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What is love?

mslxl

Thinker
M
Joined
Mar 5, 2006
Messages
233
Or, to be more precise, not so much what is your personal opinion of what love is, but how does love fit in the belief wars that JREF is engaged in? Can love be defined, studied and understood in a rationalist, materialist perspective? Does talking about love indicate something about the speaker's other beliefs, and if so, what? What use and abuse of the concept of love is being made by believers in the paranormal and the supernatural?
 
I know we are having technical difficulties right now, but stop re-posting this thread.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Lisa Simpson
 
mslxl said:
Or, to be more precise, not so much what is your personal opinion of what love is, but how does love fit in the belief wars that JREF is engaged in?
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Slightly to the left, and down a bit. And rotated 23 degrees on the Y-axis.

Can love be defined, studied and understood in a rationalist, materialist perspective?
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Yes.

Does talking about love indicate something about the speaker's other beliefs, and if so, what?
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It could, and it depends.

What use and abuse of the concept of love is being made by believers in the paranormal and the supernatural?
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It depends on the claims they make.
 
Baby don't hurt me. Don't hurt me no more.

Love fits very well into the "wars of beliefs" since it's one of the best known of the hug generating forces. This knowledge helps put the even the fiercest of debates into perspective, and is sometimes used by posters (and admins) to put an end to flamewars. ;)
 
Love is a shared delusion. We have no real ambition to find love; we don't want to find love at all! We just want to extend ourselves beyond other people's personal boundaries, and impose our own self-images upon them. We don't want to become their ideal, instead we want only a mirror to see our selves in. We strive so hard for true intimacy, but we're doomed to failure. We look ridiculous pursuing an impossible goal that we really don't need.

(With apologies to Stanislaw Lem)
 
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Love is a snowmobile racing across the icy tundra that suddenly flips over, trapping you beneath. At night the ice weasels come.

Matt Groening
 
Claire: What is true love?
John: True love is your soul's recognition of its counterpoint in another.
Claire: It's a little cheesy but I like it.
John: I read it on a bumper sticker!

My wife has made me watch that movie way too many times.

As to the OP - I think Piscivore pretty much nailed it
 
What type of love? Do you mean a love for a well-cooked steak, Mahler's symphonies (deal with it people!), my dog, my husband, myself? All of the above?

The feelings of philia, eros, and agape have been studied, and IIRC, the sources for each are different.
 
Love is the release of pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and other chemicals into the bloodstream of the human species. It is a process that developed as a result of natural selection and ensures that reproductive pairs bond long enough for the next generation to survive.

The release of chemicals is accompanied by feelings of snuggily-wuggiliness, the tingly-wingles, and slurred speech.

Oh yea, and it is the greatest feeling ever........wever.
 
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It's an invented notion so Hallmark can sell cards on Valentine's Day.

M.

Say, are you a foreigner?
 
Hokulele said:
Phil has feelings? I learn something new every day.
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They are entirely hypothetical at this point. Unless you talk to that one Lithuanian endocrinologist, but he's thought of as something of a loose cannon by the rest of the scientific community, as most of his "evidence" was originally published by a phrenologist that died of the croup.
 
Piscivore said:
The feelings of Phil, on the other hand, have gone more or less unexplored by the academic community.
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True. But the love of Phil in Philadelphia, Philinphiladelphiaphilia, is a well understood branch of science, philinphiliadelphiaphilology.

ETA: But of course, this is not to be confused with the junk science, Philinphilidelphiaphiliaphrenology, which is the study of the physical shape of people's heads who happen to love Phil in Philadelphia.
 
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A homeostatic imbalance to trick us into reproducing.

Win Powerball!!!
 
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