if, say, the baby was still breast feeding or in need of round-the-clock care. It would be interesting, though I'm not sure how it would be done, to see if those factors could be linked. (For the record, I've never been married or had children, so I'm just speculating here)
ReplyDeleteIn regards to treating infidelity, I wonder if the drug actually might make the problem worse. What if someone took the pill, only to become more faithful to whomever they were cheating on their spouse with? Or to a stranger they saw on the street? Could it be used as sort of a love potion, where the first person they see the fall head over heals for? Either way, I don't believe tampering with someones inner feelings is ever good idea. And personally, I would rather have a spouse who was cheating on me than one who was only faithful to me because I was drugging him.
Mikell, as far as voles go. The miss aimed cupid's arrow problem might be preventable. You just inject the CP an hour before interaction with the loved one, and you could use naltrexone on them before they went out in to the public.
DeleteLet me ask this. Is there any difference between the person being drugged with a needle and falling in love, and a person being drugged by a tumor and falling in love, or a person being drugged by their own brain and falling in love?
I find the 50% of marriages statistic to be misleading because it oversamples people married more than once. If I stay married, I can only contribute once to the statistic. If I get divorced, remarry and divorce again, I contribute twice. If we ask the question "how many first marriages end in divorce, the number falls to somewhere between 15 and 30 percent depending on your source.
DeleteTo Luke - yes there is a difference. It is the needle :-)
DeleteOn the topic of infidelity and pill-usage, I would say that it highly depends on whether the cheating partner in question is someone who is un-happy in their relationship and is happy being un-faithful, versus someone who truly loves the person they are with but wants to remove extraneous urges that could ruin their relationship. Forcing someone to take a pill in the first case would simply extend what would be in most cases a failed relationship, which should signal to both partners that something is wrong between them and forced bonding, I suspect would weaken that relationship further. But if in the second case the person wants to reduce their urges when they are in a healthy relationship then I think it would be fine.
ReplyDeleteTo put it simply: love is not faithfulness alone. Whatever feeling that love elicits - or rather the hormonal response that characterizes it - is not produced by faithfulness. One can be faithful to a job, a platonic friend, a country, but not feel romantic love. What induces the hormonal response that we perceive as love must therefore be caused by some other factor, or a combination of factors.
ReplyDeleteIf one factor in the bio-psycho-sexual-whatever cocktail of love is sex and sensuality, then for many people faithfulness as Mr. Homer has defined it could not possibly be the sole mitigating factor. Many relationships - monogamous and polygamous - are enhanced by 'unfaithful' behavior, or the appearance of it. A common biological estimation of what constitutes faithfulness - and therefore love - would not explain centuries of polygamous relationships in thousands of seemingly disparate cultures. From the harems of Ottoman sultans to the commonality of the mistress in contemporary France, history would seem to indicate that monogamy is an aberration. In the Animal Kingdom, relationships are as varied as the animals themselves, from the strictly monogamous puffin to the promiscuous bonobo.
Ultimately, there is no single factor that defines love, and I believe it varies significantly from person to person. Faithfulness may be part of that equation for some people, but it certainly is not the defining factor. I know it may seem silly to try to articulate this on a science forum, but love is not characterized by hormones and it cannot be created in a lab. Those may play a part in it, but it is an enormously complex creation of the individual mind. It is influenced by science, by society, by personal experience. As a friendly tip to the Liquidbio team: leave love to the poets.
I disagree that love should be left to the poets. Sure, a lot of great artwork comes out of love, and that is fantastic. A lot of great artwork comes out of nature too. That does not mean we shouldn't seek to understand it. At least for me, understanding the science behind something makes it more fascinating, and in the case that it is a "bad" thing, less traumatizing. There is room for both humanities and science in every subject, it is just that we don't always have the technology to get the answer we seek- but this shouldn't stop us from striving towards that goal.
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ReplyDeleteMy brother couldn't post so here are his thoughts:
ReplyDeleteLove cannot be taken in pill form because it cannot be quantified. The high experienced by young couples having sex is not experienced by elderly couples who no longer have sex. However, I can testify that my grandparents, who were married for over 50 years, loved each other even in old age. Therefore, love must be more than the animalistic attraction of a good reproductive mate. There is something else there, a dependence, the knowledge that your partner will always be there for you, and you will always be there for them. I believe that love without sex is a combination of trust, faithfulness, vulnerability, and many more elements. Because it means so many feelings to each individual, and because those emotions are triggered by different things in different couples, no drug can replicate exactly what love and monogamy feels like for you and your loved one.
Wade Homer
No. Love can not be scientifically quantified. Love is an amalgama of evolution, biochemical processes and learned social and cultural norms/values. I have never seen a definitive scientific definition of love. Ten different people will have 10 different definitions of love. Not to mention we use "love" to describe parental feelings for children, children's feelings for parents, and adult couple's feeling for each other. Those who are religious love their god. Those who own animals love their pets. Yet, from personal experience alone, I can say that not all those types of "love" are the same; they don't illicit the same exact emotional or biological responses, even thought there is some overlap. Since there is no consensus of what love actually is, it would be impossible to quantify it. And even if it were possible to quantify love, it is unlikely that a measurement of a single component, say faithfulness, would give an accurate representation. [BTW--Scientist can and do quantify things like, physical responses, chemical cascades, sexual preference, mate selection, pair-bonding, maternal care,pheromone production, etc. which could all be considered some aspect of love.]
ReplyDeleteThe idea of love put forth here is defined by faithfulness, which seems to limit us to a specific aspect of love, sex. And not any kind of sex, but monogamous sex. One should ask, why do we label monogamous relationships has good and polygamous relationships as bad? Evolutionarily speaking, there are successful examples of both strategies. Further it is not clear whether humans are monogamous or polygamous; most of what I have read puts them somewhere in the middle of the continuum. It is our society, steeped in religious values, that dictates the "rightness" of monogamy. There are still some cultures in this world that are polygamous. I would go so far as to say that the simple fact that there are so many divorces and so much rampant infidelity is evidence that strict sexual monogamy is NOT the natural human condition. So, if our true "nature" is not monogamous, should we judge those who do not strictly adhere to a monogamous relationship as broken or diseased? Society will have to answer that question, not science.
I think Jennifer makes an interesting point when it comes to "unconventional" couples who have agreed that they would not be monogamous. These people have made a conscious decision to have sex with multiple people at the same time. Also, when Wade refers to his grandparents, who he testifies were in love long after the physical part of their relationship ended, he is drawing attention to this fact that every relationship is different. I think that it would be very difficult to quantify love, purely because every individual has a different definition of what they think it is to be in love. Some think love is purely sex. Others think love is marriage. Some would even say that you can love your friends. What if a couple is having sex, but they don't see each other anywhere but the bedroom - is this still love? What about a married couple who has three kids and live in the same house, but don't speak to each other anymore - are they in love? And would a friend who is willing to give up anything to help another friend not be displaying feelings of love? I think that love is complicated. Some may say that this is so cliche, but I think it is just honestly true. There are so many factors that go into each relationship that can either contribute to feelings of love or take away from them. So I guess my answer is that I don't really think that love can be quantified.
ReplyDeleteVicky Morgan
Can you quantify love? Sure, just like you can quantify anything else. My kids do it all the time--I love you ten, no I love you one hundred, I love you infinity... I could easily invent a love quotient by multiplying faithfulness, time spent thinking about the person, how much you'd pay to keep the person and other factors. The question is whether or not this quantification is meaningful and useful. Of course that depends on what questions you want to answer.
ReplyDeleteIs love based on a single chemical? Certainly not. The biochemical pathway that leads to faithfulness alone has several components, each of which could be affected by multiple other pathways. Does it share pathways involved in addiction? The study suggests that it does. I would be surprised if there were completely separate pathways that lead to completely separate pleasure areas of the brain. Evolution doesn't usually make things twice, it just uses the same things in different ways.
I recall my first love. Yes, I was addicted and would have done anything to be with her, including riding my bike 8 miles up a mountain (which doesn't seem like a big deal now). I did make a conscious decision to break up, because I wasn't ready in 9th grade for the next obvious relationship steps. Even though it was my decision, I was still an emotional mess for some time after. Perhaps that was withdrawal and my "conscious decision" was also controlled by biochemical pathways interacting.
The four or seven year itch that leads many marriages to divorce may well be an adaptive function that promotes switching behavior in non-reproductive pairs. About 2/3 of divorces are of childless couples. From an evolutionary point of view, it is not adaptive to stay in a non-reproductive partnership. Perhaps this suggests there is a biochemical switch that is affected by presence or absence of children.
My wife and I will have been married for 20 years this June. We've been together for 23 years. Although my feelings for her have changed over the years, I would call all of them love, so I do think that there are different kinds of love. Early on, we were very possessive of each other. I know her much better now than I did 20 years ago and we're more comfortable with each other changing. She's still the best friend I ever had, and I still can't imagine wanting to be without her.
Parental love, in my experience, is very different from love for a mate. For me there was an obvious and immediate switch. The first time I heard my daughter's heartbeat in utero, I was smitten in a very protective way. The only thing that mattered from then on was her well-being. People have asked me if I would die for my kids--of course--but I'd rather kill for them. Don't mess with my kids.
Should we leave love to the poets? My mind rebels against the idea. Poetry can be beautiful, but I like understanding things rationally. I don't think that understanding something removes anything from the experience. I agree with Michaela. It makes it more interesting. My experience with science is that uncovering answers simply leads to more questions. One common statement I have heard from my artistic friends have is that science removes wonder. I have never found this to be true. The more I have learned about the natural world, the more I have found there is to be asked. Answering questions increases wonder--not the opposite.
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DeleteDon't you dare ignore us. I really enjoyed your perspective.
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DeleteAlex H. writes:
ReplyDeleteFor the first question that you asked yourself, can love be quantified, I do not understand how you would be able to assign numbers to the multiple aspects of a relationship. There is no way to numerically measure the trust one has in another person or the desire one has for his or her significant other. Love should not be able to be quantified because love should always run its own path and be a personal thing. If it were quantified, the number could and would unfortunately be interpreted as either too high or too low for a relationship.
We should never treat infidelity medically. If someone chooses to cheat on his or her partner, then that relationship does not deserve to be fixed and the person who cheated should not necessarily deserve a second chance. A relationship is not healthy if one of the people in it is considering cheating. Love is a natural thing that has its ups and downs and should be dealt with individually, not with the help of science.
Hm. There are a lot of ways to approach this and I really am not sure how to best answer your question :/. But, let's suppose that we can quantify, control and administer love like a drug according to some kind of metric.
ReplyDeleteWELL, SO WHAT? If we are willing to let science take over the way our life works (driving to work in a car), change our environment, alter our genes (yay!) or even empower us through neuroscience to change the way we think, then wouldn't it be incoherent of us to let science stop at love, given that love is also a part of our lives?
Does this sound repugnant? Yes, it does. But given our use science to regulate our lives thus far, it seems to be the only logical extension of our commitment to science. (or, maybe this is because our commitment to science is bad in the first place, and ought to be rejected.)
Yet, from an entirely different angle, perhaps it would be best to take a middle way--acknowledge the ability of science to quantify love (denying this would be deliberate ignorance on our part) yet, at the same time, forbid it from ever gaining actual control over love in our own lives.
Of course, I'm not arguing that this is the right thing to do, or the moral thing. But I think that this alternative is probably the healthiest thing for all of us to do. Indeed, some believe that what makes love so special is its "boundlessness" and its mystery. In keeping love "unquantified" even when it clearly CAN be quantified, we would be preserving the mystery that we hold dear to us.
I guess what it comes down to is just a matter of self-restraint.
And, if science is a tool to improve our functioning as human beings by explaining phenomena, but our lives are best promoted when we are lost in the deep mystery of love, then perhaps it would be the purpose of science to keep love's domain of love untouched, preserved as a wonder that we do not entirely understand.
:P Actually, I like my second position more.
^ okay many many grammar mistakes above. The virtue of proofreading :P
ReplyDeleteI think that there are different types of love. There is the love you have for your family, your friends, and your partner. I would say that love cannot be quantified. Love is different for every individual and there is no way to put a generic number on that. If one was to quantify love, it would be for their own benefit, meaning very little or nothing at all to others around them. There are different ways of showing and expressing love and affection and therefore, I do not think that love can be quantified.
ReplyDeleteAs for infidelity, I do not believe that it should be treated medically. While it amazes me what science can do, I don't think that morally it would be an appropriate treatment. As HH points out, if a partner needs a pill or treatment to be faithful to their significant other, then they should not be together. The individuals should want to be together because of their own free will, not forced by scientific means.
Sarah. What if that treatment leads to a therapy for autism spectrum disorder?
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