Can love be explained scientifically?

Photo:Anne Edelstam

LOVE. The “discovery museum”, or Palais de la Découverte, is trying to answer that question with this unusual and fun exhibition. And what a better place to show it than in Paris, the “city of love”?

After having passed by a giant vibrant and pulsating heart made out of feathers, to remind us of the emotions that love evokes in us, I entered the heart of the exhibition. Love is much more than passion, though, as I discovered in the next room.

The English word “love” is vast and narrow at the same time. We may “love a spouse” and “love eating pizza”, but the significance isn’t the same, is it? The exhibition, therefore, starts out by exploring the ancient Greek words for love:

eros – passion; storgê – family ties; agápê – unattached or spiritual love; filial – friendship, social relationships.

These are then explained one by one through sculptures, paintings, teddy bears, installations, videos, poetry, love stories or legends. I walked through this labyrinth of objects, sounds, tales and music in awe.

Finally, we got a historical/scientific explication of the clitoris. I learned that it was psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud who “killed” the clitoris and it wasn’t until 1998 that the organ was finally given its rightful place in the female body. An Australian doctor, Helen O’Connell, managed to scan it and show how it looks using 3 D. Now some researchers are looking for the famous G-point that doesn’t seem to exist though.

Among the people representing agápê, Malala (who got the Nobel peace prize in 2014), Nelson Mandela and the late, so media exposed young Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, were cited, among others.

As in spiritual love, it’s a giving of self that counts in agápê. We aren’t just bodies, but a mixture of spirit/soul, mind and body and all three must work together for true love to flourish and deepen, as older couples can testify of.

Unfortunately, that’s a too often forgotten value in our consumption society where humans are easily objectified. The flip side of love is its use for a depreciatory purpose, such as it is in pornography or with sexual harassment, as has been highlighted in the recent MeToo movement.

The second part of the exhibition concerns the scientific side of love through the works of sociologists, chemists, anthropologists and psychologists, among others. It consists of doing tests and games to find out our level of empathy; how we react to online interactions and meetings; the consequences of lack or distorted childhood memories of parental love for example.

Read more via Opulens