LiterateHiker shared the following with me:

"The Rhythm of Love- 40 Beats Per Minute

From “Women- An Intimate Geography” by Natalie Angier

Oxytocin has been called the love hormone and the bonding hormone. It’s a dopy, wishful phrase, and a bit reductionist. Still, Oxytocin may be a player in the sensation of love.

“Think of a breastfeeding woman,” Kirsten Uvnas-Moberg of the- Karolinska Institute in Sweden said. She studies nursing mothers, in whom oxytocin is high. “Oxytocin is stimulating her milk letdown- that much is familiar. But milk ejection is only part of the story. Oxytocin, in concert with other peptides, expands blood flow to the breast. The engorgement turns the breast warm, warmer than it’s ever been. Heat radiates from the nursing woman. She feeds the baby fluids and bathes the baby in warmth.

You know the right way to stroke someone.

“A mother does more than nurse and warm the baby. As she holds the baby, she strokes the infant to soothe it. ‘You know the right way to stroke somebody,” Uvnas-Moberg says. ‘You know what works and what doesn’t. If you do it like this, too fast, that doesn’t work either. But now, if you do this, if you stroke steadily and calmly, you know this is right, this is good and true.’ She strokes her arm rhythmically and as I watch, I feel vicariously stroked and soothed. ‘This rate is about forty strokes per minute. It is the same rate at which we stroke our pets.’ Oxytocin again enters the picture.

“A steady caress inveigles oxytocin secretion. The gentle rhythmic stroke is like the pulsing of a milk duct, like the rate at which the infant reflexively, rhythmically suckles at the breast. This is the rhythm of love: forty beats a minute.”

Orgasm is another rhythmic sensation.

“The rhythm of love. Orgasm is another rhythmic sensation, and it too clocks in at about forty to fifty throbs a minute, and the uterus contracts during orgasm as it does in giving birth. Oxytocin’s frequency; oxytocin’s handiwork.

“In one study, women were asked to masturbate to climax; and their blood levels of oxytocin were measured before and after orgasm. The concentration of oxytocin climbed slightly but measurably with climax, and the greater the increase, the more pleasurable the women reported their climax to be. While breastfeeding, some women say they feel almost orgasmic, their uterus pulsing along with their milk ducts, with the baby’s suckling mouth.”

The rhythm of love: 40 beats per minute. When giving a massage, my hands are slow and rhythmic, 40 strokes per minute. People groan with pleasure.

In reading this, I realized that a newborn begins learning what is later labelled empathetic actions beginning with their initial nursing experience.

The concept of "another" cannot be established until one realizes the concept of self. That does not occur until one experiences self-recognition between 2-3 year old. By that time they understand more about empathy. They like getting hugged. They like hugging. Watch a toddler with a puppy.

Once a toddler has self-recognition they become self-centered. It is then that they are taught about compassion. How often does one hear a parent or other adult say, "Would you like Johnny or Mary do that to you?" Or punished to stand in the corner because of how they treated a younger sibling or the family cat. And later, by the promise of reward, e.g., "If you follow the way I tell you to live your life you will be rewarded with eternal life."

We all start learning about empathy with that first feeding. Later you might find that someone who gets pleasure from pain. That is a learned experience. I have never heard of a dominant being labelled as being empathetic but, yes, one could be so. Interesting.

Yes, as an adult, "empathy" and "compassion" are relative to a life style.

@SunshineEast My daughter loved her teddy. As a child, a peer was smitten with their pet rock.
I reject the notion that empathy, which is a facet of love, only occurs between humans.
I will always recall when I heard the Taliban had blown up the cliff Buddhas in Afghanistan. Never heard of them, not Buddhist, but the sense of loss I felt was almost overwhelming. A weird experience of feeling I still don't understand.
With the theory of chemicals/ hormones affecting feelings, I disagree because people love inanimate objects plus the arts etc. Plus if it was a thing, does the chemical produce the feeling or the feeling produce the chemical in our individual bodies?

@puff Yes, I share such feeling also, when I hike, see a painting in the museum. watch classical ballet, observe a baby discovering life. Doing so gives me considerable pleasure. Is it a matter of wordsmithing? Some works of Renoir gives me considerable pleasure. I can't hug Renoir to thank him or do anything to reduce his anxiety. The same with Mother Nature and Father Time. I awoke this morning recognizing that gender traits are acquired and reinforced or discouraged. My thinking, as I write this, is that we acquire likes and dislikes during our initial early years. Consider the impact of Christmas on a one year old or of the enjoyment of their mother as she hikes with her child strapped to her chest enjoying the works of nature. Maybe that is where the word "reciprocity" comes in when one talks about empathy. We first learn about empathy when we are the receiver of it. It is when we give it to another that we complete the basic learning process. We learn to be a giver from watching/experiencing others give beginning with our mother. What is the consequence if one's initial nursing experiences were more mechanical than emotional? I don't feel that I am a very empathetic person.

@puff A child has self-recognition between 2-3 years old. It is only then that a child as the notion of self and begins the process of defining their sense of self. During those first 2-3 years, the child has leaned a lot. What, we don't really know. All we know is that the child is capturing all their experiences in their subconscious memory, they are processing the contents of their conscious and subconscious memories with deep thinking and they are reasoning inductively adding to their conscious memory. We are each unique with inherent and circumstantial differences.

@puff Thinking more about your response, are you asking me if I have empathy for things? I think of "empathy" in terms of feelings and actions. In general, I have feelings. for people and things. I take action very selectively.

@SunshineEast Childhood is so important, no argument there

@SunshineEast I suspect empathy may be too strong/ powerful in some as a child, it hurts them too much, and as a defence mechanism they withdraw and focus on self and become narcissistic.
I see a lot of irony in life which is why it would not surprise if this is true in some.

@puff Given what is happening in this country now, I can only imagine what pressures young children are experiencing now. As long as there are those who believe to impose their beliefs upon others is the"right" thing to do, I only see things getting worse.

History of the natural world suggests that it will prevail. Many civilizations, though, will stagnate. Some will linger. Some will die.

Everything that we see, hear, taste, etc populates our subconscious memory. Deep thinking of our conscious and subconscious memories leads to intuition and creativity. I'm struggling with predilections. Where do they come from? I'm thinking that we might have an unconscious memory that is populated by electromagnetic energy, i.e., by the position of heavenly bodies as asserted by astrologists. Any thoughts about predilections? Electromagnet energy induces currents in wires. Why not in our minds?

Where do predilections come from? Operant conditioning.
Neurons are not wires conducting electricity. The membranes have ion pumps to maintain polarization and then depolarize as a wave (or like dominoes falling). Thus, they are not normally triggered by electromagnetic fields.

@racocn8 My thinking is influenced by four things. Firstly, "The Electric Signals That Make the Human Brain Unique. Neurons in the human brain receive electrical signals from thousands of other cells, and long neural extensions called dendrites play a critical role in incorporating all of that information so the cells can respond appropriately." Secondly, some tell of telepathic experiences, I have experiences that I can only explain in terms of radiating something that another receives. Thirdly, I can explain these two things in terms of the electromagnetic theory. Astrology suggests some connection between a person's predilection and the position of planetary objects. The Universe is awashed in electromagnetic energy. I can readily accept that the position of the planetary objects effect the relative strength of that energy. And lastly, we use medical devices that are designed to measure the electromagnetic fields in our brain and we influence the operation of the brain with electrical probes. What we have yet to do is induce memory. We have a lot to learn about about quantum physics. The answer may lie in that of it may lie in what comes after quantum physics.

How comfortable are you with the statement, "We have three levels of memory, conscious, subconscious and unconscious. Unconscious memory is the source of one's predilections. It is populated by electromagnetic energy in the Universe. Exactly how is yet to be shown." Alternatively, conceptually the Creator is the explanation for things we can't explain. We can say that the Creator establishes the predilections of each life. Some equate their God to the Creator. There is one Creator. There have been and are many Gods.

@racocn8 As an aside, I think about this stuff subconsciously. Thoughts come to mind. It might not be the kind of stuff that should be discussed in this forum. I have yet to discover another place more appropriate than a "Free Thinker" group associated with an agnostic community.

Might you be aware of a more appropriate forum? Thanks.

One can only meaningfully develop and invent new useful things if one is dedicated to having an accurate picture of reality. Your statements demonstrate you do not abide by that standard. Thus, I can no more meaningfully converse with you than my dog. As Yoda once said: "You must unlearn what you have learned..." I'm sorry reality is so hard. It's hard for me, but I am still motivated. I encourage you to learn about the subjects that interest you, and replace the horseshit with the truth.

@racocn8 Sorry, but who defines "reality"? For most of my career I was a change agent. I "saw" things that other's didn't. Some did. They hired me to bring about the change. What is it that I "see" that you don't? I see a natural world with natural rights and a morality with a Golden Rule. Can you see them? I seek out observable facts and using inductive reasoning draw logical conclusions. It is an axiomatic approach. It is different from a deductive approach in which one sets forth a hypothesis and than proceeds to create experiments to validate it. I invite any of my statements to be challenged.I make no assertion that begins with "I believe".

I have no difficulty for you to say that you don't see what I see and have no interest in seeing it. To dismiss it because you are unable to see it is another thing.

Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to communicate. I learn in my all my interactions with others. Yes, I do march to a different drumbeat.

I have a letter that sits on my desk from a senior manager of a company in which I worked in which he recognized that I saw things that he did not and that he understood my decision to go work for another company in which I could pursue my vision. This was in 1978.

Deepak Chopra has his own reality too. Stringing together undefined words to create fun-sounding prose that has no actual meaning wastes your time and the time of your audience. And, it is fundamentally dishonest, implying that one has deeper knowledge where there is none. It begins by lying to oneself and goes downhill from there.