Što je ljubav? - part 1

"Časna ljubavna veza, ona u kojoj dvoje ljudi imaju pravo upotrebljavati riječ "ljubav" je proces, delikatan, nasilan, često zastrašujuć objema osobama koje su uključene, proces redefiniranja istina koje jedno može reći drugome.

Važno je činiti ovo jer se na taj način prekida samo-iluzija i izolacija.

Važno je činiti ovo jer smo na taj način pravedni prema vlastitoj kompleksnosti.

Važno je činiti ovo je možemo računati na tako malo ljudi da će otići tako daleko s nama.", rekla je  američka pjesnikinja Adrienne Rich.

Oscar Wilde je pak rekao kako zaljubiti se podrazumijeva trijumf nade nad poznavanjem sebe. Zaljubljujemo se u nadi da u drugome nećemo naći  ono što znamo da je u nama, sav kukavičluk, slabost, lijenost, neiskrenost, kompromis i glupost. Bacamo kordon ljubavi prema izabranoj osobi i odlučujemo da sve što ta osoba jest, jest ono što je slobodno od svih mana.  Samim time ona je voljiva. U njoj/njemu lociramo savršenstvo koje nemamo u sebi, a kroz uniju, zajednicu i dalje se nadamo da će naša vjera u ljudsku vrstu opstati.  

Toliko puta opjevana u pjesmi, opisana u romanu i naslikana na platnu, definirana čak i od strane znanstvenika, ljubav je od kad postoji čovjek, centralna tema čovjekova promišljanja. Što je to u njoj da je umjetnici, kao ljudi izraženog senzibiliteta i imaginacije, imaju potrebe obrađivati u takvoj mjeri? Mogu li znanstvenici uopće opisati nešto tako apstraktno i amorfno kao što je ljubav? I što ljubav uopće jest? Odakle ona dolazi, kako radi i što znači za ljude?

Hipokrat je još davne 450. godine prije Krista govorio kako emocije dolaze iz mozga. No, sljedećih nekoliko tisuća godina znanost nije mogla ponuditi  detalje emotivnog života, dakle što ljubav zaista jest pa je stoga pitanje ljubavi uvijek nekako najviše bilo vezano za umjetnost.

Danas znanost o ljubavi zna ipak nešto više pa tako biologijska antropologinja Helen Fisher u svom djelu "Zašto volimo: Priroda i kemija romantične ljubavi" (Why We Love: The nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love),  govori o spoju neurokemije i bajke, o spoju hormona i neurotransmitera koji nas dovode do toga da osjećamo emocije koje osjećamo te pričica koje si pričamo o tim emocijama.

Fisher objašnjava kako postoje tri komponente ljubavi od kojih svaka uključuje drugačiji, ali povezan dio mozga:

1. Požuda – vođena androgenom i estrogenom to je čežnja za seksualnim  zadovoljenjem  

2. Privlačenje – karakterizira ga visoka razina dopamina i noradrenalina te niska razina serotonina

Privlačenje ide od euforije, kada su stvari super do groznih promjena raspoloženja kada stvar nisu OK. Prate ga fokusirana pozornost, opsesivno razmišljanje i intenzivna čežnja za pojedincem.

3.  Privrženost – njom zapovijedaju hormoni oksitocin i vazopresin te se povezuje s osjećajem smirenosti, mira i stabilnosti koje osoba osjeća s dugogodišnjim partnerom.

Joe Hanson ide još dalje sa svojom studijom "OK je biti pametan" (It’s Okay To Be Smart) te objašnjava kako nas potraga za izvanzemaljskim životom može naučiti koju o izgledima za pronalazak te romanticizirane srodne duše, putem korištenja Fermijevog paradoksa, Drakeove jednadžbe i lekcija o ljubavi Carla Sagana koji je svojim životom i radom dokazao da zna koju o mudrosti srca.  

Fermijev paradoks koji je dobio ime prema fizičaru Enricu Fermiu podrazumijeva očitu kontradikciju između visokih očekivanja i vjerojatnosti postojanja izanzemaljske civilizacije te nedostatka ljudskog kontakta s istim ili dokaza da takve civilizacije zaista postoje.

Taj paradoks počiva na sljedećim pretpostavkama:

Sunce je tipična zvijezda i relativno mlada. Postoje milijarde zvijezda u galaksiji koje su milijarde godina starije. Gotovo sigurno neke od ovih zvijezda će pored sebe imati planete nalik Zemlji. Pretpostavljajući da je Zemlja tipičan planet, neki od ovih planeta bi mogli razviti inteligentan život. Neke od ovih civilizacija bi mogle razviti međuzvjezdano putovanje, tehnologiju koju Zemljani još uvijek istražuju. Čak i sporim tempom trenutačno zamišljenog međuzvjezdanog putovanja, galaksija bi mogla biti potpuno kolonizirana u nekoliko desetaka milijuna godina.

Drakeova jednadžba je jednadžba koja daje procjenu broja civilizacija u našoj galaksiji koje su sposobne i voljne komunicirati sa Zemljanima. Osmislio ju je američki astronom Frank Drake sa Sveučilišta Cornell.

Što se tiče Carla Sagana priča ide ovako:

Dvije svemirske letjelice su 1977. napustile Zemlju – Voyager 1 i 2. Misija im je bila istražiti same rubove našeg Sunčevog sustava.

Osim niza znanstvenih instrumenata te ostalih stvari vezanih uz sam rad letjelice, oba Voyagera prenosila su i zlatnu ploču s porukom za bilo koga tko nabasa na nju. Odbor predvođen slavnim znanstvenikom Carlom Saganom pomogao je NASA-i smisliti kako bi poruka koju će svemirske letjelice nositi izgledati i što bi trebale sadržavati.

Voyagerove zlatne ploče su zapravo gramofonske ploče napravljene od pozlaćenog bakra pohranjene u aluminijski omot. Na koricama zlatne 'longplejke' nalaze se slikovni dijagrami koji opisuju gdje se nalazi Zemlja, kojom brzinom se treba vrtjeti ploča i kako shvatiti što sadržava.

U cijelu priču nekoliko je godina nakon uskočila filmašica Penny Lane koja je snimila kratak film The Voyagers, remiksirajući snimke dostupne javnosti i koristeći priču o međuzvjezdanom putovanju i Voyagerovim zlatnim pločama kako bi ispričala još veću i ljepšu priču, priču o ljubavi i daru šanse. Lane Saganove zlatne ploče, projekt koji je Sagan napravio sa svojom dugogodišnjom suradnicom i životnom partnericom koja je ujedno bila i kreativna direktorica cijelog Golden Record projekta, preuzima kao simbol sićušne šanse da bi u nekom dalekom vremenu i mjestu mogli ostvariti neki kontakt s nekim.  

"Nekoliko tisuća milijardi godina je jako dug period. Nitko ne može znati što će se dogoditi. Zašto ne pokušati? Zašto ne posegnuti za nečim nevjerojatnim? Ne postoji način da se spriječi ono što ne možemo dokučiti, ne postoji način da pogodimo od koje patnje se nastojimo zaštiti. Morati znati da kako bi voljeli moramo riskirati sve, moramo se otvoriti kontaktu, čak i s mogućnošću katastrofe.", poručuje ovaj filmić.

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What is love? - part 1 

An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.

It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.

It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.

It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us., said poet Adrienne Rich.

Oscar Wilde said that to fall into love involves the triumph of hope over self-knowledge. We fall in love hoping that we will not find in the other what we know is in ourselves – all the cowardice, weakness, laziness, dishonesty, compromise and brute stupidity. We throw a cordon of love around the chosen one, and decide that everything that lies within it will somehow be free of our faults and hence lovable. We locate inside another a perfection that eludes us within ourselves, and through union with the beloved, hope somehow to maintain [against evidence of all self-knowledge] a precarious faith in the species.

So many times celebrated in a song, described in a novel, and painted on canvas, defined even by scientists, love is, since there is man, the central theme of man's thinking. What is it about love that artists, as people of expressed sensibility and imagination, have a need to process to such an extent? Can scientists even describe something so abstract and amorphous as love? And what is love? Where does it come from, how does it work and what does it mean to people?

Hippocrates, as far back as 450. BC, was saying that emotions come from the brain. But in the next few thousand years, science couldn't provide details of the emotional life, that is what love really is and therefore the question of love was somehow mostly related to art.

Today, science knows a little bit more about love, so biological anthropologist Helen Fisher in her book "Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love" talks about the combination of neurochemistry and fairy tales, the combination of hormones and neurotransmitters which cause us to feel the emotions we feel and the stories that we tell ourselves about these emotions.

Fisher explains that there are three components of love, each of which includes a different but related area of  the brain:

1. Lust – driven by androgen and estrogen it is the longing for sexual gratification

2. Attraction - is characterized by high levels of dopamine and norepinephrine and low levels of serotonin

Attraction goes from euphoria when things are great to terrible mood swings when things are not OK. It is followed by focused attention, obsessive thinking, and intense longing for the loved one.

3. Attachment – is commanded by hormones oxytocin and vasopressin, and is associated with a sense of calm, peace and stability that one feels with a longtime partner.

Joe Hanson goes even further with his studies "It's OK to be smart" and explains how the search for extraterrestrial life can teach us about the prospects for finding that romanticized soulmate, through the use of the Fermi paradox, Drake equation and lessons of love from Carl Sagan, who with his life and work has demonstrated that he knows a few thing about the wisdom of the heart.

The Fermi paradox is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and humanity's lack of contact with, or evidence for, such civilizations. The basic points of the argument, made by physicists Enrico Fermi are:

The Sun is a typical star, and relatively young. There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are billions of years older.

Almost surely, some of these stars will have Earth-like planets. Assuming the Earth is typical, some of these planets may develop intelligent life.

Some of these civilizations may develop interstellar travel, a technology Earth is investigating even now.

Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the galaxy can be completely colonized in a few tens of millions of years.

The Drake equation is a probabilistic argument used to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations. The equation was written in 1961 by Frank Drake.

As far as Carl Sagan, the story goes like this:

In 1977, NASA launched two unmanned missions into space, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.  Attached to each Voyager is a gold-plated record, known as The Golden Record — an epic compilation of images and sounds from Earth for anybody who comes in conntact with it. The Committee headed by the famous scientist Carl Sagan helped NASA to come up with the message that will be carried by the spacecrafts, how it will look like and what it should contain.

Voyager golden records are actually vinyl records made of gilded copper stored in an aluminum wrapper. On the cover of  these gold 'playing records' are pictorial diagrams that describe where the Earth is, what the speed of  spinning the records is and how to understand what it contains.

A few years later, filmmaker Penny Lane jumped into the story who made a short film The Voyagers which is a beautiful short film made of remixed public domain footage, using the story of the legendary interstellar journey and the Golden Record to tell a bigger, beautiful story about love and the gift of chance.

Lane takes Sagan's Gold record, a project that Sagan made ​with his longtime collaborator and life partner who was also the creative director of the entire Golden Record project, as a symbol of tiny chance that at some distant time and place we can establish contact with someone.

"A thousand billion years is a really long time. Nobody can know what will happen. Why not try? Why not reach for something amazing?’ There is no way to forestall what can’t be fathomed, no way to guess what hurts we’re trying to protect ourselves from. We have to know in order to love, we have to risk everything, we have to open ourselves up to contact — even with the possibility of disaster.”, says this short film.