yoyolll
Conspiracy Theorist
Quite a long time ago, we had debates on this site as to what "love" is, be it completely chemical or something more. Much of what I saw here amused me and actually inspired me to write this essay for school. It is not about whether love is chemical, it is about the difficulty people have believing it. I decided since this website inspired me, I might as well share the essay with it.
Through my experiences in high school and my earlier life, I’ve come upon the realization that there are a great many people that see themselves (and, inadvertently, the entire human race) as more than they are. As a mere organization of cells and one of the many species inhabiting the planet, we are no more than organized neutrons, protons, and electrons. Our thoughts and feelings, created by reactions occurring between said particles, as well as our education from infanthood, has led us to believe that, as a race, we are superior and more than just chemicals. After feeling emotions such as anger, sadness, love, or attachment, many people tend to fall under the impression that they are more than chemicals because chemicals could, in no way, cause such feeling.
Those people couldn’t be more wrong. Anger is caused by serotonin, sadness is caused by a lack of dopamine, love is caused by norepinephrine and oxytocin, and attachment is caused by vasopressin. After researching these chemicals and their effects on the mind, I shared my information with many of my friends. Unfortunately, most of them denied it even though all the evidence was present. A common response was: “There’s no way we’re just chemical, that’s just stupid”. This seemed a rather foolish belief to me, after conducting so much research on the very opposite viewpoint.
I found that people have a very hard time coping with this mainly because it dismantles other commonly held beliefs. For example, if we are all chemical, then we are no different than a household cat, only more evolved. It is not easy to accept that our most prominent feelings are so primitive and simple. How could they be? “Simple” is the farthest thing from falling in love or raising a family. However, a husband-wife style love is also present in the prairie vole, a common rodent. Prairie voles maintain their relationship with their mates and raise their offspring due to oxytocin and vasopressin released into their nervous system. These rodents care for their offspring much like humans do, spending free time with them, seemingly out of “love”.
This act is much more accurately described as being done out of “care”. Humans and prairie voles both care for their offspring to increase their own fitness (fitness is defined in biology as the capability of a certain individual to reproduce and pass their genes to the next generation. This act comes from a cellular level of evolution). By spending time with and educating their offspring, both species produce a generation more likely to pass their genes on than their parents were.
Try to explain this to the average person and he or she will likely laugh at the idea of caring for his or her children at the same level of a rodent. People are often more than just skeptical; they outright refuse to believe some things because they cannot accept that they are actually nothing more than chemicals. I believe this to be an evolutionarily prominent trait of humans, seeing as it allows us to achieve dominance in the food chain as well as modern marvels like massive sprawling cities and societies. This self imposed dominance is fueled by nothing but ego and the assumption that we are more than chemicals and more than the other beings we share our planet with.
It seems that this trait can only increase with constant education implying more and more that we are “something else” in this world of giant roaming elephants and creatures in the air soaring higher than the clouds. As the intelligence of this race continues to evolve past that of our fellow pets and the inhabitants of our backyards, so will it’s ego and, before it either destroys us or dissipates when our intelligence achieves it’s physical threshold, our marvels will increase with it.
The belief that we are more than what we are, even on the individual level, has actually allowed us to progress forth in our fitness and therefore cannot be easily disassembled. Perhaps the reason people seem to think they are more than they are is evolutionary. As strong as an argument may be, all our thoughts that occur unanimously at every moment convince us otherwise: that we are not just chemicals.
A claim such as this, therefore, as well supported as it may be, may only be viable to certain people. It is all but impossible to persuade a general populace of something that seems to them as foolish as when a person tells me “There’s no way we’re just chemical, that’s just stupid”. In this way, I can completely understand how one can deny hard evidence and continue with their solely emotion based beliefs. Just as one may not believe something bizarre without seeing it, people may not accept their purely chemical make up when they clearly feel something more deep within their minds.
Through my experiences in high school and my earlier life, I’ve come upon the realization that there are a great many people that see themselves (and, inadvertently, the entire human race) as more than they are. As a mere organization of cells and one of the many species inhabiting the planet, we are no more than organized neutrons, protons, and electrons. Our thoughts and feelings, created by reactions occurring between said particles, as well as our education from infanthood, has led us to believe that, as a race, we are superior and more than just chemicals. After feeling emotions such as anger, sadness, love, or attachment, many people tend to fall under the impression that they are more than chemicals because chemicals could, in no way, cause such feeling.
Those people couldn’t be more wrong. Anger is caused by serotonin, sadness is caused by a lack of dopamine, love is caused by norepinephrine and oxytocin, and attachment is caused by vasopressin. After researching these chemicals and their effects on the mind, I shared my information with many of my friends. Unfortunately, most of them denied it even though all the evidence was present. A common response was: “There’s no way we’re just chemical, that’s just stupid”. This seemed a rather foolish belief to me, after conducting so much research on the very opposite viewpoint.
I found that people have a very hard time coping with this mainly because it dismantles other commonly held beliefs. For example, if we are all chemical, then we are no different than a household cat, only more evolved. It is not easy to accept that our most prominent feelings are so primitive and simple. How could they be? “Simple” is the farthest thing from falling in love or raising a family. However, a husband-wife style love is also present in the prairie vole, a common rodent. Prairie voles maintain their relationship with their mates and raise their offspring due to oxytocin and vasopressin released into their nervous system. These rodents care for their offspring much like humans do, spending free time with them, seemingly out of “love”.
This act is much more accurately described as being done out of “care”. Humans and prairie voles both care for their offspring to increase their own fitness (fitness is defined in biology as the capability of a certain individual to reproduce and pass their genes to the next generation. This act comes from a cellular level of evolution). By spending time with and educating their offspring, both species produce a generation more likely to pass their genes on than their parents were.
Try to explain this to the average person and he or she will likely laugh at the idea of caring for his or her children at the same level of a rodent. People are often more than just skeptical; they outright refuse to believe some things because they cannot accept that they are actually nothing more than chemicals. I believe this to be an evolutionarily prominent trait of humans, seeing as it allows us to achieve dominance in the food chain as well as modern marvels like massive sprawling cities and societies. This self imposed dominance is fueled by nothing but ego and the assumption that we are more than chemicals and more than the other beings we share our planet with.
It seems that this trait can only increase with constant education implying more and more that we are “something else” in this world of giant roaming elephants and creatures in the air soaring higher than the clouds. As the intelligence of this race continues to evolve past that of our fellow pets and the inhabitants of our backyards, so will it’s ego and, before it either destroys us or dissipates when our intelligence achieves it’s physical threshold, our marvels will increase with it.
The belief that we are more than what we are, even on the individual level, has actually allowed us to progress forth in our fitness and therefore cannot be easily disassembled. Perhaps the reason people seem to think they are more than they are is evolutionary. As strong as an argument may be, all our thoughts that occur unanimously at every moment convince us otherwise: that we are not just chemicals.
A claim such as this, therefore, as well supported as it may be, may only be viable to certain people. It is all but impossible to persuade a general populace of something that seems to them as foolish as when a person tells me “There’s no way we’re just chemical, that’s just stupid”. In this way, I can completely understand how one can deny hard evidence and continue with their solely emotion based beliefs. Just as one may not believe something bizarre without seeing it, people may not accept their purely chemical make up when they clearly feel something more deep within their minds.
