Do you imagine all chemical reactions to be instantaneous with effects that last only a short while ?
>Why can someone feel love for someone just by bringing to mind the symbol which represents that person?
>Why can someone feel love by seeing an illustration of someone they love?
Why would other things triggering hormones and reactions mean it's not just hormones and reactions?
Take this in contrast to an allergy for example. Can you trigger an allergy by remembering the food? If you see an illustration of a food you are allergic to, do you get an attack?
A more similar phenomenon instead is a phobia. It is also a release of hormones based on some internal or external stimulus (you can apply all my examples about love). However in a phobia it's even more clear that the phenomenon is based on thinking patterns. Reducing the complexity to saying these are just "hormones and reactions" is the same as saying a computer is "instructions and interrupts". That is to say that a computer has these elements but what makes it work is that there are a bunch of other systems including the humans writing the software that organize these into a functional system.
Thinking about someone could release the hormones.
Your point proves that the experience of food is also not just a chemical process which happens in response to food.
Although, it can be deconstructed to this it doesn't mean that the other POVs are false. The reasoning comes from the process itself, it triggers a series of calculations that are applied on the input, which are the reasoning part.
The analytical approach is useful when calibrating these calculations.
It's what the hormone does that's important, not what it is.
