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DragonFly wrote:skakos wrote:How can science explain Love?
Bonding hormones. You can read up on it.
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skakos wrote:How can science explain Love?
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neuro wrote:skakos wrote:How can science explain Love?
Are you kidding?
Do you know that when you perform an ethical act, the same neural pathway gets activated as when you manage to find a glass of water, being thirsty, or you eat chocolate, or you have sex?
If your question is how can science explain that neural circuits in the brain are so organized that pleasure is associated with being generous, caring, loving, doing something valuable, then it takes some more words, but it is not particularly difficult.
If your question is how can science explain why love is around, I believe there is no need for anything but natural selection and evolution to produce such a result.
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If science explains love, we ought to be able to engineer it at will, right?
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Ursa Minimus wrote:Now, removing my tongue from my cheek, it does seem that non-scientific methods are far more useful on the pragmatic level of seeking, finding, and holding on to love than science.
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ALF wrote:The limits of science is your own cowardice and your own stupidity.
The limits of religion is, hopefully, the same.
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DragonFly wrote:skakos wrote:How can science explain Love?
Bonding hormones. You can read up on it.
I am not a research assistant, but the internet will be happy to be.
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neuro wrote:skakos wrote:How can science explain Love?
Are you kidding?
Do you know that when you perform an ethical act, the same neural pathway gets activated as when you manage to find a glass of water, being thirsty, or you eat chocolate, or you have sex?
If your question is how can science explain that neural circuits in the brain are so organized that pleasure is associated with being generous, caring, loving, doing something valuable, then it takes some more words, but it is not particularly difficult.
If your question is how can science explain why love is around, I believe there is no need for anything but natural selection and evolution to produce such a result.
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Serpent wrote:If science explains love, we ought to be able to engineer it at will, right?
Explanation does not automatically translate into manufacture; there are several steps in between. However, some facsimile of love, joy, awe, et.c can already be induced in the human brain by chemical and/or electrical stimulation. That doesn't mean it's desirable or advisable to do so - any more than producing a supernova is a good idea, no matter how well explained the phenomenon.
Anyway, so what? We have a number of exploratory methods besides exact science: the soft sciences, art, direct physical sensation, contemplation, interpersonal communication. Each in its time, place and purpose. You can skip right over religion, as its returns diminish so very quickly.
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skakos wrote: Please show me.
, my contention being that the ability to explain something is not the ability to reprduce that something. There was no manufacture question. Anywhere. Ever. Problem?If science explains love, we ought to be able to engineer it at will, right?
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Serpent wrote:skakos wrote: Please show me.
Show you what? I replied to Ursa MinimusIf science explains love, we ought to be able to engineer it at will, right?
,my contention being that the ability to explain something is not the ability to reprduce that something. There was no manufacture question. Anywhere. Ever. Problem?
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neuro wrote:Ursa Minimus wrote:Now, removing my tongue from my cheek, it does seem that non-scientific methods are far more useful on the pragmatic level of seeking, finding, and holding on to love than science.
I thought the question was whether science can explain love!
Doing it is quite harder.
On the other hand I imagine in the States on Mondays the same thing happens with baseball or football that here in Italy happens with soccer: lots and lots of sport scientists acutely argue about yesterday's matches - and they know a lot and say a lot of sensible things, they can explain almost everything, but if you were to put them in the middle of the field, I do not believe they would achieve memorable performances.
For me, it is the same: I may talk and talk about love, I'm even quite skilled and successful at saying and writing love phrases and letters, but when it comes to building and maintaining a love relation, be it with a partner or my sons, things become much more difficult.
But that has to do with psychological traps (great theory, poor performance), I would say, rather than with the origin and explanation of love in our brain.
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skakos wrote:And I am not talking about the "mother loves her baby to save it from predators" kind of "love". I am talking about the pure genuine love humans feel.
Ursa Minimus wrote:But does love start, originate, in our brains? Always and every time? Or is there something more to it? Don't interpersonal interactions play a part? Don't cultural expectations about what love "really" is and how it is and should be expressed play a part? Attractiveness is explained by the brain in the same way as love, but fat or thin bodies as attractive or unattractive have been seen within cultures in relatively short time frames (100 years) and we still have the same brains, so there seems to be more to it than just "brain stuff".
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neuro wrote:Ursa Minimus wrote:But does love start, originate, in our brains? Always and every time? Or is there something more to it? Don't interpersonal interactions play a part? Don't cultural expectations about what love "really" is and how it is and should be expressed play a part? Attractiveness is explained by the brain in the same way as love, but fat or thin bodies as attractive or unattractive have been seen within cultures in relatively short time frames (100 years) and we still have the same brains, so there seems to be more to it than just "brain stuff".
You are right under all respects.
My point simply is you do not need all you mention to explain how love springs in us as an emotion.
You need all that to understand it, to describe it, to explain why we love or do not.
But do you mean that interpersonal interactions, cultural expectations, fashions and all that act independently of our brain, that their influence on our feeling love is not mediated by the brain?
If so, I cannot follow you.
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DragonFly wrote:When it is said that there can be chemistry between people this is true. That's the clue; your research awaits.
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neuro wrote:skakos wrote:And I am not talking about the "mother loves her baby to save it from predators" kind of "love". I am talking about the pure genuine love humans feel.
Do you mean "mother loves her baby" is not the pure genuine love humans feel?
Is the problem in love not having a scope, but rather the feeling having its explanation and scope in itself?
Is this (non-utilitarian) aspect you cannot conciliate with it originating in the brain?
'Cause I'd be glad to talk about that. It would be a more specific and clear topic.
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skakos wrote:However there are cases where love is more... "unexplained" and mysterious.
I believe that our love for other may affect the chemistry of our bodies and not the other way around.
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neuro wrote:skakos wrote:However there are cases where love is more... "unexplained" and mysterious.
I believe that our love for other may affect the chemistry of our bodies and not the other way around.
Since you put this thread in "philosophy of science" I should feel obliged to ask you to please share with us what kind of evidence or philosophical argument is supposed to support this belief of yours, rather than just expressing such belief.
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Lomax wrote:Skakos,
Otto Neurath said that science is like a ship which must rebuild itself on the open sea. The "axioms" you list may be methodological starting points, but they are not axioms. The difference is that an axiom cannot be discarded (or, to follow the analogy, "rebuilt").
Either way, your claims are false at best and incoherent at worst. There is no one formal system called "Mathematical Logic"; the Peano arithmetic, for one, uses less axioms than you numbered. Euclidean geometry is by no means an axiom, and we already know that space-time is Non-Euclidean where there's energy. Most logics these days are not bivalent, and you will find that without "Fuzzy Logic" we couldn't have Google. The point here is that science is basically instrumental and confirmation-holistic, not axiomatic, and has no need to be axiomatic.
I've noticed a self-destructive tendency for you to make throwaway claims about things which others know more about. In the presence of a neuroscientist you ask in a rhetorical manner "how does science explain love?" Elsewhere you tell us that Godel proved dialetheism; what Godel showed us is that no logic capable of Peano arithmetic can be both complete and consistent. It doesn't follow from this that there are unsolvable paradoxes. Now you list what you perceive to be "axioms" of science without backing up such dubious claims. I don't care if you want to do it, but it does thin out the credibility of your arguments.
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skakos wrote:neuro wrote:Since you put this thread in "philosophy of science" I should feel obliged to ask you to please share with us what kind of evidence or philosophical argument is supposed to support this belief of yours, rather than just expressing such belief.
What you say is implying that science (chemistry) has found the full explanation of Love, which is wrong. When I refer to love (or any other so fundamental human emotion) I understand that this somethign I feel and which is inherently connected to my conscious. I do not see how an emotion could be something "material". But I am open to suggestions.
skakos wrote:However there are cases where love is more... "unexplained" and mysterious.
I believe that our love for other may affect the chemistry of our bodies and not the other way around.
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