Are You a ‘Testosterone’ or a ‘Dopamine?’
Why do we fall in love with one person and not another?
This question has vexed philosophers, psychologists and poets for generations. The theories—proximity, pheromones, timing—don’t fully explain the mystery. We can be in a room full of attractive, available strangers—and be open to love—and still choose one person over all others.
.. She found them—and, in the process, she developed a broad personality test that, unlike many others, is based on brain science rather than psychology. The Fisher Temperament Inventory measures temperament, which comes from our genes, hormones and neurotransmitters... She identified four systems, each with its own host of traits: the dopamine, serotonin, testosterone and estrogen systems. Dopamine and serotonin, which are neurotransmitters, govern our “stay or go” scale, which decides how comfortable we are exploring unknown risks or whether we prefer the familiar. Testosterone and estrogen are hormones and determine the extent to which our brains express male or female traits... People high on the dopamine scale tend to be adventurous, curious, spontaneous, enthusiastic and independent. They have high energy, are comfortable taking risks and are mentally flexible and open-minded... Serotonin types are very social, traditional, calm and controlled, conscientious and detail-oriented. They love structure and making plans... Testosterone types are direct and decisive, aggressive, tough-minded, emotionally contained, competitive and logical. They have good spatial skills and are good at rule-based systems, such as math or music... Estrogen types are intuitive, introspective, imaginative, empathetic and trusting. They’re emotionally intelligent... People high in dopamine activity and people high in serotonin activity gravitate toward people like themselves... People high in testosterone or high in estrogen tend to like their opposites.
Orwell: Settingling the Screw Steamer Controversy
>No humanities course just takes every argument at face value. Every argument is subject to intense scrutiny
Here is Orwell on the matter:
>”When the nautical screw was first invented, there was a controversy that lasted for years as to whether screw-steamers or paddle-steamers were better. The paddle-steamers, like all obsolete things, had their champions, who supported them by ingenious arguments. Finally, however, a distinguished admiral tied a screw-steamer and a paddle-steamer of equal horsepower stern to stern and set their engines running. That settled the question once and for all.”[1]
Feynman:
>”It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
People lived for a very long time without a proper appreciation of controlled, repeatable experiments, and progress was very slow.
1 – www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_saw
Richard Rohr Meditation: Open to Change
It seems to me that many scientists today are very sincere seekers. In fact, today’s scientists often seem to have more in common with the mystics than do many religious folks who do not seek truth but only assert their dogmas and pre-emptively deny the very possibility of other people’s God-experience.
.. Yes, much of science is limited to the material, but at least the method is more open-ended and sincere than the many religious people who do no living experiments with faith, hope, and love, but just hang on to quotes and doctrines. They lack the personal practices whereby they can test the faithfulness of divine presence and the power of divine love.
Most scientists are willing to move forward with some degree of not-knowing; in fact, this is what calls them forward and motivates them. As new discoveries are affirmed, they remain open to new evidence that would tweak or even change the previous “belief.” Many religious folks insist upon complete “knowing” at the very beginning and then being certain every step of the way, which actually keeps them more “rational” and controlling than most scientists. This is the dead end of most fundamentalist religion, and why it cannot deal with thorny issues in any creative or compassionate way. Now I know why Paul dared to speak of “the curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13). Law reigns and discernment is unnecessary, which means there is little growth or change in such people. When you do not grow, you remain an infant.
The scientific mind today often has more openness to mystery than religion does! For example, it is willing to speak of dark matter, dark holes, chaos theory, fractals (the part replicates the whole), string theory, dark energy, and the atomic structure of all material things, which seems totally counter intuitive. Scientists “believe” in many things like electromagnetism, radioactivity, field theory, and various organisms such as viruses and bacteria before they can actually “prove” they exist. They know them first by their effects, or the evidence, and then argue backward to their existence.
Why is the discovery of merging neutron stars important?
Reasons why this is important:
- It is the first simultaneous detection of a gravitational wave and electromagnetic signal (and the strongest GW signal yet). It spectacularly corroborates the reality of the GW detection technology and analysis. The progenitor has been unambiguously located in a (relatively) nearby galaxy, allowing a host of other telescopes to obtain detailed measurements.
- It shows that GWs travel at the speed of light, a further verification of Einstein’s General Relativity.
- It shows that most of the very heavy elements such as gold, platinum, osmium etc. are plausibly produced by merging neutron stars and constrains the rate of such mergers in the local universe.
- It shows that short gamma ray bursts – some of the most energetic explosions in the universe – can be caused by neutron star mergers.
- It is the closest detected short gamma ray burst (with a known distance). That the progenitor has also been characterised allows a closer investigation of the interesting physics underlying the ejection and jet mechanisms thought to be responsible for the gamma rays.
- It provides observational constraints on how matter behaves at extremely high densities, testing our understanding of fundamental physics to its limits – for example, the details of the gravitational wave signal moments before merger are diagnostic of the interior conditions of neutron stars at densities of ∼1018∼1018 kg/m33.
- It provides an independent way of measuring the expansion of the universe, because the distance to the GW source pops out of the analysis and can be compared with the redshift of the identified host galaxy. The result agrees with measurements made using the cosmic microwave background and the distance-redshift relation calibrated by other means, verifying our estimation of distances, at least in the local universe.