Dian asked:

Someone there gave a great definition of "love" based on chemistry..I'd like to ask why all these
unconscious chemical processes of the brain are initiated in association with one particular person.
Can we stop them, how? Should we? It's Valentine's day, why spoil it for romantic daydreamers who
need to believe in..Cupid?!

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The definition you were given based on chemistry and brain processes made no distinction between
love for family and sexual love. Yet there must be different physical causes for each because the
effect is different. I agree that the scientific answer doesn't seem adequate and, as you point out, it
contains no explanation of why one person rather another becomes the object of love. However, we
love a variety of people so no account would be able to bear upon the reasons why we love one
particular person.

Since you mention romance and Valentine's day, you are probably interested in sexual love, and
perhaps you want an ordinary common sense, or factual and non-scientific, answer. As you know,
even at a non-scientific level, we speak of "chemistry". A chemical interaction involves two elements.
If you have feelings for someone who has no interest in you, there is no chemistry so this would be
infatuation rather than love.

Sexual love is reciprocal and there must be a chemical or physical element which causes mutual
attraction at the conscious level. There must be an element beyond the merely physical, some
psychic attraction, to distinguish love from lust.

Being "in love" may be seen as functional insofar as it leads, if it is successful in its outcome, to a
deeper loving relationship involving exceptional knowledge of each other. More might be said about
this, but all relationships are different since all individuals are.

You can experience sexual chemistry with many people, so there is the possibility of falling in love
with a variety of people. You can be in love with two people at the same time. These are the facts and
unfortunately this approach is beginning to look no more romantic than the previous answer you were
given.

Where there is sexual chemistry, you can only stop it by not seeing the person, otherwise the feeling
may become more intense.

If you have moved beyond being "in love" to a deeper loving relationship, you can't stop loving by
simply not seeing the person. Only something which changes the relationship, such as a violation of
trust, will allow you to stop loving.

Why should want to stop anyway? Even if its only infatuation, its fun. There is no "should" about it. Its
not a moral issue unless you're annoying someone or you're becoming obsessed to your own
detriment.

Rachel Browne

Doesn't the chemical definition explain why it is that love is for one particular person? The
vasopressin-like chemicals involved strongly enhance the laying down of memory, so that the image
of the loved one becomes stronger than other mental images. And no, you can't stop it. The only cure
for love is; another love.

When I gave the chemical explanation of love, I was (teasingly) addressing only one aspect. But that
won't do as an answer, will it? I had presented a type of what is called 'category error', where the
information expected to be applicable to one area of understanding is presented as relevant to a
different area. Have a look at these passages...

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say
unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Matthew6:28

Herb of the genus Lilium, family Liliaceae (Linaeus), most with showy, trumpet-shaped flowers
growing from bulbs. Family includes hyacinths, tulips, asparagus, and plants of the genus
onion.
Hutchinson Encyclopedia

Perhaps the most gorgeous of all bulbs hardy in the British Isles. It likes a warm position to give of its
best and a position, say, at the foot of a south-facing wall is recommended. In the wild it blooms
exceptionally well after fire but we would not suggest attempting the method here! Expect some
breathtaking seedlings!
Chiltern Seeds

Leaves broadly lenceolate, parallel-veined with entire margins. Eight to twelve stalked
bell-flowers with six stamens. Rhizome cylindrical, slender, internodes bearing slender
rootlets.
Potters Cyclopedia of Botanical Drugs

Source of cardioactive glycosides; the cardenolides convallotoxin, convaloside, glycosides of
bipindogenin, sarmentosigenin-A. Contains convallamaroside, which has antifungal and antibiotic
activity but the effect is not therapeutically useful since it forms a complex body with cholesterol.
(Ibid.)

These are all responses to the question "what are lilies?" But these answers, from religious allegory,
botany, horticulture, morphology and pharmacology, are very different. So which is the right one? If,
at a formal botany lecture, you asked the professor of botany "what is a rose?" and they replied "That
which never blows so red / but where some buried Caesar bled", you wouldn't be inclined to take
them seriously as a botanist, would you? You would have asked a question in the 'botany' category
and got an answer from the 'poetry' category. And even if we put all answers together, would it ever
be as real as experiencing the flower?

So which is the real answer to "What is love?". It could be the answer from psychology, or from
poetry, or anthropology, or music, or emotion, or, indeed from chemistry. Love is all these. Each of
these areas of understanding constitute knowledge, but not even all of them together could be said to
make up a certainty. I gave the answer from chemistry for a particular reason...

Surely, knowing more about the chemistry doesn't make the magic any less. Doesn't it rather add an
extra layer to the majesty and the mystery? If I know that the cinema film is frames of silver salts
running through a projector, does that make the story any less fascinating? If I know that water is
di-hydrogen oxide, does that make the waterfall any the less glorious? Doesn't it add to the wonder,
to know that this awesome torrent is made from an agglomerate of gases which, under other
circumstances, would be dangerously explosive? This awe at our place in a structure completely
personal and at the same time so completely beyond us is, perhaps, one of the many elements of
humanity and one of the main elements of love.

Love can tell and love alone,
Whence the million stars are strewn,
Why each atom knows its own. (Robert Bridges "My Delight")

There is a beautiful essay by that old romantic Jacob Bronowski called Knowledge or Certainty(do
look it up on the web, there's lots), which may well explain things better. As he puts it: "There is no
absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door
to tragedy. All information is imperfect, we have to treat it with humility...We have to touch people."

Glyn Hughes