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The science of love: what fools these mortals be — 11 Comments

  1. Puts me in mind of a little known Sandra bullock movie called ‘Love Potion Number Nine” (good small roll by Ann Bancroft). what’s the difference between something like that and Ruffies? I mean with both of them reality sets in after the drug wears off. Where are the ethics?

    Also as I have been listening to Danny O’Keefe lately I think of songs like “Just Jones” that would have never been created without lost love – and we would all be poorer for that.

    I remember the book by Allan Watts – “the Wisdom of Insecurity”. One of the things I took away from it was that if you are never sad you will never know what it is like to be happy.

    On another note (sorry for the pun) – when we did “anything Goes” in College we did the lyric exactly as porter wrote it and you quoted but on the Sinatra recording from the 60s instead of “took even one sniff” the reference is to jazz and says “heard even one riff” – interesting comment on the times (probably couldn’t have gotten by the censors) but a clever re-write.

  2. Where pray tell, is Leonard Cohen’s observation on the topic:

    All the rocket ships are climbing through the sky
    The holy books are open wide
    The doctors working day and night
    But they’ll never ever find that cure for love
    There ain’t no drink no drug
    (Ah tell them, angels)
    There’s nothing pure enough to be a cure for love

    There Ain’t No Cure For Love – Leonard Cohen

  3. Indeed, we should take love and distill it down to some little chemical imbalances. Take all the mystery from life.

    Having the blueprints for a cathedral doesn’t make the results any less majestic.

  4. I kept waiting for the “Love Potion Number Nine” song to come about – IMO one of the songs that will most likely hold it’s appeal for quite a while (and note, being 34 I’m not one that has nostalgic feelings on it). It is a song that strikes a great balance between taking itself seriously and being totally frivolous. Not to mention that the words are just *fun* to sing (IIRC, it has been many years and the terms are from memory, the alliteration is such that we humans enjoy saying the phrases).

    As our brains are slowly more and more understood I think one of two things will come about – either we will be more and more mystified or we will find it to be algorithmically. In fact I, personally, think that we will come to understand a large portion to a high degree and there will always by some small part that makes us what we are.

    I come back to the idea of “life”, I do not think we will ever be able to understand why perfectly viable cells die and why some that are decrepit to an extreme go on living. I think we will be able to quantify how to tell if something is living to a MUCH greater extent than we do now, yet never truly know what “life” really is.

    For instance – why do some perfectly viable healthy living things just die yet something that by all our standard should die keeps on living? What is the essential thing that leaves – especially when we think about that instant where life leaves any complex living thing – we call all recognize when it happens even in life forms that are quite different from us (often we can do so better than out machines). I do not think we will ever know, I do not think we can *ever* know.

    As someone who mostly believes in in the sanctity of human lives I think it will become more mystical. As someone who sees the world as a great computer that I can manipulate (to note, I’m a software engineer) I think much will also be mechanical/algorithmically. I think that the mystical part will become both a smaller part, yet also become the more essential part that we can not duplicate or control.

    Heck, I think there is such a thing as “random” (do not talk to number theory guys if you believe this) and I think there is something of that in all of us. I think we are too complex to be simply pushed by chemicals. though they do certainly play a large part (or, rather, when we are truly pushed by them we end up addicts, degrade, and die quickly as it is only making one part of the whole so strong that the rest atrophy and we need the rest).

  5. Michael Crichton nailed this whole issue in his speech on chaos and complexity theory. Where he points out the mistaken human knee jerk assumption of linearity in a non linear world.

    The human mind may boil down to mathematics. But it is a mathematics where you can never rerun the same equation or get the same answer twice.

  6. A flop with chicks since 1956? You may want to pursue other hobbies at this time.

    I’ve found, through intense research, that alcohol is an important ingredient.

  7. great song: lyrics & 2 interpretations:

    Music: Maury Yeston
    Lyrics: Maury Yeston
    In a very unusual way
    One time I needed you
    Ina very unusual way
    You were my friend
    Maybe it lasted a day
    Maybe it lasted an hour
    But somehow it will never end
    In a very unusual way
    I think I’m in love with you
    In a very unusual way
    I want to cry
    Something inside me goes weak
    Something inside me surrenders
    And you’re the reason why, you’re the reason why You don’t know what you do to me
    You don’t have a clue
    You can’t tell what it’s like to be me looking at you
    It scares me so that I can hardly speak
    In a very unusual way
    I owe what I am to you
    Thought at times it appears I won’t stay
    How could I ever forget you
    Once you had touched my soul
    In a very unusual way
    You made me whole

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LBzC8ho5Ko&feature=related

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ39eiEzpHQ

  8. with corrections, mea culpa:

    Music & Lyrics: Maury Yeston

    UNUSUAL WAY (from the musical “Nine”)

    In a very unusual way, one time I needed you.
    In a very unusual way, you were my friend.
    Maybe it lasted a day,
    Maybe it lasted an hour,
    But somehow it will never end.

    In a very unusual way, I think I’m in love with you.
    In a very unusual way, I want to cry.
    Something inside me goes weak,
    Something inside me surrenders,
    And you’re the reason why,
    You’re the reason why.

    You don’t know what you do to me.
    You don’t have a clue.
    You can’t tell what it’s like to be me
    Looking at you.
    It scares me so that I can hardly speak.

    In a very unusual way, I owe what I am to you.
    Though at times it appears I won’t stay, I never go.
    Special to me in my life,
    Since the first day that I met you.
    How could I ever forget you
    Once you had touched my soul?

    In a very unusual way, you’ve made me whole.

  9. Brings to mind Huey Lewis and the News, “I Want A New Drug”:

    I want a new drug
    One that wont make me sick
    One that wont make me crash my car
    Or make me feel three feet thick

    I want a new drug
    One that wont hurt my head
    One that wont make my mouth too dry
    Or make my eyes too red

    One that wont make me nervous
    Wondering what to do
    One that makes me feel like I feel when I’m with you
    When I’m alone with you

    I want a new drug
    One that wont spill
    One that don’t cost too much
    Or come in a pill

    I want a new drug
    One that wont go away
    One that wont keep me up all night
    One that wont make me sleep all day

    Now what words rhyme with “vole” …

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