Love, Sex, and The Brain

[brynndragon]

I wanted to share a fascinating discussion on the biology of sex and love and how sex and love are changing (or not so much) given by anthropologist Helen Fisher: TEDTalks: Helen Fisher (30 min video w/sound) There were several places where I completely failed to agree with her (anyone who knows how much I bloody hate evolutionary psychology could've figured that out ;P), but overall it's worth watching.

Comments

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I've always hated the "I was born this way!" excuse for poor behavior. I want to say to them, "There are people who were also born that way who manage not to engage in whatever you're trying to get out of being responsible for (especially when you're saying *all of humanity* is like that, which incidentally I'm not sure I buy in this case since there's a good arguement that it is much more related to how our culture approaches monogamy, but I digress). Accept that you, personally, fucked up and deal with it like a fucking adult already."

[tober.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. There is a general school of thought that free will itself is illusory, and I think a lot of evolutionary psychologists (and others in related fields) at least half belong to this school of thought. For that matter, I know of no good (as in fully satisfactory to your average philosopher) proof that people really do have free will - but, that being said, if I ever start acting or talking as if I hold the conviction that I have no free will, please kick my sorry ass.