Is Love Logical?

Logical thinking works by comparison, yes or no, either/or. It works without emotion. Logical thinking is the process in which one uses reasoning consistently to come to a conclusion. Love is a feeling and/or an emotion, or is it something else? Love has so many definitions but it can never really be defined. Some feelings are easy to define, I feel happy, I feel angry or sad, but when it comes to love, we say things like I’m falling in love or I am in love, or I love you but I’m not in love with you, none of which make any sense. We don’t fall in love, do we? And we’re never really in love, or are we? We feel love. And to make it even more complicated, there are many different types of love. We feel it, but we can’t define it. Give it your best shot…. Love is? Love is when? Love is how? And most definitely, we will all come up with different answers. That doesn’t sound very logical to me.

Helen Fisher, PhD of Rutgers University, explained in a lecture at the 2004 American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting, Romantic love is not an emotion. Rather, it’s "a motivation system, it’s a drive, it’s part of the reward system of the brain." It’s a need that compels the lover to seek a specific mating partner. Then the brain links this drive to all kinds of specific emotions depending on how the relationship is going. All the while, she went on to say, the prefrontal cortex is assembling data, putting information into patterns, making strategies, and monitoring the progress toward "life’s greatest prize."

Science suggests that there are measurable brain changes when a person falls in love.
So, you may be in love, but keep in mind, it may just be all in your head. Literally.
According to new research, love is not a basic emotion, as some thought, but a highly complex and businesslike process involving 12 areas of the brain working together to produce and sustain that magic moment. Some of these areas are those that are also active when people are under the influence of euphoria-inducing drugs – suggesting that falling in love may have a similar effect on the brain as using cocaine.

Psychologists have shown it takes between 90 seconds and 4 minutes to decide if you fancy someone, and research has shown this has little to do with what is said, rather, 55% is through body language, 38% is the tone and speed of their voice, and only 7% is through what they say.

Lust is the first stage of love and is driven by the sex hormones testosterone and estrogen – in both men and women.

Stage two is attraction. This is the amazing time when you are truly love-struck and can think of little else. Scientists think that three main neurotransmitters are involved in this stage; adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin. The initial stages of falling for someone activates your stress response, increasing your blood levels of adrenalin and cortisol. This has the charming effect that when you unexpectedly bump into your new love, you start to sweat, your heart races and your mouth goes dry. Dopamine stimulates ‘desire and reward’ by triggering an intense rush of pleasure. Couples often show the signs of surging dopamine: increased energy, less need for sleep or food, focused attention and exquisite delight in smallest details of this novel relationship. Serotonin is one of love's most important chemicals that may explain why when you’re falling in love, your new lover keeps popping into your thoughts. A landmark experiment in Pisa, Italy showed that early love (the attraction phase) really changes the way you think. Dr Donatella Marazziti, a psychiatrist at the University of Pisa advertised for twenty couples who'd been madly in love for less than six months. She wanted to see if the brain mechanisms that cause you to constantly think about your lover, were related to the brain mechanisms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. By analyzing blood samples from the lovers, Dr Marazitti discovered that serotonin levels of new lovers were equivalent to the low serotonin levels of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder patients. Newly smitten lovers often idealize their partner, magnifying their virtues and explaining away their flaws. New couples also exalt the relationship itself. It's very common to think they have a relationship that's closer and more special than anyone else's. Psychologists think we need this rose-tinted view. It makes us want to stay together to enter the next stage of love – attachment.

Attachment is the bond that keeps couples together long enough for them to have and raise children. Scientists think there might be two major hormones involved in this feeling of attachment; oxytocin and vasopressin. Oxytocin is a powerful hormone released by men and women during orgasm. It probably deepens the feelings of attachment and makes couples feel much closer to one another after they have had sex. The theory goes that the more sex a couple has, the deeper their bond becomes. Diane Witt, assistant professor of psychology from New York has shown that if you block the natural release of oxytocin in sheep and rats, they reject their own young. Conversely, injecting oxytocin into female rats who’ve never had sex, caused them to fawn over another female’s young, nuzzling the pups and protecting them as if they were their own. Vasopressin is another important hormone in the long-term commitment stage and is released after sex. Vasopressin (also called anti-diuretic hormone) works with your kidneys to control thirst. Its potential role in long-term relationships was discovered when scientists looked at the prairie vole. Prairie voles indulge in far more sex than is strictly necessary for the purposes of reproduction. They also – like humans - form fairly stable pair-bonds. When male prairie voles were given a drug that suppresses the effect of vasopressin, the bond with their partner deteriorated immediately as they lost their devotion and failed to protect their partner from new suitors.

When you look at all the complex brain functions that go on when we are talking about love, it would seem logical because that is how our brains were designed to work. Science suggests we're neurologically wired to look for romance. But logical means we are making a choice, so do we choose who we love? We choose to love, but yet love chooses us. So if we choose to love, can we choose to be in love? What is really the difference? Think or feel? Logic or emotion? Is it one or the other, or are we capable of combining the two pairs when love alters the way we think.

Maybe it’s just that we can’t grasp the concept. Maybe its one of those things that we were not meant to understand, and are suppose to just take on faith. Maybe love really is more than an emotion and is all designed with a greater plan. I don’t believe we choose who we fall in love with, I do however, believe that we make choices and conscience decisions about who we will continue to speak with or spend time with, and so, love can either flourish or it can just sit stagnant in the back of our minds unfulfilled, and leave us feeling a longing as if we are incomplete.




Links
http://www.youramazingbrain.org.uk/lovesex/sciencelove.htm
http://www.mcmanweb.com/love_lust.html