
One of my all-time favorite books is “A General Theory of Love
” by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini and Richard Lannon. It’s one of those paradigm-shifting arguments, the kind that forever alters your perception of the world. That’s not hyperbole for me. I really love this book. I found it in grad school while studying for a seminar on evolutionary political cognition (an unrelated yet fascinating topic I might write about later). My wife read it, too, and had the same reaction. In fact, we liked the book so much we incorporated passages of it into our wedding ceremony.
Believe it or not, it’s not an overly romantic book, as the title might suggest. The authors are three MDs, so their findings are research-based and representative of cutting-edge findings in the field of cognitive sciences. The “general theory” builds from the cognitive phenomena that allow us to feel and emote, demonstrating that we’re not as far removed from the other mammals on earth as we like to believe, and we have not conquered our passions and need for socialization as much as our cultural narrative assumes.
Central to our being is the hypothalamus, the area of the brain responsible for our emotions, connection and socialization. It is above – both literally and figuratively – the reptilian brain, which regulates our basic survival mechanisms like heartbeat, breathing and fight or flight responses. It also sits below our neocortex, the area associated with pattern recognition, speech, language, and most of our higher cognitive processing abilities that make us human. All mammals have some version of a hypothalamus – without it, female elephants wouldn’t protect their children or the children of their relatives, bats wouldn’t punish other bats who don’t share the food they’ve gathered, wolves wouldn’t hunt in packs, and male gorillas wouldn’t assert their dominance. Humans do all of this, too, but the main thing that differentiates us from other mammals is we can identify and describe these behaviors (like I’m doing right now) as well as regulate and mandate different behaviors.The thalamus lets us connect with other beings, and lets us act in a way that benefits the collective, sometimes even at the expense of the individual.
So knowing this, then, what is love?
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