Is Love a Chemical Reaction?

Quote: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin• “When you fall in love its like a temporary madness.

It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.”

Greek parts of “love”

•Eros

•Agape

•Philia

John Paul II’s parts of love

•Love as an attraction

•Love as a desire

•Love as a goodwill

If love is a chemical reaction…• Love is being reduced to one of its parts

▫Agape, Eros, Philia ▫ John Paul II said that when love is reduced only to

one of its parts that it becomes something other than love

• Then someone who does not have oxytocin is incapable of love ▫Technically Jesus was not experiencing

neurotransmitter release when he was agonizing in the garden or being scourged or crowned with thorns. He also did not have sex. To say love is a chemical reaction would mean here that he is incapable of love.

▫ Jesus is a religious example, yes, however there are plenty of examples of sacrificial love that does not come between two people who are bonded together by hormones

Thoughts…• Neurotransmitters allow us to see the effects of Eros love,

however there is no proof that this is the motivation for selfless, sacrificial deeds, especially when one is frustrated and does not have an increase in neurotransmitters when they act in a way that expresses selflessness for the betterment of another person.

• It is our ability to reason and decide to go against what we feel when we show someone how much we care when we know we won’t get a good feeling out of it (loving through hard times). The reality is that sometimes it doesn’t always feel good to do what is right.

• If the burst of neurotransmitters is really what we’re seeking, especially in love, then every affair would be seen as an act of love

• If love is not a conscious, sometimes difficult choice of the will, marriages would never last- no marriage can survive on a feeling

• The Church doesn’t disagree that there is scientific confirmation of emotions, however it sees our ability to observe science as a gift from God to confirm what he has taught us to do

Thoughts (cont.)

•Choice and Gift in and of themselves are not scientifically measurable instincts

A Beautiful Mind

•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Y_mHNgnpA