Second Sight

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Archive for September, 2008

The Cuddle Chemical

Quentin de la Bedoyere on 25 Sep 2008

“Falling in love with love is falling in love with make believe” Lorenz Hart’s lyric is all too true. But “Falling in love is a transient phenomenon in certain regions of the brain caused by neuropeptides which bring about a strong sense of social bonding accompanied by a reduced capacity to recognise the shortcomings of the other” does not scan so well, and it would be hard to construct a suitable melody.

I hope that most of us have experienced the exquisite sensations of falling in love, and having that love reciprocated. To wake up in the morning with a sense of excited joy, to be reminded from moment to moment during the day, and to go to sleep at night with the joy to carry into dreams is indeed the stuff of poetry – for perhaps only poetry can most nearly express it. But we know that it does not last at that level. We may hope that it will develop into a deeper, permanent love which is more realistic, accepting the beloved without make believe – just as they are.

Even scientists, who have no particular reputation for romantic ardour, are interested in its biological basis. The evolutionist will tell you that the faculty for falling in love is simply a useful way of motivating the species to mate. Once that has been done adequately, and the genes transferred to the next generation, the neurochemicals reduce. Our genes have little further use for them beyond the inducement, supplemented by other mechanisms, to keep the parents together long enough to allow the young to flourish. Indeed the intoxication may be strong enough to act as a drug, inducing us to fall in love again, and perhaps again – more mating, more gene transfer; and nature wins.

The neuroscientist is able, using brain scans, to chart the areas of the brain which are affected. For example, by increasing the activity of those parts which are concerned with sociability and friendship, and reducing those which enable us to exercise our critical faculties. A key neuropeptide in this process is oxytocin (closely related to vasopressin, in the news lately), which was first identified in the early 20^th century, but whose extensive actions are now being explored with enthusiasm. For example it is known to increase erotic interest, and to be active in post-coital peace and affection. In another part of the wood there are promising results in the treatment of autism – which characteristically damages the capacity for empathy, and consequently social relations. Oxytocin increases our ability to trust others and to interpret and understand their feelings. But the difficulties of using experimental treatments on children confine therapeutic use to adults at present, although animal studies at least suggest that it may be more effective in the young.

The history of oxytocin is interesting because the name comes from the Greek “easy birth”. This indeed was its first recognised purpose, assisting for instance with uterine contractions, and subsequently in breast feeding. The activated parts of the brain are very similar to those of romantic love, but not identical. For instance in normal affectionate relationships we expect and indeed need reciprocation. But this need in the mother’s brain is inhibited. She has to continue being “in love” with her yowling, exhausting baby without expecting reciprocation. But here again the effects gradually reduce. And this is important because, after initial total dependence, a mother needs gradually to withdraw so that the baby is able to recognise and develop its own independent identity. The lack of this graded bonding shows up dramatically in babies who are confined from birth to neglectful orphanages. They tend to develop symptoms of social incompetence similar to autism.

In fact this sequence of events is a common experience for us (though I know of no studies precisely connecting these to oxytocin). For example, we might take up a new job, full of enthusiasm and savouring the opportunities and stimulus. But after a while in the job we begin to discover that it’s not quite like that – the rewards are not so great and we see the shortcomings. We then have to decide whether it is “good enough” or not. And compulsive shoppers for tempting items will go through a similar sequence.

So with marriage. We fall in love, and immediately our brain begins to reduce our critical faculties just in case we notice or take account of the flaws which might stop the process. It’s the pink spectacles of oxytocin. We marry and begin the real experience of relationship. As the oxytocin reduces so we gradually realise that the beloved is not perfect and that married life is not unmitigated bliss. Even in marriages which last up to six or seven years before divorce, the fundamental problems can often be traced back to the earliest years. But we hope that in most cases the adjustment to a soundly based and accepting love will take place, and that we find the marriage to be “good enough”.

It may be unromantic to identify the joy of being in love with the presence of chemicals. But I think it to be useful too. It puts a proper emphasis on holding back on impulse and looking beyond this phase. The qualities necessary for marriage are the same qualities necessary for lasting friendship: a sharing of deep values, common though not always identical interests, the ability for the friendship to evolve through periods of change. If we put on one side the current clamour about early sex education and help children to learn how to make and sustain good friendships, we will have set them well on the way.

So what do you think? Perhaps our scientists in biology or psychology have something to add. Does my description accord with peoples’ personal experience? Might a newly ordained priest go through a sequence of feeling elevated, then realising that it’s tougher than he thought, and finally, we hope, coming to terms with the demands of the priestly life?

de la Bédoyère’s Maxims No 10

Quentin de la Bedoyere on 18 Sep 2008

1 It may be a great benefit to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. The specialist bores one very deep hole, the generalist knows how the holes relate to each other. Which is why so many discoveries are made by men of breadth, and few by men of depth.

2 Education increases the ability of competent people; in incompetent people it removes what native wit they had and replaces it with second hand notions.

3 If we lived our life in accordance with the evidence and the probabilities it would be very different. And very dull

4 To change a man’s mind from white to black it is only necessary to interpose enough shades of grey.

5 We are not flattered by compliments about qualities we know we possess, only about those we hope we possess.

Is God just the “Big Bang”?

Quentin de la Bedoyere on 11 Sep 2008

Whichever may be the current seven wonders of the world, there is now a new entrant. The Large Hadron Collider, built by the Cern laboratory at Geneva, was scheduled to start operations on 10 September. Potentially it could change our whole picture of the universe and take us right into the heart of what happened at the Big Bang.

The LHC is a particle accelerator, a 27 kilometre ring, designed to bring about collisions by protons travelling near to the speed of light. Such collisions will yield particles, or traces of particles, some of which have been foreseen but never seen, and perhaps others of whose existence we presently have no clue. The premier quest is for the Higgs boson, sometimes called the “God Particle”. The Higgs boson should explain how the basic building blocks of matter acquire mass. The LHC is an extraordinary feat of engineering and science: in itself a tribute to the massive potential of the human brain. If its initial runs have not started a chain reaction which destroys the universe (not impossible) we must still expect months and years of work before solid results can be analysed and established.

The phrase “God particle” makes us think. Do we, or others, suspect that one day we will know of a universe which does not require the creative hand of God? Some may remember Yuri Gagarin’s return from the first manned space flight in 1961, which apparently proved that there was no Heaven since he had failed to find it. But we may take some consolation from the fact that the proponent of the Big Bang theory, in the teeth of scientific orthodoxy, was Georges Lemaître, a Belgian Catholic priest.

Another wonder of the world, intellectual rather than monumental, is the Darwinian theory of evolution. There seems to be little doubt that it provides the spine of our understanding how living matter and the different species came about. Of course there are missing links because of lack of fossil record, but the number of these reduce, as new discoveries are made.

Meanwhile our recent ability to chart the genome of different organisms has provided much new evidence to support the theory. Its mechanisms are considerably more complex than Darwin thought, or as the popular mind understands it. The ways in which the genes interact are difficult to unravel, and we are really only on the threshold of exploring the gene modifiers, which can make identical genes behave in dissimilar ways. Scientists are beginning to understand the part that viruses (effectively little roaming packets of genetic material) play in the process, and there are credible theories about how they may have brought about the initial formation of cellular life. All this has led many to infer that our own species is no more than an outcrop of the higher apes, and that human intelligence and faculties are just the latest – but not necessarily the last – stage of the basic evolutionary process. God has become a surplus hypothesis.

No less startling is our growing understanding of the brain, which has been much facilitated by new methods of scanning its operation. Our temperaments, our tendencies, our emotions, our perceptions, our decisions are all being charted in the different and connected functions of the brain. It would seem that all we call human – from freedom of the will to our aspirations towards the true and the good – are no more than the outcome of synapses firing at the behest of this vastly complicated organ fashioned by evolution. And what we have not yet charted we will chart at an accelerating pace in the future. Is God part of the picture?

To which of course the answer must be: no.

Think of the relationship between a picture and its artist. In the picture the artist expresses himself in many ways. But he remains outside it, or perhaps we could say that he transcends it. If the characters in the picture could, in our fancy, observe and think, they might glean some limited ideas about the artist. They could even discern some simple facts about him: that he must exist or they would not exist might be such a fact; that he has a sense of colour and harmony might be another. But although the conclusions may be true they are crude and indirect – the true nature of the artist can never be understood by the characters which he has created.

You can see where this analogy is going. We are the characters whom God has painted, and we can no more see God in his divine nature than the characters can see the human nature of the artist. Of course the analogy is not complete because God has communicated with his characters through Revelation, and most particularly through the Incarnation. But there are still limits. When Jesus says to Philip, “He who has seen me has seen the father”, Philip cannot see the divine nature directly. What he can see is the fullest image of the divine nature that is accessible to man, through the person of Jesus.

So we delight in the work of the Hadron Collider because it will tell us more about how the divine artist painted his picture. We welcome the deeper understanding of evolution, and the construction of the mind – wondering at the ingenuity and economy of the process of creation. But most of all we are aware of a privilege never given to the character in a painting: we are offered a reciprocal relationship with the artist who created us. Today we see him darkly: one day it will be face to face.

I wonder whether Secondsight readers find this analogy helpful. Analogies are always limited, and you may be able to think of a better one. Sceptics think that we believe that God is just the ultimate superhuman, and part of the universe. Does the way we speak of God contribute to this misunderstanding? And it may be that our scientifically trained readers can contribute more information to this topic.

de la Bédoyère’s Maxims No 9

Quentin de la Bedoyere on 04 Sep 2008

We cannot judge a man’s virtues since we do not know his starting point. And the best we can do with our own is to make a crude judgment about whether we are progressing or regressing.

Optimism is a survival strategy for the human race.

It is only the deeply depressed who can see the world as it really is. Recovery is a process of reconstructing the fictions which make life bearable.

The depressed do not kill themselves at the deepest point of despair; the time of greatest danger is when they have recovered enough confidence to know that their terrors were justified..

A shared exploration of the relationship between science and faith

Archive for September, 2008

The Cuddle Chemical

de la Bédoyère’s Maxims No 10

Is God just the “Big Bang”?

de la Bédoyère’s Maxims No 9

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