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The philosophy of love

cogito_ergo_sum
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Posted 03/26/04 - 05:26 PM:	#1
Anyone want to explain what love is heres my version The English language is very limited in descriptive words for love. We have one word to describe the various different types of love whereas the Greek language has four. Agape a Christian kind of love, philia love between friends, storge a family type of love and Eros a romantic love. The type of love I'm going to define here is in my opinion a very over rated and often misunderstood emotion of Eros or for the want of a better word romantic love. First however I would like to say that all forms of love are poor imitations of what I would call real love. Agape a Christian type of love is I believe the closest we can ever come to experiencing real true love. This is not to say I'm a Christian. But any kind of love based on conditions is not real true love. Many times I've heard people say "I hate that bastard" when talking about an ex boyfriend or girlfriend. How can you hate someone you love? You hate them because they didn't come up to your expectations? Because they hurt you! True love is unconditional, you love regardless or whether your with them or without them. True unconditional love can sometimes be observed in parents with there children. Someone's child may grow up to be an axe murderer, a rapist, a serial killer but the parent will still love them. They don't agree with the child's actions or behaviour but they still love their child. This is Christian love, Pure unconditional love which I believe is the only type of love worth experiencing. I believe true romantic love should mirror unconditional love. We all have concepts of beauty which we learn at a very young. So young in fact we don't even remember acquiring these concepts. I remember as a child watching a miss world contest and all were beautiful in my eyes except for (I think if my memory serves me correctly that it was) miss Tahiti. She came out on the stage looking, well let's say a little overweight as a ten year old I was shocked. The point here is that to her people, she was considered to be the most beautiful in her country. In Victorian England plump women with white skin was considered more desirable than today's concept of beauty. Middle class women were more likely to be plump whereas the working class were likely to be underweight through lack of nourishment. Middle class women didn't have to work especially outside in the sun like the working class had to. All learnt behaviours, we could even go as far back as prehistoric man and say women would find a strong muscular man someone who is a good hunter gatherer as being the most desirable. So we all have a concept of what we find most desirable in a spouse. Concepts are learnt from our family and the media. We are told what we like. We don't appear to have a choice in it. The problem here however is by these standards very few of us are able to get a spouse that matches up to the ideal concept. Frequently throughout my life I have observed what I would term two physically unattractive ( By western standards ) people holding hands, kissing each other, seemingly being madly in love. And I've asked myself the question "are they really in love with each other?" , What would happen if a stunning blonde woman made a pass at him? Would he take the bait? What exactly does he/she love about each other? They are not the most attractive people in the world and yet they seem happy together. From observations like these I've formulated what I believe to be the answer. We all have a concept about ourselves. We all have an idea of our strengths and our weaknesses. Our attractiveness or unattractiveness. Our wealth or our poverty. I call this a self concept and from this self concept we have a rough idea of the kind of partner we are capable of attracting.So when a man meets a woman and believes she is the best that he is capable of getting and she feels the same they fall in love. Obviously if someone has a low self esteem they may pick a spouse that isn't equal in terms of beauty which will cause complications later. Even if they are equal in terms of beauty someone with low self esteem will see their partner as being more than what their capable of attaining. Which in turn will lead to possessiveness and jealously that may possibly lead to a relationship breakdown. Which in turn can lead to suicides, stalking, depression ect. So for the relationship to be healthy both partners need to have a realistic view of themselves. So they find the best person that they believe they are capable of getting using the valuing system mentioned above And then the feeling arrives, the feeling of euphoria. The feeling that men have killed and died for. The sense of feeling whole. The sense of feeling at one with the world. The reality of this is that the person is making themselves feel like this. This initial feeling of infatuation appears to be natures way of trapping you. After all, these feeling are created in your own mind. A chemical reaction in the brain which is probably dopamine. I'm saying this because people who are heart broke at this point in the relationship are usually suffering to some degree with depression. Which in part appears to be the absence of dopamine. So infatuation is like a drug our brain releases the chemical and we feel good. If we break up with our partner at this stage of the relationship our brains no longer produce the chemical. So we suffer withdrawal symptoms, we feel down. When we consider this its no surprise Freud said love was a mental illness. At this point in the relationship we don't really know our partner we are seeing what we want to see. Faults and annoying little habits won't be noticed at this stage hence the term love is blind. After this initial stage is over the real work begins. The little annoying faults of the other person begin to get noticed. Things like leaving the top off the toothpaste, being untidy, talking too much, At this point relationships begin to break down. For others they will work through their problems. The stage of romantic love lasts around two to three years for some couples they will of got married and had children. The divorce rate is highest between couples who have been married only 2 years. After that the divorce rate falls dramatically so as long as the couple can work through their differences at this point in the relationship real love can begin to blossom. Anyone wish to argue with this?
Blasphemer--(a special name given to me by BMW-Guy)

RandomPrecision
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Posted 03/26/04 - 07:57 PM:	#2
Several comments: The conditional love not being true love: I agree. Unconditional love from parents of axe-murderers: Again, I agree, this is a form of true love, and love of any other type shouldn't be considered "true" unless it is equally as unconditional. Miss Tahiti: I agree. Ew. Not being able to choose our concepts of what is desirable in a spouse: I disagree. It seems that American society wants me to date an average height, blonde, stupid whore. My girlfriend is none of these. Realistic view and self-esteem: For the most part, I agree, although there are many other factors to be accounted for, besides the appearances of the individuals involved. If this is replaced with all such qualities, I concur with the paragraph. Dopamine and mental chemistry: I would take it further than that. The reason for dopamine release is the body's way of telling you "It would be good to make children with that person." Statistics about marriage and divorce: I don't think these statistics carry a great weight. Many divorces occur within two years of the marriage. There aren't as many afterwards because the couples have already been divorced. Your second-to-last statement: Real love could have developed before the marriage, as well. If the love before the marriage is only conditional love, it may very well expire before it could "develop" here. It would be better for society as a whole if love developed before marriage, not several years into it. Welcome to the forums...

wuliheron
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Posted 03/27/04 - 02:32 AM:	#3
To love is to be happy with, to be accepting and nonjudgemental. This is a form of unconditional love, but the emphasis is on attitude rather than behavior. Note that this simple definition is adaquate for all of the examples you have given. Rather than attempting to split semantic hairs and describe an assortment of classes of love, it goes straight to the point. The important thing is that love is not a behavior, it is an attitude. As such, it cannot be quantified, it is a quality rather than a quantity.

sheol
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Posted 03/27/04 - 05:56 AM:	#4
Love is filling ones valence levels by sharing electrons so as to be complete.

gardener
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Posted 03/27/04 - 08:25 AM:	#5
cogito_ergo_sum Agape a Christian type of love is I believe the closest we can ever come to experiencing real true love. This is not to say I'm a Christian. i totally agree with you, as i'm not necessarily a christian either. but, it's a christian TYPE of love... based on values, etc. who knows, maybe it's not even based on values - otherwise, it would benefit the self. i think that it shouldn't benefit the self, in this case. it should unconditionally benefit humanity. however, i think that this type of love is more so based on compassion. compassion could very well be defined as a specific type of love, i know, but i believe it's more compassion-based.

epic
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Posted 03/27/04 - 09:17 AM:	#6
love is nothing but chemicals in the brain.

RandomPrecision
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Posted 03/27/04 - 10:29 AM:	#7
epic wrote: love is nothing but chemicals in the brain. You are just a bunch of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen, but I'm sure there are things more interesting and more specific that you could say about yourself. Elaborate of these "chemical in the brain".

epic
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Posted 03/29/04 - 09:00 AM:	#8
there's three stages of love: lust, romantic love, and attachment. the first stage is linked with hormomes such as testostorone, to get you looking for someone, basically: that is, lust. the second stage includes chemicals such as dopamine and norepinephrine, which focuses the love onto one person. this stage is similar to euphoric drugs such as speed and coke. they activate the same part of the brain. the last stage is less steamy, it keeps the couple together to help raise the kids. the chemical in this stage is called oxytocin. they pumped mice with it and the mice immedietely formed attachments. it's all tied in with evolution. evolution wants us to firstly find someone (lust), "fall" for them (dopamine -- falling in love, or being in love makes you feel good, the idea being then so you end up having kids and pass on your genes), and then stay with the person (in humans, the female relies on the male to help with the raising of the kid). knowing the chemical processes doesn't lessen the impact of being in lust, falling in love, wanting to stay with someone, though. it just shows the importance of the brain.

leucrotta
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Posted 03/29/04 - 09:44 AM:	#9
for me, love is very tied up with grief. you can sit about talking about an abstract crisis, but this experience is totally removed from experiencing the grief that hits you when a loved one dies. and often it's when you grieve for them that real love wells up. not the kind of general appreciation for them you felt before, but a deep and real love for them, all the more cutting because of loss.
if no body speaks of remarkable things...

silvertongue
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Posted 04/06/04 - 08:53 AM:	#10
Love is only a feeling. (As the great minds who are "The Darkness" so flamboyantly put it). Seriously though Love is a feeling which is conjured up by memories of times well spent in each others company. True love is a mutual feeling that both souls share of warmth and trust and the yearning to be with one another. A yearning never to loose each other and a feeling of happiness never yet experienced with another person. It is when two people make themselves feel contempt and happy with who they are and who their with. Or something along those lines.
Never argue with an idiot...... They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.

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