51 replies to this topic

[RighteousReason]

I'm curious as to people's personal responses.

these are some things I think are essentially important...

mutual physical attraction/passion, mutual mental attaction/passion, mutual emotional attraction/passion

That is, you both probably strongly desire to bang each other regularly. You both have similar levels and specific related interests of exploratory curiosity, and passion for expanding knowledge and understanding. You also both have a common emotional bond that extends beyond merely sex and pleasant company, or a similar level of desire for being beyond such a state (i.e. collaborative goals, rituals, or belief systems, for example).

[RighteousReason]

< partially joking >
Is love staying up until ridiculous hours of the night before a hugely important test and asking these kind of questions in online forums?
< /partially joking >
/*
* Due to recent errors in humor processing, I thought I'd be more explicit this time.
*
*/

[zoolander]

The inspiring, empowering or catastrophic realization - based on multiple other factors - that the sum of two is greater than one.

WOW, Harry that is really hard hitting. I totally agree. However, I do not believe love is something you feel for someone. I believe that love is an emotion you feel as a result of what you said above.

This may sound weird and alot of the things I have to say may sound weird but I said to my partner Natalie recently that I don't think that I love her or ever will However, on a day to day basis she stimulates the love within me to rise to the surface. She helps me recognise the love within me by sharing my life with me. Love in that sense, is an inspiration and zest for life.

Of course in the "traditional" sense I love her dearly but I don't see this as something she brings me but rather something that she has shown me by allowing me to be who I am, freely and openly without trying to mold me to her so called "standards."

We are continually motivating each other to be better people from that persons perspective. For example, I am in a punk band and she was one of the driving forces behind me being in a punk band but she doesn't like punk music.

She takes action without thinking about herself. A true act of selflessness. People who know her will attest to this.

So, what is love?

For me, love is a SELFLESS act. For me, love is NOT selfish. Hence, love is NOT what someone else can bring to me. Love is an APPRECIATION of what someone bring to me. Selflessly.

When "love" is selfish and desires, needs and expectations of another dominant the relationship, suffering usually dominates.

You could start a series of topics here

Part I: What is Love?
Part II: How do you maintain a feeling of love?
Part III: If you can find love, how do you let go?

It would also be interesting to explore the question

Part IV: Are pain and love the same thing?

[zoolander]

Someone once said to me

"It's all fucked up, beautiful, confusing and great"

I think this applies to love. And just about every other emotion as well.

[Kalepha]

Harold, personally I don't think the 'sum of two is greater than one' idea means very much. The sum of 100 is also greater than one. The number two is merely a property of a sexual reproductive fact and has little relation to love in virtue of its possessing twoness.

We minds need to figure out how to eliminate instances of unpleasant mental states without accidentally losing cognitive agencies or being ultimately self-destructive. When I have that solution for everyone else in the world I shall jump off a 1000-meter cliff without a parachute at g force should this be entailed.

[RighteousReason]

ok..

but really, what do you see as the essential qualities necessary for romantic love?

[zoolander]

ok..

but really, what do you see as the essential qualities necessary for romantic love?

I would say an understanding of what makes the other person involved happy. The fine details as well as the simple basics. If you overheard your partner say that she likes roses don't say anything and then surprise her. Surprise her/him with your attention to detail. Attention to detail about who they are and what they like. That shows you care. That shows you listen. It also shows that you aren't caught up if your own little self-absorbed world as well.

By definition

ro·mance: A mysterious or fascinating quality or appeal, as of something adventurous, heroic, or strangely beautiful

love : A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship


So romatic love would be a mysterious or fascinating quality or appeal, which is adventuorous, heroic, or strangely beautiful with someone you have a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward.

[Kalepha]

but really, what do you see as the essential qualities necessary for romantic love?

Romantic love doesn't exist except as a virtual fairy tale. Millions of years of evolution encoded in your instincts are at your disposal for narrating yours. Come on, McFly...

[zoolander]

I agree with that Nate

[RighteousReason]

Romantic love doesn't exist except as a virtual fairy tale

I mean... of course, you are right.

[RighteousReason]

[huh]

[RighteousReason]

Location: Cognition
Interests: Reality

Hah... yeah.


me: meta meta meta meta meta meta- WHOA where the hell am I...
you: *ahem*
me: oh. thanks.

[Kalepha]

Like I would incorporate your theme, zoolander, and Hank's, maybe Harold's if he modifies it to be a little less arbitrary and a lot more exciting. LOL. Thus, I don't mean to suggest that the virtual fairy tale can't exist or that it shouldn't, but that I find this inquiry to be a little uncharacteristic of you, Hank, who I would've thought already knew the obvious. You must be falling in loooeuve. Awww.

And, no, I don't see anything wrong with virtual virtual virtual virtual virtual virtual fairy tales, either. Hey, it's your computing power!

[RighteousReason]

Actually I'm somewhere between stunned disbelief and ... what you are referring to.

[Kalepha]

Oh, got you. [thumb]

[Infernity]

I have explained my attitude many times before.
*Me stretches back having my strong coffee recalling the old times of such discussions when I just joined you fellows*.



Ok, Love. In the romantic sense, as you said.

All organisms' goal in life- survival. Not necessarily a conscious goal, but still. Since we, cannot live without limits- we have offsprings. They are the closest mold of ours to continue us, a comfort for the fact you must die. Since the offspring is not your continuation only, the search after the proper mate is important. The mate of ours appears to us unconsciousnessly a complement of us, something to make our offsprings be improved, an ameliorated form of us. The mate fills what we lack. That is why it is said that every generation statistically is better than the previous one. In that aspect love is just a biological reaction, the mind finds the mate you have fallen for proper enough to mate with. Sad? Not really, we make that all emotionally interesting.

If you seek for the more personal attitude of ours, since everything after all seems quite lame, I can give you that too.

The strongest positive feeling human may have, a very rare thing is when it reaches the absolute *true* love feeling (what are the chances you have found something you could not ever dream of a better shape...). The need is determined eventually by the body, you may really like someone and want him and have a crush on him but after thy two kiss realize you do not find it was special nor wait for the next time, and the feeling of likeness and care are the only ones there. The body is the only thing to decide whether you love one or not when you morally should not try and love one you feel nothing for him mentally. And when I say morally I mean socially and personally.

-Infernity

[Kalepha]

The need is determined eventually by the body, you may really like someone and want him and have a crush on him but after thy two kiss realize you do not find it was special nor wait for the next time, and the feeling of likeness and care are the only ones there. The body is the only thing to decide whether you love one or not when you morally should not try and love one you feel nothing for him mentally.

Adi, I think love should be doxastic. That is, I think love should be more mental than blindly sub-mental.

You should have consensual sex with those you want to have sex with because you like having sex with them, not because you love them. You may love them, of course, but not because you like having sex with them. You also love many other people who you don't want to have sex with. Believing in any correspondence between sex and love creates unnecessary problems, unless all involved parties are metacognitively producing a virtual fairy tale.

In the 21st century, we aim to be more aware and less stupid. So let me know when I'm being stupid, too. )

[Infernity]

Nate, as for:

You also love many other people who you don't want to have sex with.

See:

Ok, Love. In the romantic sense,

However, what I mean is not the joy you have from mating with someone but just the need of being with him even if it is just being in his arms and so, as a result of physical touch. When you think you are insanely inlove with someone that you did not ever kiss, you are just having a crush, same way there is no love from first sight.

You should not say your mate you love her all the time, it loses value- that is a very strong meaningful word, at least to me. When you say it you must really mean it. Unless you are bitch :]

-Infernity

[DJS]

I'm curious as to people's personal responses.

these are some things I think are essentially important...

mutual physical attraction/passion, mutual mental attaction/passion, mutual emotional attraction/passion

That is, you both probably strongly desire to bang each other regularly. You both have similar levels and specific related interests of exploratory curiosity, and passion for expanding knowledge and understanding. You also both have a common emotional bond that extends beyond merely sex and pleasant company, or a similar level of desire for being beyond such a state (i.e. collaborative goals, rituals, or belief systems, for example).

Romantic love = serious addiction to particular neuro-physiological states that bond individuals to one another.

There are couples who "love" each other who also hate each other guts. Consider how many cases of domestic violence there are in the US every year. One is left wondering, 'what possible reason do these people have for staying with one another?' Answer; their biology compels them.

If compatibility is strong enough, and life circumstances favorable enough, a pair bond might be able to utilize initially ultra-strong neuro-physiological states to ride off into the sunset. But don't count on it. There is no "meant to be". There only "is" or "isn't".

So enjoy what you have (your biology), rather than lamenting it. Go get yourself addicted, but recognize yourself as a junkie. This might help out should you lose your supply and experience withdrawal.

[Infernity]

Ah and another thing, Nate...

The fact you love romantically someone does not necessarily you want to mate with him, no. But be with him. But the being with, that's a body motive. If you love someone you usually do not want to sit one feet from each other to just talk, you most likely would need to sit close/hold hands/hug ... This is still a need of the body, a need of being close. When you have the same need without a previous kiss, then you mainly desire to love her and vice versa.
I speak here, again, only of mates love, no other sorts such as friends/mother/platonic etc.

-Infernity

[Kalepha]

However, what I mean is not the joy you have from mating with someone but just the need of being with him even if it is just being in his arms and so, as a result of physical touch. When you think you are insanely inlove with someone that you did not ever kiss, you are just having a crush, same way there is no love from first sight.

The fact you love romantically someone does not necessarily you want to mate with him, no. But be with him. But the being with, that's a body motive. If you love someone you usually do not want to sit one feet from each other to just talk, you most likely would need to sit close/hold hands/hug ... This is still a need of the body, a need of being close. When you have the same need without a previous kiss, then you mainly desire to love her and vice versa.
I speak here, again, only of mates love, no other sorts such as friends/mother/platonic etc.

Oh all right, Adi. So it seems you are keeping sex and love separate. The only next step, in my opinion, is to be rid of the binary bias, or at least be aware of it, if only to recognize problems that needn't exist, that is, if you want to recognize problems that needn't exist.

There are couples who "love" each other who also hate each other guts. Consider how many cases of domestic violence there are in the US every year. One is left wondering, 'what possible reason do these people have for staying with one another?' Answer; their biology compels them.

Right, Don. But convenience and jealousy, mostly, probably compel them.

So enjoy what you have (your biology), rather than lamenting it.

So while biology shouldn't be lamented, it should be controlled, I think, at least by those who recognize something fundamentally wrong with their absurd condition.

[DJS]

Nate

So while biology shouldn't be lamented, it should be controlled, I think, at least by those who recognize something fundamentally wrong with their absurd condition.

Controlled to whatever extent possible, yes.

[Kalepha]

Yup.

[RighteousReason]

Go get yourself addicted, but recognize yourself as a junkie

I really like that metaphor, because it applies to any pleasure in general.

I'm in the process of attempting to stomp out the junkie in me. It seems like for every addiction I attack, I get a counter attack from a completely unexpected direction. Gar...

[DJS]

Hank

I really like that metaphor, because it applies to any pleasure in general.

I'm in the process of attempting to stomp out the junkie in me. It seems like for every addiction I attack, I get a counter attack from a completely unexpected direction. Gar...

I don't necessarily see the need for stomping out all behaviors which lead to what is perceived as the nonoptimal pursuit of primary goals. Ergo, my somewhat flippant suggestion to 'go get yourself addicted'. Perhaps this is a result of my possessing slightly different heuristics (ie, balancing perspectives of speculative technologism and skeptical humanism).

Hank, let me ask you, how would your actions differ if you knew that (1) you would die as a normal biological human at age 75 (2) cryonics turns out to be a failed enterprise as a result of various yet-to-be-discovered objective realities?

[Kalepha]

I don't necessarily see the need for stomping out all behaviors which lead to what is perceived as the nonoptimal pursuit of primary goals.

But perhaps perceptions are on a gradient. Some perceptions can be more informed than others. If one's perceptions aren't very informed, I wouldn't know why one wouldn't want in general to make them continually more informed, other than for the sole purpose of being stubborn, given one has the conceptual capacity to reflect on this. If you desire your supergoal to be weaker than weak, then make this explicit, for this eliminates the need to go around trying to justify the weaker-than-weak supergoal on poetic, arbitrary grounds. And I denote 'weaker than weak' because a strong supergoal is one that isn't allowed to change at all during the course of attaining it, which is most probably equally useless.

Hank, let me ask you, how would your actions differ if you knew that (1) you would die as a normal biological human at age 75 (2) cryonics turns out to be a failed enterprise as a result of various yet-to-be-discovered objective realities?

Thus, the virtue of a weak supergoal, greater than the weaker supergoal, and not nearly as imprudent as the dogmatic one. Tools derived from cognitive science, for instance, help to model decisions. Questions like these are superfluous. You march forward until you come to a dead end. If you choose only those supergoals whose bounds you know when you commence adventure, you're either omnipotent or uninteresting. If a dead end does, in fact, become the case, my march had better seen cognitive growth.

And I'm not Hank. I know.

[DJS]

Explicit. A smidge of apathy stirred in with a dash of cognitive dissidence produces a healthy serving of hedonism.

And I'm not Hank. I know.

Ball hog. [tung]

BTW, you're right. There's really no reason to justify desires that are necessarily arbitrary with arbitrary rationales, unless one is using the fora to talk to oneself.

[RighteousReason]

Hank, let me ask you, how would your actions differ if you knew that (1) you would die as a normal biological human at age 75

Hah, you sound like my ex-girlfriends (although they used less words- "what if you fail?").

The point is, Don, that is not- is NOT, an option.

I can't express the extremity of this- how the very nature of your question takes a stab at exactly who I am.

[DJS]

Hank

The point is, Don, that is not- is NOT, an option.

I can't express the extremity of this- how the very nature of your question takes a stab at exactly who I am.

My question has nothing to do with options and everything to do with possibilities. And yes, it is superfluous to the extent that it is completely conditional and only useful in elucidating for you an alternative dispositional state from that which you are use to.

Odds are you should probably ignore my attitudes towards relationships as their consequences will no doubt diverge from your current agenda.