Name: Is Love Scientifically Quantifiable?
Uploaded: 2025-09-10T15:30:23.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Is Love Scientifically Quantifiable?' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-10. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Is Love Scientifically Quantifiable?' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-10. Transcript available.

Is love scientifically quantifiable?
Well, it kind of is.
In other words, if certainly new love is, right?
New love.
So if we take people who are in that like obsessional, you know, first six
months, like, oh, just crazy about you phase.
Fucking drool in your eyes.
And we put them in a brain scanner and show them a picture of their beloved,
right?
And then we image it and we look at what do we see?
Well, we see that there's this part of the brain that's part of kind of the
pleasure and reward circuitry that lights up.
And Huberman was talking about this.
It's called the dopamine neurons of the ventral tegmental area.
So they light up.
And then we also see the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the part of the brain
that's really involved in making careful, reasoned, rational decisions.
That's like turned way the hell down.
You know, so what that means is like, you know, think about this in terms of
your own subjective experience of being truly madly, deeply in love.
You're going like, oh, yeah, she's so great.
And that sore on her lip will clear up.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, like – and the other thing that happens, there's this part of the
brain called the amygdala that's very involved in fear and feeling under threat.
And that's also turned way down even below normal, right?
Wow.
Because you feel very comfortable.
You feel very safe.
So the interesting thing, right, is – so this study was done with people who
were in that truly, madly, deeply early phase.
Yeah.
So then you go to old married people who've been together for a real long time.
And you ask them, you say, do you feel the same way about your partner as you
did when you first met?
And 19 out of 20 people will say, well, no, right?
It's not that same crazy, passionate, you know, wonderful, obsessed, got to
have sex every minute thing that when we first met.
It's sort of settled into a more mature, loving, kind of respectful sort of
thing.
But one out of 20 people will say, no, it's just as intense, just as passionate
as always was.
And I know when I heard this, I said, you're lying.
That's what I thought.
This person is crazy.
Well, not just lying.
They're full of shit.
Yeah, and they're pervert.
They're probably a swingers.
Maybe they just want to appear a certain way, you know?
They're swingers, David.
But, you know, they're saying this about, you know, not their piece on the side,
but their long-term partner.
Got it.
And so what happens when you put old married people in the brain scanner?
Well, you know, the 19 out of 20 people who say, no, it's not the same way it
was when we first met, their amygdala is not turned down.
Their prenatal frontal cortex is not turned down.
They're seeing their partner in the cold, clear light of day with all their
rational faculties.
But that one out of 20 people that says they are truly, madly, deeply still,
the brain agrees with them.
In other words, their brain scan looks like someone feeling new love.
And that's – now, what do these people have that most of us don't have and
how can we get it?
We don't know.
Be good to bottle that.
Yeah, gosh.
I'd do a couple grams of it right now, dude.
I wouldn't say anything.
I'd eat it.
I'd put a pill under my tongue and let it, you know.
I'd do a half and eight ball of it right now and take you to a damn sphere show
of the Grateful Dead.
It'd be fun.
Thank you.