There is a seemingly magical phenomena you experience for a while when you first become romantically involved with someone. Your senses are heightened, you feel intoxicated, and you either view the other person through a filter of perfection or they too are so adrenaline pumped that they temporarily seem a more amazing person than is humanly possible. Why do our bodies do this and why do they stop doing it? How do couples build lasting love after it fades? What would it be like to have a body or lack thereof that isn't subject to it?
Biology favors reproduction, so that seems to be an easy explanation for why we have developed these reactions. What's more puzzling is pin pointing when and why they fade away. To try to make more sense of it, lets simplify things by looking at it from a tribal or animalistic perspective. Girl meets boy, bodies release torrent of hormones, conception followed by a baby, genes and couple are happy. At that point you could equally argue that their biology would encourage the same people to keep making babies, or just raise their child long enough that it had a good chance to survive.
Now lets look at a more likely scenario in the world of today. Girl meets boy, again bodies release torrent of hormones as per the usual get babies made tactic, and today's couple is also happy. Months pass... no child, a year passes... our non-celibate, but protected couple are still happy, but still nothing. What happens now? The magic starts to fade, yet is not replaced by a family bond of love that is created with a child. How and why do our bodies give up? Do they have a built in fertility detector that says, hey if a child doesn't come after x amount of time you've probably found a mate that can't spread your genes and it's time to bail. That seems like a likely trait to have evolved to me.
So where does that leave us in our new-age planet where propagating the species is no longer priority one? We've built romantic love up to be this mystical life lasting thing, but as the mechanisms of our selfish genes are revealed, it turns out that it's just a biological reproduction plan that sometimes can be made to last. As time goes on and culture has more impact on our evolution, the dynamics of intimate relationships are apt to change. If we don't fool ourselves into believing in a magical love backed by some supernatural force, we might not be so surprised and let down when it ends.
Perhaps the stigma and pain that surrounds the "break up" will fade away. We may not even see it that way at all eventually. Imagine being freed of the possessiveness and jealousy created when we get very close to someone. I assume this is another artifact of our genes wanting to make sure they are getting spread. The concept of breaking up may be non-existent as things are just measured in gradual changes of being more or less close to a friend. On one hand we will be losing one of the thrilling experiences of being human, and on the other we will be gaining the ability to be close with and share more with more people.
As each decade passes bringing greater complexity and diversity to our species, it is hard to know what the future will bring. One thing we know is, our fundamentals are changing at the accelerated rate of cultural evolution rather than biological. So our will and imagination is to drive what will come in a future that is not so far off. Maybe we should think about how we can make the most of love that is built on many years of affinity, for when the short lived thrill of carnality fades away.
Biology favors reproduction, so that seems to be an easy explanation for why we have developed these reactions. What's more puzzling is pin pointing when and why they fade away. To try to make more sense of it, lets simplify things by looking at it from a tribal or animalistic perspective. Girl meets boy, bodies release torrent of hormones, conception followed by a baby, genes and couple are happy. At that point you could equally argue that their biology would encourage the same people to keep making babies, or just raise their child long enough that it had a good chance to survive.
Now lets look at a more likely scenario in the world of today. Girl meets boy, again bodies release torrent of hormones as per the usual get babies made tactic, and today's couple is also happy. Months pass... no child, a year passes... our non-celibate, but protected couple are still happy, but still nothing. What happens now? The magic starts to fade, yet is not replaced by a family bond of love that is created with a child. How and why do our bodies give up? Do they have a built in fertility detector that says, hey if a child doesn't come after x amount of time you've probably found a mate that can't spread your genes and it's time to bail. That seems like a likely trait to have evolved to me.
So where does that leave us in our new-age planet where propagating the species is no longer priority one? We've built romantic love up to be this mystical life lasting thing, but as the mechanisms of our selfish genes are revealed, it turns out that it's just a biological reproduction plan that sometimes can be made to last. As time goes on and culture has more impact on our evolution, the dynamics of intimate relationships are apt to change. If we don't fool ourselves into believing in a magical love backed by some supernatural force, we might not be so surprised and let down when it ends.
Perhaps the stigma and pain that surrounds the "break up" will fade away. We may not even see it that way at all eventually. Imagine being freed of the possessiveness and jealousy created when we get very close to someone. I assume this is another artifact of our genes wanting to make sure they are getting spread. The concept of breaking up may be non-existent as things are just measured in gradual changes of being more or less close to a friend. On one hand we will be losing one of the thrilling experiences of being human, and on the other we will be gaining the ability to be close with and share more with more people.
As each decade passes bringing greater complexity and diversity to our species, it is hard to know what the future will bring. One thing we know is, our fundamentals are changing at the accelerated rate of cultural evolution rather than biological. So our will and imagination is to drive what will come in a future that is not so far off. Maybe we should think about how we can make the most of love that is built on many years of affinity, for when the short lived thrill of carnality fades away.
Did you ever read The Selfish Gene? This reminds me of some of the stuff that Dawkins talks about, and he has some interesting insights on the need for a male to spread seed vs. the need of a female to raise young.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I just read This is Your Brain on Music and Levitin had an interesting fact that it takes 50,000 for a trait to spread through the human species based on its desirability. That's the propogation time. So if the need to spread the species decreases we'll see that in 50k years or so. (although I don't know if that works out because how would a gene that helps you NOT to procreate pass itself along to become the standard?)
I did read The Selfish Gene, and recently. It partially inspired my post. That is interesting about the time it takes a gene to spread, Those millenia are tacked onto the time it takes for the gene manifest in the first place too.
ReplyDeleteAnother insight Dawkins gives us is that we have entered an era of a different kind of evolution ruled my memes and culture. This is what I see driving changes going forward in much shorter time frames. It's interesting how our evolving culture often finds itself at odds with these deep rooted biological traits though. Maybe a lot of the controversial changes in our recent history are examples of this new evolution superseding human nature.