Love and religion in the age of neuroscience
Dawkins gets a bit upset with religion.
Mickey Craig and Jon Fennell are worried about love in the age of neuroscience.
On the surface of it, these views seem incompatible. However, I think there is room for love and faith in the age of neuroscience.
If you meet someone you like (and who might like you) about an hour after exercise, the lingering endorphins make it mean you are more likely to form a bond and fall in love.
If you meet too soon after exercise you will attribute the “buzz” not to the person you meet but to the exercise. If you meet too long after, you won’t have any more buzz.
This conjecture, which has some evidence to support it (but by no means absolute), doesn’t to me interfere with the complex process of falling in love. There are so many other elements to it.
Many of our reactions may be learnt and may be similar to animals in isolation, but behaviour in the environment generally has so many complex interactions. The parts as examined by neuroscience are not the same as the whole and I think most intuitively understand this.
The Sistine chapel is made out of lots of individual brush strokes, the complex whole makes some thing more. The leap from one to the other still takes soul.
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About me
I'm a playwright and investment analyst. I have a broad range of interests: food, gardening, innovation & intellectual property, sustainability, architecture & design, writing and the arts. I sit on the board of Talawa Theatre Company and advise a CIS investment trust on socially responsible investments.
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Recent Work
Recent plays include, for theatre: Nakamitsu, Yellow Gentlemen, Lost in Peru, Lemon Love. For radio: Places in Between (R4), Patent Breaking Life Saving (WS).
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Nakamitsu
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Yellow Gentlemen
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