The thing about all this reading and researching I've been doing on that ever-elusive topic love is that it's starting to feel a bit hollow.
Something is missing.
I read it and think "Wow, this is amazing information!" and yet something inside the core of my being is nattering at me. And I'm trying not to be all Jane Austen about these things because when it comes right down to it, I will abide by the truth I seek over a false sentiment any day (in spite of the fact that I'm terribly attached to my sentiments).
The thing is, even though there have been leaps and bounds done in brain research, for the most part, they don't know a whole helluva lot. And for good reason...
Our 3-4 pound brain contains about a trillion nerve cells, each of which is connected to 10,000 or so others, for a total of roughly 10 million billion connections.
Any connection that goes askew can have a domino effect on a whole whack of other things. But what really happens in there? Can you seriously tell me, that our response to the world and others is ALL just a biological mechanism?
My big question is, (which I will address in the next post) does any of it happen outside of the brain? On a soul level? In the cosmos perhaps?
But I digress...
Most of what we have learned about the brain comes from brain injuries so freakishly severe, the person who suffered them should have died but didn't. So we get to see how different parts of the brain change certain behaviours in people because well, they're still alive to show us.
The result is behavioral and cognitive changes that let researchers better understand that this part of the brain or that part of the brain is the hotbed of certain functions.
The most famous (and probably the first to give researchers insight) is the case of Phineas Gage who in 1848 had a terrible construction accident and ended up with a pole through his frontal lobe.
Ouch.
He survived just fine, but suffered severe personality and emotional problems as a result.
Conclusion? Frontal lobe = the seat of your emotions.
Disruption to this area has the potential to cause a whole host of problems from your inability to deal with stress to unreasonable emotional reactions (your spouse forgetting the bananas you put on the grocery list does not warrant your freaking out).
There are however, not nearly enough consistencies (due probably to the gazillion synaptic connections we can't actually trace) in the damage/resulting behaviour spectrum to warrant any definitive or absolute cause and effect rules.
For example...
Through the course of my reading, I came across a most interesting case study of a man who had suffered severe short and long term memory loss due to a car accident that damaged the memory structure of his brain (though he could function in everyday life remembering how to do basic things like brushing his teeth, making a sandwich, etc.)
He couldn't for the life of him however, remember that he had been injured in an accident, and therefore couldn't remember his condition. To make matters worse, he did not recognize anyone in his life. Not short or long term acquaintances, friends, or even family members...
... except for his wife.
Even the textbook attributed this anomaly to the power of love as it was inconsistent with his other symptoms.
Alas, his wife was his only link to reality and became the one responsible for retelling him every 10-15 minutes who he was, who the people in his life were, and what had happened to him.
(And if you haven't yet seen it, the movie 50 First Dates explores such a condition).
So even though researchers have found those spots in the brain that are attributed to love and can break them down to a chemical reaction, this must be, if not a faulty concept, at the very least, terribly incomplete.
We cannot, (and never will), be able to fully explain the power of true love. Nor can we with any certainty, break it down an emotion that arises purely as an offshoot of a biological function.
I think we live within our biologies but also outside of them - neither are separate. And the sciences rarely incorporate consciousness as an integral part of our being because they can't find it.
But just because they can't find it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
And that, is worth exploring... next time...
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