The Existance of Love

[Apathy]

I had a conversation with my sister the the other day in which debated over the existance of Love. I argued that it did Exist and was most powerful thing in the world but was misused and overused by people nowadays. She argued that it wasn't real and that it was ridiculous for me, of all people, to believe. I believe main confusion in the matter is the fact that the english language is highly ristricted; it has only one word for Love, or witch, or magic, which all have various definitions. In ancient Greek, there are 5 words for love. Our word 'Love' is the same in relation to your mother, your siblings, your pets, your girl/boyfriend, or even your god. It is even used as pseudonym for sex.
:argue:

[Niamh]

Hi Apathy,
We have has some previous discussions on the topic here on the forum. If you are interested in reading over one of them, you'll find it via this link.
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43992

[The Comedian]

Of course love exists; our only struggle, as you note in your post, is what to call it.

[The Atheist]

It exists alright, but it exists on a rational basis, being a combination of conditioning and material events in the brain.

Denying it's a bit silly.

[Apathy]

I am not talking about the biological love an infant feels for it's mother, nor the protective love of a mother, nor even the love of a mate that Freud talks about. I am speaking of the all-consuming, irrational kind of love that showcases in books such as 'Twilight', 'Romeo and Juliet', or 'The Named'.(when I refer to this love I will use 'L' instead of 'l'; love vs. Love)
the only standard things about Love(not love) appear to be:
1) You can't control who you fall in Love with
2) You don't have to like someone to Love them
3) You can not fall out of Love
4) Just because you Love one person, does not mean you can not love someone else.

[Apathy]

Denying it's a bit silly.

The reason my sister said it was ridiculous for me to believe in Love is because I deny the existance of 'good' and 'evil' and many many other things that people think are concrete facts.

[The Atheist]

The reason my sister said it was ridiculous for me to believe in Love is because I deny the existance of 'good' and 'evil' and many many other things that people think are concrete facts.

Yes, they're a bit different, though.

Love, hate, jealousy, etc. don't exist on their own, they exist as human emotions, and whether they're conditioned or innate, they certainly exist.

Good and evil are simply human constructs and unquantifiable. Accordingly, as you note, they are worthless and don't actually exist.

People have trouble with concrete facts. They usually prefer soft, squishy ones that can be shaped to fit their beliefs.

[soundofmusic]

I am not talking about the biological love an infant feels for it's mother, nor the protective love of a mother, nor even the love of a mate that Freud talks about. I am speaking of the all-consuming, irrational kind of love that showcases in books such as 'Twilight', 'Romeo and Juliet', or 'The Named'.(when I refer to this love I will use 'L' instead of 'l'; love vs. Love)
the only standard things about Love(not love) appear to be:
1) You can't control who you fall in Love with
2) You don't have to like someone to Love them
3) You can not fall out of Love
4) Just because you Love one person, does not mean you can not love someone else.

Your idea is very thought provoking:
I have no data on this; but my belief is that:
1. A baby doesn't feel love for its mother; but dependency and familiarity.( I recall, as a young mother, that I was very awkward with my daughter and she much prefered the nurse, my mother, even my father to me) Bonding came much later.
2.I do recall that when I heard my daughter in the nursery, I automatically knew her cry from all the other infants; I also recall that I was protective almost to the point of paranoia (I blamed that on excess estrogen; as I did my suddenly lowered IQ)
3. I think that our mate may begin as an irrational love, like the one in Twilight; remember that all of these people began with a relationship they had to fight for, their friends were trying to separate them, they became so focused on the fight that all of that excess energy made them feel as if it was directed toward the person themselves...After you are with a person, become comfortable, there is nothing left to fight for and it is easy to take them for granted.
4. In my own personal experience, it is very difficult to control who you love; because we are at the mercy of our unconscious, visual memories so far back that we don't even remember them. Alot of my ideas of the perfect man came from watching my father's gangster films; so I am always attracted to sociopaths.
5. Falling out of love is easier if you do it first; no, I'm not joking. If you tire of the person and they bore you and you leave; you may never think of them again. If they leave you, like in the case of Bella, in Twilight; you spend the rest of your days comparing every other lover to them.
6. Sometimes you love someone for old reasons, they are the father of your child, they helped you through a bad patch; but sometimes you stop liking who they are.
7.And lastly, you can love two people for entirely different reasons; it has worked for years in different countries. If you think of the two men who Bella loves: one is immature, poor, close to the earth, has a large connected family and can give her children; the other is powerful, rich, illusive...she can love both.

[isidro]

People who don't want to see the error of their ways classify good and bad as unquantifiable. Emotions are quite a bit more temperamental and make much less sense altogether than morality. Morality is at least something that is somewhat stable. Talk to any pregnant woman and you find emotions bouncing off walls in wild abandon.

Love is discernable at least when you would give your life and any comfort for a person long after you first made your love known and it was accepted and when due to their shortcomings you also wouldn't mind flinging them by their hair across the room.

[soundofmusic]

you find emotions bouncing off walls in wild abandon.
Love is discernable at least when you would give your life and any comfort for a person long after you first made your love known and it was accepted and when due to their shortcomings you also wouldn't mind flinging them by their hair across the room.

:brickwall You're right, Isidro. I was shocked sometime ago when I relized that wild abandon was not merely something experienced by pregnant women and teenagers; It can happen at almost any age. That is exactly why I have decided to stay a widow against all my friends protest! :nod:

[JBI]

Yes, they're a bit different, though.

Love, hate, jealousy, etc. don't exist on their own, they exist as human emotions, and whether they're conditioned or innate, they certainly exist.

Good and evil are simply human constructs and unquantifiable. Accordingly, as you note, they are worthless and don't actually exist.

People have trouble with concrete facts. They usually prefer soft, squishy ones that can be shaped to fit their beliefs.

I would disagree - I would think Good and Evil exist in the same frame as the concept of love and hate - what we personally decide is good or evil (if those two actually are opposites, depending on our thinking) is the same rationale arguably, that dictates what we love and hate.


In practice, it equates to something like - I love my wife because - something which isn't exactly easy to put into words of course, given the nature of the feeling, which is, in itself, continuous, and ever changing, and subject to different degrees of sincerity, amongst other factors.

And then in contrast, I think you are a Bad person, or the action you have just done is "bad" or "rude" rather because... sometimes even that is hard to quantify in words, depending on the nuance and articulateness of the person, not to mention a billion other factors, such as the contributor to the sense of write and wrong, the state and mood at the time of judgment, and the biases held against the causation, or nature of the thing being evaluated as good or bad in itself.

So on those grounds, I would have to disagree with you. I believe in Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, Love and Hate, and any other number of binaries and subjectivity - simply because I believe when people rationalize about things, ultimately, they create these constructs, and make them real within their own frames of reference. If that isn't real, than I don't know what is.

Nobody who has experienced real emotion, on any level, and real feelings can deny their existence - they are subjective, of course, but that doesn't make them less real.

[Apathy]

I would disagree - I would think Good and Evil exist in the same frame as the concept of love and hate - what we personally decide is good or evil (if those two actually are opposites, depending on our thinking) is the same rationale arguably, that dictates what we love and hate.


In practice, it equates to something like - I love my wife because - something which isn't exactly easy to put into words of course, given the nature of the feeling, which is, in itself, continuous, and ever changing, and subject to different degrees of sincerity, amongst other factors.

And then in contrast, I think you are a Bad person, or the action you have just done is "bad" or "rude" rather because... sometimes even that is hard to quantify in words, depending on the nuance and articulateness of the person, not to mention a billion other factors, such as the contributor to the sense of write and wrong, the state and mood at the time of judgment, and the biases held against the causation, or nature of the thing being evaluated as good or bad in itself.

So on those grounds, I would have to disagree with you. I believe in Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, Love and Hate, and any other number of binaries and subjectivity - simply because I believe when people rationalize about things, ultimately, they create these constructs, and make them real within their own frames of reference. If that isn't real, than I don't know what is.

Nobody who has experienced real emotion, on any level, and real feelings can deny their existence - they are subjective, of course, but that doesn't make them less real.

While I believe that all these thing exist at some level, 'Good' and 'Evil' are cultural constructs while love(and Love) are universal concepts.

[The Atheist]

While I believe that all these thing exist at some level, 'Good' and 'Evil' are cultural constructs while love(and Love) are universal concepts.

Saved me a job. Pretty basic stuff.

[Dirtbag]

Like oxytocin and serotonin exist... there's no chemical of evil. Evil-doers are consciously making decisions and acting out against societal expectations of what is right. If they're not doing it consciously, then I'd say they're not evil and are just crazy sociopaths. If there was no society to expect others to do what was right, then I'd say you could do no wrong. But in the same notion... if you lived in an empty world without people, without a society, you'd have noone to trigger your love chemicals. Both love and goodness exist because of others.

I believe good and evil are just words used to define ideas and actions that exist on opposite sides of a continuum of opinion. As long as you have people existing, you'll have people thinking people are existing improperly. This conflict of ideas and actions is as real as your brain secretions.

/redundant post

[Apathy]

Like oxytocin and serotonin exist... there's no chemical of evil. Evil-doers are consciously making decisions and acting out against societal expectations of what is right. If they're not doing it consciously, then I'd say they're not evil and are just crazy sociopaths. If there was no society to expect others to do what was right, then I'd say you could do no wrong. But in the same notion... if you lived in an empty world without people, without a society, you'd have noone to trigger your love chemicals. Both love and goodness exist because of others.

I believe good and evil are just words used to define ideas and actions that exist on opposite sides of a continuum of opinion. As long as you have people existing, you'll have people thinking people are existing improperly. This conflict of ideas and actions is as real as your brain secretions.

/redundant post

Evil exists because of good, love exists conceptually because hate exists but it would exist without hate, just have no meaning

[Dirtbag]

Evil exists because of good, love exists conceptually because hate exists but it would exist without hate, just have no meaning

I'm not sure I fully understand you.

Love exists conceptually because we rationalize biological changes in our minds and bodies as significant aspects of life. We strive for love because we strive to make our lives significant. Love is how we react based on the causality of nature shaping our brains and the experiences changing the way we think. Two people living in harmony have found meaning. There bodies react positively when they're together. And by that I mean, they trigger each other's pleasure receptors and they make each other healthy. Even without hate, isn't their life meaningful? They live in a flow of being together and being apart and when they come together life is significant. The time apart is just as important because it allows them to replenish their love reserves. Why would they need to hate?

[The Atheist]

Evil exists because of good, love exists conceptually because hate exists but it would exist without hate, just have no meaning

Nope, this is just incorrect association.

Good and evil are not arbitrary and therefore do not "exist", the descriptions are constructed by groups of humans to suit their particular agenda. For them to be considered real, there would have to at least be universal agreement on what they are.

We covered this in a thread recently discussing concepts of good and evil. As you cannot class animal behaviour as good or evil, the concept falls to bits.

Love and hate can be plotted on an MRI. While the names are human constructs, the emotions are real.

[Apathy]

Nope, this is just incorrect association.

Good and evil are not arbitrary and therefore do not "exist", the descriptions are constructed by groups of humans to suit their particular agenda. For them to be considered real, there would have to at least be universal agreement on what they are.

We covered this in a thread recently discussing concepts of good and evil. As you cannot class animal behaviour as good or evil, the concept falls to bits.

Love and hate can be plotted on an MRI. While the names are human constructs, the emotions are real.

'Good' and 'Evil' exist in an individuals imagination, I am not suggesting that they exist as energy or mass or that they exist in a similar way as love, or Love but 'universal agreement" is not necessary for something t exist as a concept, otherwise almost Nothing would exist.


I'm not sure I fully understand you.

Love exists conceptually because we rationalize biological changes in our minds and bodies as significant aspects of life. We strive for love because we strive to make our lives significant. Love is how we react based on the causality of nature shaping our brains and the experiences changing the way we think. Two people living in harmony have found meaning. There bodies react positively when they're together. And by that I mean, they trigger each other's pleasure receptors and they make each other healthy. Even without hate, isn't their life meaningful? They live in a flow of being together and being apart and when they come together life is significant. The time apart is just as important because it allows them to replenish their love reserves. Why would they need to hate?

I am not saying life is meaningless without love, just that love has no meaning without hate; if everyone loved everyone and there was no hate than love would be nothing remotely special, it would not be called love as no one would have tought up the idea of 'love' just as we have no name for the way we feel when we neither love nor hate without encroching on the spectrum between the two(I don't beleive indifference describes most peoples nuetral reaction)
Everything must have an antithesis to possess any significant meaning.
Also I was thinking and I wondered whether hate is just the absence of love(or vice versa) as darkness is defined as just the absence of light, and considering that, if, for arguments sake, 'Evil' exists who is to say it isn't just the absence of theoretical 'Good'. What if every "force" does not have an adverse "force" but just a lack of the original "force".
Let "force"(original) be positive and the lack thereof be negative, would Neutral be a mild amount of positive "force"? This is all only a stray thought, not a solid theory, but I think it is intrigueing

[blazeofglory]

Love is born of a situation when man is suffused with lots of foods and ample rest.