True Love: What Do You Believe?

[Another God]

Originally posted by Royce
A couple of things about love that have been overlooked or at least not mentioned in this thread so far is that "lesser" animals, such as pets are every bit as capable of giving and receiving love as we are. Please explain this in evolutionary or objective terms. If you have not experienced such love do not claim that it doesn't exist or is just a matter of being physically cared for, fed etc. I won't buy it for a second.

Whats to buy? Evolutionarily, it makes sense to explain love as having evolved to fulfil this need. It doesn't detract from the experience of love...if anything, it highlights how important these aspects of our life are by being such a strong experience. Obviously, because we FEEL love so strongly, the aspects of love which accompany the feeling must be very important to survival.

The other thing neglected so far is that love is not just an emotion and learning experience. If soul mates meet, they can indeed recognized each other and "fall in love" instantly. I have never experienced it but know friends that have.

What do you mean by soul mate? Do you believe that there are two individuals actually 'designed' for each other or something? well, if you believe this, then we had all better start looking, because there are over 6 billion people on Earth and at most we all know probably up to 200 at most...I'm sure we never even SEE 99% of all the people on the planet let alone meet them.
If you mean soul mate as in 'Someone with whom everything works perfectly', and you accept that there could be any number of thousands of people with whom this compatibility would work, then I would agree with that. And as I said earlier, I believe you can 'quickly' recognise that love is likely, although I don't believe you actually fall in love straight away. How can you love something you know nothing about?

Also love has power and force that can be felt, sensed and cause physical changes in our bodies that are not just hormones or chemistry. Love can and does heal and reduce if not take away pain. Love can be directed to specific place in our own bodies or that of another and "Make it all better." This is real and it works and actually does makes it better. It is not just distracting or emotional. It is real.

How do you know it is not just hormose or chemistry? Do you realize that every single part of our body is 'just chemistry'? I mean Literally every single part of our body, is just chemistry... So how can love be so damn special as to not involve the chemistry of our body? Are you invoking some new unknown force of the universe, somehow tapped into by the evolution of chemical reactions, and used to bond two collections of such chemical reactions in some beneficial way?

I suggest that it is more likely, that love changes certain aspects of our brain chemistry, causing the body to stress less, and therefore heal more. The brain can do more than the average person understands, and it does it all without needing to believe in psychic phenomenon, it does it all through those dull old chemicals that no one likes to accept as the essence of all life.

There is so much more to love than mere chemistry or even emotion. To talk of it that way is like calling the Grand Canyon a hole in the ground, which I have also heard.

The grand canyon IS just a hole in the ground, the planet Earth IS just a rock orbiting around something which IS just a collection of hydrogen reacting with itself, and love IS just an emotion caused by chemistry...in the objective sense. But to look at the grand canyon, or the Earth as a whole, is a truley remarkable experience. To understand the enormity of the sun is awesome. To feel love...is unbelievable.

Love 'just is a chemical reaction', and it is the most remarkable experience of a 'just a chemical reaction' that there ever was. It can be both at once. They are not mutually exclusive.

One othe rpoint pain can not be remembered. We can remember being in pain and how sever it may have been but we can't actually remember and reexperience the pain itself. We never ever forget the feeling of loving or being loved.

I can remember pain. In fact, i completely disagree with this paragraph because the first girl I ever fell in love with, didn't fall in love with me in return, and eventually left me for another guy... Everytime I think back to that, all i feel is intense pain. My very definition of love is "The most pain you can imagine", because when you are in love, every little waiver off that perfect path down absolute happiness hurts like all hell...Emotions seem to increase ten fold when they are felt in the light of love, and pain is the most commonly felt one.

Its sort of how I check to make sure I am in love... :If this person was to leave me...how would I feel? Judge the degree of pain you think you would feel, and that indicates how much you care for them...

 

[Kerrie]

AG, i certainly agree with what you are saying, but you have a tone in that the subjective sense of love is less then the objective outcomes of love...

what i mean by this is the subjective feelings of love ARE important in helping us bond with another not only for the biological urges of reproduction, but it seems that monogamy is a part of our humanistic ways (nevermind the damned divorce rates! that has to do with society) in that it supports stability of a team of two which has enormous outcomes in many ways...

love in a monogamous ways also is beneficial in a world today where STD's are at an ultimate high...

soulmates~i used to believe in this term, and i think MANY people can be considered that "soulmate" because of similar ways of thinking, similar likes and dislikes, similar backgrounds, etc...now of course, if one is to find that deep connection, i would never recommend to ignore it

first and foremost of my beliefs of love is you cannot truly love another until you love yourself...

 

[Zantra]

first and foremost of my beliefs of love is you cannot truly love another until you love yourself

I agree 100%

 

[Zantra]

Someone mentioned that the subjective can be explained logically.

Ok then explain why someone sacrifices themselves for another? Why mothers will die to save their children, why lovers will do the same, why someone will take the most illogical choice sacrificing, their well being, and ignoring the innate characteristics of self-preservation all in in the name of love. Explain what chemical characteristic causes us to make choices which go against our own natural insticts, thus contradicting our own nature. And i don't mean biological reproduction, because love is absolutely not required for that to occur.

Break that down into scientific terms for me please. Take your time..

 

[Gale]

What do you mean by soul mate? Do you believe that there are two individuals actually 'designed' for each other or something? well, if you believe this, then we had all better start looking, because there are over 6 billion people on Earth and at most we all know probably up to 200 at most

Well first off, there's lots of different opinions about sould mates and what it is to have one. To me a soul mate is someone your designed for. If it's in your destiny to be with them this life, then you'll meet them without having to introduce yourself to the other 6 billion people of the world. In this case, i think anyone would 'fall in love at first sight' as soon as they saw their soul mates.

One othe rpoint pain can not be remembered. We can remember being in pain and how sever it may have been but we can't actually remember and reexperience the pain itself. We never ever forget the feeling of loving or being loved.

I think that's terribly subjective and depends on the person. I can think through pleanty of emotions. Pain, love, anything. I personally can think and sort of experience anything i try to long enough. I learned how to ski mostly just by thinking about it, then attempting what i thought, then thinking some more. took me an hour to get down half the mountain, but once i got there, i skiied as well as my sister who had taken lessons for two years. I think this experience also brings up ideas about objective and subjectiveness.

I aggree that love is just several chemical processes that lead a person to feel 'good' but i also think there is much much more to it. I think that there is something more to emotion that science has yet to understand. I think that explains human kinds feelings towards god, toward love, and towards any irrational beliefs that we reufuse to give up.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Kerrie
the subjective feelings of love ARE important in helping us bond with another not only for the biological urges of reproduction, but it seems that monogamy is a part of our humanistic ways (nevermind the damned divorce rates! that has to do with society) in that it supports stability of a team of two which has enormous outcomes in many ways...

love in a monogamous ways also is beneficial in a world today where STD's are at an ultimate high...

Isn't that precisely the sort of thing which is objectively useful? That is biologically beneficial...which is all I mean. So there are plenty of reasons why we would have evolved the love emotion, and it no doubt can be described objectively...
And still it would have its subjective feeling, no matter how well we objectively describe it.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Zantra
Ok then explain why someone sacrifices themselves for another? Why mothers will die to save their children, why lovers will do the same, why someone will take the most illogical choice sacrificing, their well being, and ignoring the innate characteristics of self-preservation all in in the name of love. Explain what chemical characteristic causes us to make choices which go against our own natural insticts, thus contradicting our own nature. And i don't mean biological reproduction, because love is absolutely not required for that to occur.

Break that down into scientific terms for me please. Take your time..

No.
Like really...Do you believe in gravity? OK, break that down for me and describe it in scientific terms. Tell me exactly how objects attract each other at a distance, instantly, and tell me how they know how large each object is etc...

You can't do it can you? But does that mean you deny its existence? I am not a neurochemist, no one here is that I have yet met. And even if someone was, I doubt they could explain it anyway. We simply do not know how or why yet, but that does not stand as proof that it doesn't happen.

But sacrificing your self for others is present in numerous non-love situations anyway. In wars, people will save their mates as best they can for example. And then you talk about that innate characteristic of self preservation: What about the millions of suicidal people out there these days? What are they in love with?

The brain is a complex, strange thing...We can't explain it in scientific terms for you because we don't understand it yet, and even if we did, we couldn't explain it to you without first spending 5 years explaining fundamental brain chemistry to you first.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Gale17
Well first off, there's lots of different opinions about sould mates and what it is to have one. To me a soul mate is someone your designed for. If it's in your destiny to be with them this life, then you'll meet them without having to introduce yourself to the other 6 billion people of the world. In this case, i think anyone would 'fall in love at first sight' as soon as they saw their soul mates.

'Designed for'...designed by what exactly?

Destiny... Destined how?

Precisley what mechanism is it that you are postulating controls these things? How are two people, before each of their births designed perfectly for each others later adult life? What controls their lives so that they 1. Cross paths 2. Recognise that they are perfect for each other without even knowing each other?

You've got a lot to explain there...

 

[Gale]

'Designed for'...designed by what exactly?

..ok, ok, my bad. It's a faith issue really. I believe in souls. i believe some souls come from like... the same fabric, or something like that. those souls, are soul mates. i believe some souls live once, others live many times and continuously learn life lessons so that eventually they will learn all and then... i don't know and then something really cool happens. i think of jesus as one soul that learned all life's little lessons so whatever happened to him... As for designed by... well, i don't know really. i have some really wild theories, but i'd doubt anyone would believe them as i do. is you care to know... i'd share, but when i consider life and all that i don't usually keep my theories much in the realms of science's reality.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Gale17
i have some really wild theories, but i'd doubt anyone would believe them as i do. is you care to know... i'd share, but when i consider life and all that i don't usually keep my theories much in the realms of science's reality.

Well, although I do, I don't believe that it is necessary to do so, as long as you keep your wild theories within the realm of rationality and logic.

If they stay within those bounds, then I think a bit of occams razor helps point out the reasonable answer...

 

[Zantra]

Originally posted by Another God
No.
Like really...Do you believe in gravity? OK, break that down for me and describe it in scientific terms. Tell me exactly how objects attract each other at a distance, instantly, and tell me how they know how large each object is etc...

You can't do it can you? But does that mean you deny its existence? I am not a neurochemist, no one here is that I have yet met. And even if someone was, I doubt they could explain it anyway. We simply do not know how or why yet, but that does not stand as proof that it doesn't happen.

But sacrificing your self for others is present in numerous non-love situations anyway. In wars, people will save their mates as best they can for example. And then you talk about that innate characteristic of self preservation: What about the millions of suicidal people out there these days? What are they in love with?

The brain is a complex, strange thing...We can't explain it in scientific terms for you because we don't understand it yet, and even if we did, we couldn't explain it to you without first spending 5 years explaining fundamental brain chemistry to you first.

But that's my entire point (read my previous posts) Basically people are trying to look at love in a logical, scientific sense when it doesn't require it. It's love-cm'on people.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Zantra
But that's my entire point (read my previous posts) Basically people are trying to look at love in a logical, scientific sense when it doesn't require it. It's love-cm'on people.

Doesn't require it? Isn't that sort of against the whole principle of science? Everything which exists needs to be explained scientifically, otherwise it will all remain mystery and superstition.

And as superficially pleasing as that is to so many people, the truth is that superstition causes more pain and suffering than anyone is willing to accept.

 

[Royce]

Been out of town and touch for a while, sorry for the late replies.

AG, et al, When i said that we don't remember pain I was talking about physical pain nor emotional pain. Your being in love and reject and still feeling and remembering the emotional pain of it is exactly what I am talking about. Sadly I and thousands of us have had similar experience and I guarantee that everyone of us remember it and the pain. We also remember the first and everytime we fall in love whether it is another person or pet.
I find this hard to think of as only hormones and chemistry and for the life of me I cannot find an evolutionary survival benefit from such pain.
Whether "soulmates" are designed for each other or met and loved in another life or are simply two people uniquely suited for one another
and instantly recognize and realized that fact doesn't matter. What matters is that it happens and is real.

As far as love healing or tempering physical pain, of course it is chemistry in action but it is the love the causes the chemistry that happens.
I can agree that love is a survival technique or stratagy as is monogamy and reproduction. I can even see that love is a product of evolution and reaching a certain minimum level of intelligence. All I am saying is that it is much more and it is and has tangable effects and results on all of us. We need love and need to love just as much as we need food and water. I agree that it is subjective. It is also objective.

 

[Zantra]

Originally posted by Another God
Doesn't require it? Isn't that sort of against the whole principle of science? Everything which exists needs to be explained scientifically, otherwise it will all remain mystery and superstition.

And as superficially pleasing as that is to so many people, the truth is that superstition causes more pain and suffering than anyone is willing to accept.

You're right, it does require objective observation, but to regard it without taking subjectivity into account, which is what a lot of people here are doing, is to sterlize an emotion that is essential for emotional well-being.

 

[ph]

Kerrie

love at first sight happens and not just in a man/woman sense. i have had a love at first sight with a female (i'm not gay, just happy) and i don't know why. from my being in her presence my heart just poured out -opened. very cool. it has also happened with a male and we became very good friends.

it happened last year with a gentleman. i said YES to marriage next year. congrats to us both :)


To <b>quantumcarl</b>

if the yang see river loses its appeal based on its physical condition or the person's experience with it then it never was love was it? i like that "true love" is unconditional. we spout that but in action it's holy >wink<

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Royce
I find this hard to think of as only hormones and chemistry and for the life of me I cannot find an evolutionary survival benefit from such pain.

Thats OK Royce, it understandable that you find it hard to think of only as hormones and chemistry. You only have the subjectuve experience of it. An objective experience is an oxymoron. I just hope that you understand that an argument from indignation holds no actual weight behind it. I mean, just because you find it hard to believe, can't be taken as an argument against the claim that that is all that love and pain are.

Whether "soulmates" are designed for each other or met and loved in another life or are simply two people uniquely suited for one another
and instantly recognize and realized that fact doesn't matter. What matters is that it happens and is real.

Whooa..."what" happens though? What do you mean by soulmate?

As far as love healing or tempering physical pain, of course it is chemistry in action but it is the love the causes the chemistry that happens.

OK, so u agree that there is a correlation between the physical attributes to love/pain and love/pain itself, but you are claiming that the love/pain causes the physical, and not the other way around.

To make this claim meaningful, you now need to explain exactly what it is that Love/Pain is, and how it causes the physical reactions. Because under the current scientific paradigm, the subjective experience is said to be caused by the physical, in a direct meaningful way. This explanation not only attempts to explain what love is, and how the experience arises, but it also explains why there are certain physical reactions that correlate to love/pain. With your "Love causes physical reactions" hypothesis, you not only need to explain what love is, what causes it, and where/how love exists outside of the physical, but you will need to explain why this phenomenon should interact with the physical, and then you will also need to explain HOW this phenomenon interacts with the physical.

I can agree that love is a survival technique or stratagy as is monogamy and reproduction. I can even see that love is a product of evolution and reaching a certain minimum level of intelligence. All I am saying is that it is much more and it is and has tangable effects and results on all of us. We need love and need to love just as much as we need food and water. I agree that it is subjective. It is also objective.

I can't help but read this all and feel like you are saying one thing, and then saying the complete opposite and agreeing that they are both true, when one contradicts the other.

Love is not, per say, objective. Love is subjective. But as with all subjective phenomenon, it arises due to objective facts/actions/causes/reality whatever. Objectivity is the reality, and subjectivity is just what we experience of it. Love is a feeling, therefore subjective.

You said before that you couldn't see how love would evolve, and you here say that you believe that we need love as much as we need food and water. Now, we have evolved love in this way so that we need it so drastically (I don't agree as much as food and water, but that's irrelevant really, I'll agree we NEED it). So why is love so damn important that it should be so integral to our character?

What is love used for? (In my chosen order of importance)
1. Bonding Mother/Father to Child.
2. Bonding Mates
3. Bonding Brothers/Sisters
4. Last and, most certainly the least, bonding between companions.

To me, the advantage of this mechanism of bonding these particular relations is obvious. The first is important because at birth and for many years, Humans are useless. Without the loving care of our parents, we would die. No doubt. This is an obvious point for Nat Selection to remove.

The second, I am going to postulate, comes about largely because of sexual selection. Females are stuck with children when they give birth. If they can get males which are going to stick around after the birth, then they will save themselves a lot of work (+ there will be a better chance of their children surviving). So the females choose mates which stick around (Or else they let the children die of mates which left (harder to raise them), or in some cases the new partner after the last one departed killed the kids of the previous father. (Yes, all of this stuff does happen in nature. Yes we are part of nature)). So, result: Over time, females have selected males which stick around (probably achieved by selecting a mutation which tapped into the 'Child love' gene which would have been present in all of us, and allowing it to now be used as a 'Mate love' gene.) Thise 'Mate Love' gene is then present in male population, and it would then be passed into all of their offspring, males and females included...
(Just one possibility)

The Third: Sibling love. Why? Because Sibling have (statistically) half of their genes in common with us. By ensuring our siblings survive, our genes unsure they have greater chance at making it into the next generations, even if you don't make it.

The fourth: Love of friends. Why? Because your friends help you when you need it. And/Or because you have helped them out so much, that you have a lot of resources invested into them, and you want to get your payment back. You want to keep them around until they help you out.
(And don't go telling me that "Oh no, I love my friends, they are much more than that to me... blah blah blah" because how many times have 'Best Friends' been instantly disowned because they did something wrong (cheated with your wife/husband, stole from you etc) Being a best friend isn't permanent love, it is a conditional love, which is based on the condition that they help you and don't betray you.)

 

[Royce]

AG, The reason for the confusion is that I think love is both subjective and objective. I don't believe that we can separate it into exclusively one or the other. IMO love is also spiritual, but that's my bag and I won't impose it here.

Another point is which came first. Is love a result of chemistry or is chemistry the result of love? I don't think that we can really tell at this point. It's the old chicken and egg delema.

As far as soul mates are concerned, I was using the term in strictly common usage. I have no idea what it really means. I know that it happens reguardless of sex or species.

While we cannot directly measure love we can measure its effects in an objective way. What I have postulated here is a well known well observed and measured phenomenon. I don't think that that is in question. I, however, don't think that we can put love under a microscope and study it scientifically because it is both objective and subjective and like an egg it can not be separated without losing its essential integrity. To try to do so destroys and renders useless or at least meaningless the very thing we are trying to study.

There are some things in life and the universe that simply defy the scientific method. They cannot be disected, measured, analyzed or quantumized. They must be accepted on their terms alone. Love in my opinion it one of those things and probably at the head of the list.

Science is a tool with limited applicability and scope. It is not the universal method of knowledge that we would like it to be. We cannot measure everything and simply because we can not measure it does not mean that it does not exist objectively and well as subjectively. There is no, and can never be one real theory of everything.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Royce
There are some things in life and the universe that simply defy the scientific method.

What makes you think that?

I disagree

 

[Royce]

The fact that I believe that there is more than physical matter and energy in and to life and the universe, that there are things that are both subjective and objective and are real, that the subjective can and does effect the objective. That is what make me think that.
"There are more things under the stars, Horatio, than are drempt of by your philosophers." (or something like that.)

 

[Zantra]

Originally posted by Another God
What makes you think that?

I disagree

I'll answer that- Because subjective influences skew logistics of objectivity. Our perception is how we objectively define things along with logistics. That perception is altered by subjective things. Follow me?

 

[Royce]

Gee, I wish I'd said that, Zantra! Thanks.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Zantra
I'll answer that- Because subjective influences skew logistics of objectivity. Our perception is how we objectively define things along with logistics. That perception is altered by subjective things. Follow me?

Oh sure, so the scientific method will never make us know the objective. Fine, I'll admit to that. I am compelled to by my understanding of the objective.

But as such, since I believe the scientific method (and any other method) simply CANNOT ever allow a subjective point of view to be able to know the objective, all the sci method could possibly strive for, is to align their subjective view with the objective reality.

And I believe that is what science tries to, and does do. It takes time, and revision, and alterations of previous beliefs, but it happens.

 

[Royce]

Is'nt all knowledge subjective whether it be knowledge of objective reality or abstract subjective thought? We can only know in our minds or brains if you prefer. Even the measurements of the pure objective are subjective perceptions of what we believe our intruments are measuring and telling us.
This is why, inpart, I say that we can not separate the two. One of the other reasons I believe as I do is that I am convinced that there is more to reality than objective materialism. Knowledge, logic, thought, reason, emotion, love, mind vs brain and heart,soul, spirit, whatever you prefer to call it is real but not objective. It can and does effect the real material world and thus can be indirectly measured. This IMO make it every bit ass real as the pure objective material rock we all allude to.