two quotations on what exists

From a NYT story on a woman with an AI boyfriend:

Marianne Brandon, a sex therapist, said she treats these relationships as serious and real. “What are relationships for all of us?” she said. “They’re just neurotransmitters being released in our brain. I have those neurotransmitters with my cat. Some people have them with God. It’s going to be happening with a chatbot. We can say it’s not a real human relationship. It’s not reciprocal. But those neurotransmitters are really the only thing that matters, in my mind.”

Iris Murdoch:

Love is the perception of individuals. Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.