Love

[jotabe]

I am not talking about triggers. And you are not talking about love. You are talking about a process that is quite physiological. The readying to fulfill our reproductive task.
But what about love itself? Not the reproductive passion, but the willingness to self-sacrifice? Much of our behaviour is learned. Some people can have their ability to love completely eroded. It's not as if there is a "trigger". There has to be countless triggers. There is an element of free will too.

You cannot reach final causes, specially at this level, where such weak interactions (very weak electric currents being transported on organic conductor surfaces, probabilistic transmision of neuropeptids to one neuron instead to another) happen. Analyse the causes and you are bound to meet an unavoidable uncertainty. There is not such a thing as cause-effect.

Feeling deterministic today?

[AnthonyByakko]

I am not talking about triggers. And you are not talking about love. You are talking about a process that is quite physiological. The readying to fulfill our reproductive task.
But what about love itself? Not the reproductive passion, but the willingness to self-sacrifice? Much of our behaviour is learned. Some people can have their ability to love completely eroded. It's not as if there is a "trigger". There has to be countless triggers. There is an element of free will too.

You haven't said anything to refute my statements. "What about love itself?" As an idea? As a man-made construct? It's exactly that. Our societal abstraction of "love" as a supernatural, ineffable, spiritual emotion is not fact, rather, wishful-thinking. Learned behaviors such as self-sacrifice and altruism are precisely that - learned; environmental reinforcements about the "idea" of love. Free will exists, but for a person to choose to "love" someone in the way they have learned from society if they don't actually "love" that person in the physiological sense does not mean that they have some kind of "love" that is special or unique - it means that they have accepted a societal norm instead of rationality.

[jotabe]

Thanks for agreeing with me ^_^

[Jayelle]

yet another xkcd comic applies:

[daPyr0x]

I am not talking about triggers. And you are not talking about love. You are talking about a process that is quite physiological. The readying to fulfill our reproductive task.
But what about love itself? Not the reproductive passion, but the willingness to self-sacrifice? Much of our behaviour is learned. Some people can have their ability to love completely eroded. It's not as if there is a "trigger". There has to be countless triggers. There is an element of free will too.

You haven't said anything to refute my statements. "What about love itself?" As an idea? As a man-made construct? It's exactly that. Our societal abstraction of "love" as a supernatural, ineffable, spiritual emotion is not fact, rather, wishful-thinking. Learned behaviors such as self-sacrifice and altruism are precisely that - learned; environmental reinforcements about the "idea" of love. Free will exists, but for a person to choose to "love" someone in the way they have learned from society if they don't actually "love" that person in the physiological sense does not mean that they have some kind of "love" that is special or unique - it means that they have accepted a societal norm instead of rationality.

I do believe that if one is to look at the state of society as a whole in North America it does anything but reinforce the idea of true love, soul mates, and being solely with one person. In fact, it enforces the exact opposite morale.

[AnthonyByakko]

I do believe that if one is to look at the state of society as a whole in North America it does anything but reinforce the idea of true love, soul mates, and being solely with one person. In fact, it enforces the exact opposite morale.

And that's a good thing. I never claimed that we weren't moving in the right direction, but I contest the point that we have stopped completely in giving the false impression of love. Other than the most cutting edge and envelope-pushing material, the media consistantly portrays the heroicness, the nobility and the virtue of "true" love.

[jotabe]

I wonder... why that idea of love appeals us so much, then?

[AnthonyByakko]

I wonder... why that idea of love appeals us so much, then?

Does it appeal... Or is that just what you are supposed to think? I don't find it appealing at all.

[jotabe]

well, you don't find "humanity is overrated" as humorous, either.

No, seriously: there are people like you, who think that "love" ("that social construct" as you would put it) is just meaningless and/or stupid. Actually, if i was supposed to follow the current trend among males my age, i should think so, too.
Still, that idea of love, soul mate, etc... makes me feel warm inside.

[AnthonyByakko]

well, you don't find "humanity is overrated" as humorous, either.

Still, that idea of love, soul mate, etc... makes me feel warm inside.

Thank your hypothalamus for the warmth.

[jotabe]

That's how it happens... but not why
Life is a circle, huh?

[anonshadow]

I do believe that if one is to look at the state of society as a whole in North America it does anything but reinforce the idea of true love, soul mates, and being solely with one person. In fact, it enforces the exact opposite morale.

I disagree. I think that there are a lot of mixed signals, but as many point to being with one person as being with more than one.

I have friends who are polyamorous, and they certainly get flak for it--when they even feel comfortable enough to tell someone. Society doesn't always look badly on the person (especially male) that cheats, or has two relationships going on at once, but if that person is really invested in two relationships, and is taking everything that comes with them--

People don't always react well.

They just... don't.

And they also often look askew at people who have been together for years but choose not to get married.

Yes, there is pressure in the other direction, too, but I think that you're really oversimplifying the situation.

[jotabe]

I know i wouldn't react well... not by social inputs in me, but because...
it's like when you reveal a deep secret to someone you trust, and then you find out that now that secret i known by some more people.
You give a person the regard, the prize of your intimacy, and then that person simply gives your intimacy away to other people.
That's how i see it.

[anonshadow]

Incidentally--Link.

This is a relatively short and interesting oped from the NYTimes about marriage, love, and how it has influenced who we socialize with in the last hundred or so years.

It also cites some statistics that suggest that today's marriages actually often make people more introverted and lonely, not less.

[AnthonyByakko]

That's how it happens... but not why
Life is a circle, huh?

Why, eh? Well, because the thought of someone giving all of themself to you for the rest of their life makes you feel important, and the thought that you might attract someone to do that causes the hypothalamus to respond accordingly.

[jotabe]

Someone... but not anyone. That's they key of it.

[Jebus]

I've seen the light! I'm no more than a miniscule piece of a continuing effort to keep my species alive. And why do we try to keep ourselves alive? So we can keep keeping ourselves alive!

ANTS IN THE ANT FARM, THAT'S ALL WE ARE!

[daPyr0x]

I wonder... why that idea of love appeals us so much, then?

Does it appeal... Or is that just what you are supposed to think? I don't find it appealing at all.

Just because you've never had it doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't appealing.

Going back to our 'roots' as evolved apes, the instinct is get your seed out there as much as you can. However, there is a reason that anyone "pushes" for tha true love. Certain species (Wolves, for example), will pick one mate and stick with them for good. Is that because their society and their forms of media push them into it or because there's an actual instinct there pushing them for it? Do you really think that without some sort of physical or instinctual reason anyone would push for long term love and marriage and anything? Society and the Media don't just make s*** up, they react to eachothers trends.

Being that I AM a male child of this generation; have way too much media exposure, and have only broken marriages to use as a role model; logically speaking I should feel the same as you. But I don't. When society tells me that I shouldn't do as I did for Nicole, even before we had met, I did it anyways. When my own upbringing is telling me that marriage is a stupid idea and won't last, I'm still striving for it because that's what I want.

You're taking the issue far too simplistically. Going through the media, through instincts, and through society you can easily argue that they push both ways; but the fact of the matter is that there is far too much of a drive for it, both personally and throughout history, to say to me that it's nothing more than a societal construct.

[AnthonyByakko]

Just because you've never had it doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't appealing.

I remember when I said "it doesn't appeal to me." I don't recall, however, when I said that "no one finds it appealing."

[VelvetElvis]

well, you don't find "humanity is overrated" as humorous, either.

Still, that idea of love, soul mate, etc... makes me feel warm inside.

Thank your hypothalamus for the warmth.

The fact that I eat food because my body requires it doesn't make me enjoy it any less. Killjoy.