What is love chemically? How can we define love with regard to the chemical processes concurrent with it?

What happens chemically when we fall in love? What are the chemical instigators and/or results of love particularly in brain and generally in body? What are the neuro-biological changes caused by love? Is love the result or the cause of such effects? Is there a satisfactory scientific answer to this "chicken or egg the first" kind of dilemma? Can we master the processes caused by love or are we helpless against them? I have fallen in love recently and there are incredible changes in my sleep cycle and many other biological rhythyms.Are we the unsuspecting victims of evolution/nature when we fall in love or do we consciously choose to fall in love? Are we the masters or the puppets?

What is love chemically? How can we define love with regard to the chemical processes concurrent with it?
Um... the answer is "yes." Love is not 100% under our control, but neither is it completely out of our control. It isn't completely biological, nor is it all in our heads. It has to start off as a purely emotional, internal thing -- you meet or see someone and experience an attraction to that person. Generally, if it's just a physical attraction (i.e. you haven't gotten to know them very well yet, but you like how they look), it's a situation in which your hormone levels support the attraction that you feel in your brain. As your attraction grows, it initiates a cascade of events in your body, including increased sexual hormonal levels, secretion of serotonin and possibly acetylcholine (arguments for and against that one), which affects both mood and behavior, assertiveness or aggression, as well as physiological effects. It's all geared toward preparing the body to attract a mate, back when the whole courtship thing lasted about fifteen minutes.





That being said, while your body says "go," your mind can still say "no." Ultimately, you are still in control, if you choose to be. While you may not be able to do anything about the sleeplessness for a while, you make the conscious choice to do something about your feelings or to do nothing. If you've fallen in love with someone inappropriate or inaccessible (married, say, or in a professional position like your doctor), you can act normal and try to occupy your thoughts with other things. Eventually, you'll meet someone else to fall in love with, and the feelings for the first person will fade. Conversely, you can consciously choose to plunge into love headfirst and enjoy the experience, but you don't want to be ruled by it.
Reply:its not really under all our control i no this kid tat liked this girl but didn't wanna like her but he did for some odd reason and it was really creepy
Reply:There is no contradiction between conscious decisions and evolution. Consciousness evolved just like other functions of the nervous system.





But I think most would say that it's very difficult to control ones own reactions on romantic love, and impossible to control the emotions themselves.





Are we masters or puppets? I would say masters, but that's more a semantic thing than a psychological one. My point is that your emotions are part of you. Would a judge accept the excuse "it wasn't me, it was my brain that made me do it?". Emotions are just an integral part of your identity as is your consciousness. And without emotions, you would be a zombie. I think a human without consciousness would have a better chance of survival than one without emotions. But this is something I can't easily prove :)