# How does love work? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 9, 2018, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050 "2018-04-09T03:56:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/41 "2018-04-10T01:50:41Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What a coincidence-so has God. Your point? ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/42 "2018-04-10T02:05:05Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > I’m not to sure about the unconditional love for family. Is that not based upon how they treat you? It’s like the last thread, the remark on how someone would not love their mother if she was cruel. > > BUt I’ll bite on the self bit, yet what does it mean to love someone? I have heard a myriad answers to this, but is love just feelings, actions? what does it mean when someone says it? Well I can’t comment on individual circumstances, I mean, of course there are exceptions to every rule. But suffice to say a cruel mother is much more likely to continue to be loved by those who were the victims of her cruelty than a cruel partner. The love has different requirements in each circumstance. Emotional vulnerability, trust, emotional risk, etc. are much more prominent in romantic love than familial love. And when someone says “I love you” as a partner, they mean “I love how life feels when I’m with you”. That means different things for different people, but the foundation is always the same. I think hahaha. It’s inherently selfish but it doesn’t matter if it’s a simulation or just a chemical cocktail manifestation, it’s what we experience. “I love you” as a family member, you know, I’m at a loss for words. I think that can be a complicated concept that I am currently having difficulty expressing. Let me think more about it. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/43 "2018-04-10T03:01:37Z")
Ok then, I have a follow up. Why do why love that things about someone? Well I’m not sure if it’s why or how. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/44 "2018-04-10T04:25:45Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > Ok then, I have a follow up. Why do why love that things about someone? Well I’m not sure if it’s why or how. Why love certain characteristics? I thought that was the only easy part of the question - because I do, that’s why! 😃 If you mean how did I get to be the kind of person who loves the things I love about my wife - I don’t have answers beyond general things like “genetics” and “experiences”. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/45 "2018-04-10T05:26:02Z")
Love doesn’t work. You work and your partner works to form a union, to form a family of two or more, to survive, to be happy (mostly), to prosper or at least get by. It’s hard work and sometimes it doesn’t work. But when it does its awesome (with random pitfalls and bad times). sinjin, with the same guy since 1972. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/46 "2018-04-10T10:24:38Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > But it’s a very important aspect of the whole bit on Love. Yes, you need a “you” and a “me/I” for an “I love you” to be meaningful. If you want to debate the meaning of those terms, start a different thread and have at it. For the purposes of this conversation, stick with your original question about the meaning of love. BTW, I noticed you didn’t answer my question about ever having experienced first hand the feeling called love. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/47 "2018-04-10T11:08:35Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > Ok then, I have a follow up. Why do why love that things about someone? Well I’m not sure if it’s why or how. Are you seriously now asking why we love/enjoy the sensation of feeling good about ourselves when we’re around certain people? This conversation just jumped the shark for me. Good Luck with your carefully cultivated angst! ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/48 "2018-04-10T19:07:26Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > I’m not to sure about the unconditional love for family. Is that not based upon how they treat you? It’s like the last thread, the remark on how someone would not love their mother if she was cruel. > > BUt I’ll bite on the self bit, yet what does it mean to love someone? I have heard a myriad answers to this, but is love just feelings, actions? what does it mean when someone says it? Well, I already gave my definition of love earlier: it’s when the happiness of another person is essential to your own happiness. Thus you want them to be happy, and you are happier knowing they’re happy. So, yes, it’s “just” feelings, or more specifically a way that their presence and status effects their feelings. A person can do actions due to their feelings of love and desire for the other person to be happy, but those actions are expressions of love, no the feeling of love itself. When a person seriously says “I love you” they are attempting to convey to you their feelings, so you will understand that you’re an important person to them. They may also be hoping to evoke a similar statement from you, or it could just be for your information and edification. And unconditional love for family has been recorded as being likely to spring up in a parent upon seeing their child - though I won’t say it _always_ springs up. It can also gradually develop from prolonged amicable contact, as may-or-may-not happen among family members and close friends. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/49 "2018-04-11T02:33:51Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Are you seriously now asking why we love/enjoy the sensation of feeling good about ourselves when we’re around certain people? > > This conversation just jumped the shark for me. > > Good Luck with your carefully cultivated angst! Not why like in “why bother” more like “why or how does it happen?” ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/50 "2018-04-11T12:25:05Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > How does love “work?” > > You like someone. > > You really like them. > > You really, really, really like them. > Next question? Thank you for checking in, Sally Field. For me, romantic love is magic. It just happens. When it does happen, you know it but you can’t explain it. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/51 "2018-04-11T13:21:00Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Let’s not do this. Let’s not have _that_ fucking conversation about the definition of “you” & “me”. > > If people change sufficiently, then it’s entirely possible to fall out of love. Happens all the time. Hey, you can’t spell “existentialism” without “ex”. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/52 "2018-04-11T15:07:18Z")
If you’re a physicalist, love works because we have evolved hormones that flood our body with what our brain recognizes as ‘positive’ signals when we have sex. Prior to that it’s largely hormones that tell us we want to have sex. By continually engaging in sexual activities we create a Pavlovian response so that when we see that person we get pleasurable feelings. We describe that feeling as love. Over time those hormones no longer affect us the same way and we describe that feeling as ‘falling out of love.’ Sometimes those feelings can be replaced by hormones relating to security and attachment and then we talk about ‘settling into a relationship.’ I’m not a physicalist, so I have other opinions on the matter. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/53 "2018-04-11T15:13:44Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > However the real question on my mind is how does it work exactly. Explaining love to someone who has never felt it is like explaining the color “red” to someone who has been blind from birth. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/54 "2018-04-12T18:14:27Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > Explaining love to someone who has never felt it is like explaining the color “red” to someone who has been blind from birth. Technically you cannot explain redness. I know what the color red is because I see it but if asked to explain it I could not. > **[Science Says Love Doesn't Exist](https://www.vice.com/en/article/vdbjpj/science-says-love-doesnt-exist)** > > While there's not an open debate about the existence of romantic love, I'd love to moderate one. Bill Nye would be on one side, vivisecting love. On the other side would be Zach Braff and Oprah. In regards to how love works, the article seems to give strong support for the “chemical” force that it is and not so much the feel good mysticism that society makes it out to be. The prairie voles they tested showed that by inhibiting the chemical areas that facilitated bonding you could in a sense prevent “love”. Which tends to blow a hole in the I guess metaphysical notions of it. Data says it’s chemicals that influence us outside our control and we rationalize it. The airy value we give it is something that we pretend exists. Not a welcome development and I don’t like to pretend things to be real, especially something I placed great value in all my life (probably due to societal values and then finding it to not be what I thought). I wonder if this could have been asked in the general question thread, but I am not happy that the feeling I placed so much in is just chemicals that can (if we wanted to) be influenced through science). ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/55 "2018-04-12T18:31:26Z")
I don’t like the “try to explain ‘red’ to a person born blind” example. If the blind person was reasonably intelligent and understood the concept of waves of electromagnetic radiation (most of the spectrum of which isn’t visible even to sighted persons), one could say “Well, when the wavelength is around 700 nanometers long, I can sense it, and we call that sensation ‘red’. The sensation is different when the wavelength is around 470 nanometers. We call that sensation ‘blue’. Think of the sounds you hear - you can hear something and think ‘trumpet’, and then hear something else and think ‘cat’, and even though you’re using the same sensing organ, you have no trouble telling one from the other. If you still don’t get ‘red’ and ‘blue’, try to imagine explaining ‘trumpet-sound’ (maybe you call the specific sound a ‘warble’) and ‘cat-sound’ (maybe you call the specific sound a ‘meow’) to a person born deaf. You could describe variations in sound waves and maybe they’ll get the concept, even if they have never and can never experience it directly, leaving ‘warble’ and ‘meow’ as arbitrary to them as ‘red’ and ‘blue’ are to you.” ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/56 "2018-04-12T19:00:42Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > Technically you cannot explain redness. I know what the color red is because I see it but if asked to explain it I could not. > > [Science Says Love Doesn't Exist](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vdbjpj/science-says-love-doesnt-exist) > > In regards to how love works, the article seems to give strong support for the “chemical” force that it is and not so much the feel good mysticism that society makes it out to be. The prairie voles they tested showed that by inhibiting the chemical areas that facilitated bonding you could in a sense prevent “love”. Which tends to blow a hole in the I guess metaphysical notions of it. Data says it’s chemicals that influence us outside our control and we rationalize it. The airy value we give it is something that we pretend exists. > > Not a welcome development and I don’t like to pretend things to be real, especially something I placed great value in all my life (probably due to societal values and then finding it to not be what I thought). > > I wonder if this could have been asked in the general question thread, but I am not happy that the feeling I placed so much in is just chemicals that can (if we wanted to) be influenced through science). It’s really, really weird to me that when you learn that something has a basis in physical reality you consider that to be evidence that the “something” in question is “not real”. It’s a physical thing! You can put it on a scale and it has weight! It blocks light! How could it _not_ be real? Yes, your mind is a symptom/behavior of your physical brain. That doesn’t mean that your mind isn’t real; it means your mind _is_ real. It’s the behavior of something real. And, yes, your ability to feel emotions can be impacted by the application of chemicals or a baseball bat or a steamroller, the same way that you can mess up a mechanical clock’s ability to tell time by adding chemicals or a baseball bat or a steamroller. But that doesn’t mean that the (intact) clock isn’t telling time, and it doesn’t mean that your mind and emotions aren’t real. It just means you should probably be careful about what you do with chemicals, baseball bats, and steamrollers - if you want your mind to keep working the way it’s currently working, anyway. There are people who _don’t_ like the way their minds are currently working, and for them the ability to tweak it with chemicals is a godsend. See: psychotropic drugs. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/57 "2018-04-12T19:18:36Z")
I’m not saying that love (the chemical) isn’t real and neither it’s reactions on the body. What I’m saying isn’t real is the romantic concept behind it that you hear in stories or from your friends. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/58 "2018-04-12T20:04:43Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > I’m not saying that love (the chemical) isn’t real and neither it’s reactions on the body. > > What I’m saying isn’t real is the romantic concept behind it that you hear in stories or from your friends. Is fear real? Is jealousy real? Is anger real? Is happiness real? (Ha. Look who I’m asking.) Is anhedonia/depression/anxiety real? (Better?) If those feelings are also chemical processes and real, why not love? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/59 "2018-04-12T21:18:35Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > I’m not saying that love (the chemical) isn’t real and neither it’s reactions on the body. For the record, in my opinion love clearly isn’t a single chemical. It’s part of the overall mental state, which is running on the brain like a computer program runs on the computer. It can be effected with chemicals, the same way that the computer program can be effected by things like keyboard import and hammers, but it’s not like there’s a single chemical that you can extract from a brain to make it loveless and then inject into another brain to make it love someone/everyone/everything. > [@Machinaforce](#): > > What I’m saying isn’t real is the romantic concept behind it that you hear in stories or from your friends. I don’t really understand what you mean by “romantic concept”. In the stories I hear, love is related to people’s opinions of each other. And people clearly do have opinions of each other - they recognize and remember other people and react to different people differently based on prior experience. If one accepts that people can have opinions of each other, it seems odd to deny that they could have favorable opinions of each other. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050/60 "2018-04-12T21:57:10Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Is fear real? > Is jealousy real? > Is anger real? > Is happiness real? (Ha. Look who I’m asking.) > Is anhedonia/depression/anxiety real? (Better?) > > If those feelings are also chemical processes and real, why not love? More like the story we build around it, not the emotion. It’s not something you actively do but something that you feel that isn’t in your control [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-love-work/812050.md?page=4)