Ultimately, if the neural mechanisms of love were simple, you should be able to induce it with an injection, to extinguish it with a scalpel while leaving everything else intact. The cold, hard logic of evolutionary biology makes this impossible. Were love not complicated, we would never have evolved in the first place.
That said, love – like all our thoughts, emotions and behaviours – rests on physical processes in the brain, a very complex interplay of them. But to say that love is “just” brain chemistry is like saying Shakespeare is “just” words, Wagner “just” notes and Michelangelo “just” calcium carbonate – it just misses the point. Like art, love is more than the sum of its parts.
So those of us lucky to experience its chaos should let ourselves be carried by the waves. And if we end up wrecked on the surf-hidden rocks, we can draw comfort from knowing reason would have got us no further.
Num mundo repleto de consumismo, onde o namoro online promete romance sem riscos e o amor é muitas vezes visto como uma variante do desejo e do hedonismo, o maior filósofo da França, Alain Badiou, acredita que o amor precisa urgentemente ser reinventado e defendido.
William Williamson, um diretor premiado que mora em Londres e trabalha em documentários, curtas-metragens, videoclipes e comerciais, passou dois anos procurando Badiou para fazer perguntas sobre assuntos do coração. “Defini um lembrete para enviar um e-mail a cada duas semanas até que ele finalmente concordasse em se encontrar comigo”, disse o diretor que entrevistou o filósofo em Paris.
“A Sua visão de amor, vendo-o como uma aventura e uma oportunidade de reinvenção do indivíduo, atraiu-me a fazer algo da nossa entrevista. ”Em The Question of Love, Williamson tece naturezas mortas de indivíduos abatidos crivados pela solidão com pepitas de sabedoria para a câmara de Badiou.
“A sua filosofia incita-nos a não temer o amor, mas a vê-lo como uma busca que nos obriga a explorar a alteridade e a diferença”, diz o diretor. “Em última análise, afastando-nos da obsessão moderna com o eu.” Este projeto é para quem acredita que amar pode mudar a maneira como as pessoas pensam e que o pensamento pode mudar a maneira como amamos.
"Love is a lesson of courage. All that is true is rare and difficult." For the French philosopher Alain Badiou, romantic love is ‘the most powerful way known to humanity to have an intimate relationship with another’. Love, he believes, creates a state of dependence that is an important counterweight to modernity’s emphasis on individuality. In this short film from the UK director William Williamson, Badiou argues that today’s approach to relationships, with its consumerist tendency to focus on choice and compatibility, and the ingrained refrain to move on when things aren’t easy, means that we need a philosophical reckoning with how we think about love. To make his point very specific, Badiou points to the ever-growing prevalence of online dating services that claim to offer algorithmic matching of partners, a way of seeking love that, he thinks, drains love of one of its most vital qualities – chance.
To fall in love is not an action but an affection, a disposition that means we are affected, moved by someone [or something]. But to be in love is an action. We choose to be in love and to show love and that takes courage. It means we are brave enough to entrust our vulnerability to those we hope don't hurt us. Therefore, "to be in love is an act of gallantry, a display of courage and strength."
International Space Station - The first crew of astronauts arrived on November 2, 2000. They started snapping photos soon after.
A glaciated area at the headwaters of the Rio de la Colonia in southern Chile, December 2000. NASA
Usually six people live and work together in the station, orbiting Earth about every 90 minutes
That means they see 16 sunrises and sunsets every day.
Astronaut Scott Kelly posted this photo to Twitter on March 1, 2016, writing "Rise and shine! My last #sunrise from space then I gotta go! 1 of 5. #GoodMorning from @space_station! #YearInSpace." NASA/Scott Kelly
The astronauts inside don't always know or share much detail about the sights they see. But many say they never get bored with the views.
Astronaut Scott Kelly posted this photo of Australia taken from the International Space Station on Twitter with the caption, "#EarthArt A single pass over the #Australian continent. Picture 15 of 17. #YearInSpace." NASA/Scott Kelly
Astronaut Scott Kelly posted this photo on Twitter with the caption, "Cool frozen lake in #Himalayas! #YearInSpace," January 6, 2016. NASA/Scott Kelly
On the morning of June 22, 2019, astronauts in the ISS captured the plume of ash and gases rising from the erupting Raikoke Volcano on the Kuril Islands in the North Pacific.NASA
The Aurora Australis on June 25, 2017, as seen from the International Space Station. NASA
