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Heroes Community > Other Side of the Monitor > Thread: What is Love?
Thread: What is Love? This Popular Thread is 225 pages long: 1 30 60 90 120 150 180 ... 190 191 192 193 194 ... 210 225 · «PREV / NEXT»
JollyJoker
JollyJoker


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posted December 04, 2013 07:46 AM

The reason for that is, that it feels great to be "in love", but it would seem that for a lot of people this is a rather fading feeling, otherwise people supposedly in love with each other wouldn't cheat on each other and go their separate ways after some time.

However, the discussion leaves out a couple of rather important factors. The most important one is that:

It takes two to tango.

"Love", no matter how you define it, can obviously thrive only, when the feeling is mutual, that is, if the 2 subjects are equally enthralled - which is a rather massive assumption already.
Generally, things go belly-up, because this isn't the case: one partner may actually be in love, the other may just feel flattered, enjoy the attention and the feeling that comes with being desired and desirable - but not "in love". If one is "in love", the other only infatuated, it will end as well. Most relationships end with one partner having fallen out of love (and was in fact never really in), the other still in "love mode"
There is also biology. Don't forget, that looking for the SECURITY of their offspring is hardwired in the genes of females, while spreading the seed is hardwird in the male genes, which is why you find things like cheating even with the apes.

"Love at first SIGHT" is the typical ignorant term that comes with an overrating of the sense of sight (and "looks"). There is a hell of a lot more going on when people meet each other, than just taking in looks. A whole industry is making billions each year by successfully convincing people that it is good to cover up their natural pheromones with expensive artificial smells. This is like wearing masks or wigs and makes "love at first sight" much more difficult.
People trying to "sell" themselves off as someone they are not, is obviously pretty detrimental to these things, and under these conditions instincts may take some time until they are allowed to take a look behind the masquerading.
It's like, communication helps, but if the wordless conversation is all bluff and lies, true feelings have a hard time to develop.

This, however, is in compliance with capitalism. Keeping up appearances - dishonesty, if you want to - is what we learn; putting up a front, designed to make us more "attractive", whatever this is supposed to meant. Only that in this case it's detrimental for everyone, because no one actually profits in the middle and long run.

Naturally, under these conditions it's no wonder people err, and "love at first sight" is somewhat elusive a thing, since what you "see", is often not what you get.


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artu
artu


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My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 04, 2013 11:04 AM

@Mvass
1- Evil is still a poor choice of word. I don't want to turn this into yet another "norms evolve because of conditions" discussion, so let me simply say it shouldn't surprise you that societies that consisted vastly of illiterate peasants didn't handle their domestic problems like you.
2- Love is not a proposition of any kind. A proposition is something cognitive you deliberately decide and defend. There is almost nothing common between a proposition and love.
3- You bring to the table a very pragmatic approach to love, which is not necessarily the only kind of love. Actually, especially in modern times, it sometimes works the opposite way, people are expected to behave rational and feel surrounded and alienated by so many rules all the time, they see their love life as the only "space" they can let go and act spontaneously. Think of Chaplin's famous factory worker with his automated moves, now think of him going to a Metal concert on a Saturday night and headbanging. That kind of decharge is kind of similar to what love does for some people, it's their logic-free, pervert zone. And in cases when this type of longing matches, you have a functioning couple.

@JJ

Romantic love usually has two aspects, on one hand we have the passion and desire and on the other, the feeling of commitment and what Gootch calls "you come first in my life." Naturally, the second aspect emerges in time. Yet, even if you only focus on the first aspect, you still need a period of time for that to fully develop into something more than raw desire. All the stuff you point out about pheromones, smell etc etc also seem to be there for dogs, would you say that dogs fall in love? Of course, there is no measurable moment that you can pinpoint and say "from this moment on, it is officially love," just like you can't say "this child turned into an adult on Monday 18:34" You can pick a symbolical threshold like the Indians (the day he hunts his first bison or whatever) but just like there is no exact moment when a child becomes an adult, there is no telling exactly when it turns into something more than desire. Yet it does, and right there I agree with mvass:
Quote:
I can pinpoint the experience in both cases, and say that the word refers to that. Sure, one can define the word "love" to mean something that can happen at first sight, but the point is that what one feels at first sight and what one feels once one gets to know a person are different feelings. You're free to call whichever one you want "love", but you should recognize that they're different.

I think, by love we usually mean the second (unless when you're 13 or something and even the slightest slice of passion feels like Romeo and Juliette) and we refer to the first one as passion or attraction.



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JollyJoker
JollyJoker


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posted December 04, 2013 01:37 PM

artu said:

@JJ

Romantic love usually has two aspects, on one hand we have the passion and desire and on the other, the feeling of commitment and what Gootch calls "you come first in my life." Naturally, the second aspect emerges in time.

Nothing natural about it - it's just an assumption, and one that doesn't even make much sense, because that would only be true for a RATIONAL decision. But it isn't.

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Minion
Minion


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posted December 04, 2013 01:50 PM

@JJ. Why do you assume that people can't fall out of love? It is easy to dismiss this by just saying "it was never love in the first place" but how do you know that?
____________
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baklava
baklava


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posted December 04, 2013 01:59 PM

MVass, mate, I don't need to explain, of course, that I had no intention of offending you or being rude.

Still, I don't see how your last post differs from what I said, except that you clarified that you believe that if people were to think correctly, they would be thinking like you do.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Your points were:

- It's not impossible, but incongruent, to feel love when it's a bad idea.
- Incongruent, here, you explained as internally inconsistent.
- Therefore, it is internally inconsistent to love someone if they do not give a high priority to your well being, and if there are moments when you don't enjoy being around them (essentially your definition of "bad idea" on this matter).

However, as there are moments when you don't enjoy being around your partner in every relationship, this boils down to A LOT of moments when you don't enjoy being around them, or moments when you REALLY don't enjoy being around them. Both requiring subjectivity - how many moments? How awful do they have to be? Depends from person to person. People whose standards on this vary heavily from our own, we consider strange (or, as you chose to put, internally inconsistent).

Internal inconsistency is a heavy pair of words and should not be used about things which are, well, not inconsistent internally, but externally - with our subjective opinions as observers from the outside.

Hence, as I said in the first post, what we're really saying here is people who love people whom you don't think they should love, are strange.
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf

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JollyJoker
JollyJoker


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posted December 04, 2013 02:18 PM

Minion said:
@JJ. Why do you assume that people can't fall out of love? It is easy to dismiss this by just saying "it was never love in the first place" but how do you know that?
I don't assume that generally, I just pointed to the relations that are started on different footings, basically one not being love but something else (in which case that one would not have fallen in love, but for example being in love with the other person, but instead for example being in love with the feeling of being desired and cared for so much and going along. Or any number of different reasons.

Of course I wouldn't rule out that people can and do fall out of love, but obviously the more we talk about "the real thing" (provided there is such a thing) the more "difficult" it would be to find a reason why this should be the case.

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artu
artu


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My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 04, 2013 03:04 PM

Quote:
Nothing natural about it - it's just an assumption, and one that doesn't even make much sense, because that would only be true for a RATIONAL decision. But it isn't.

Not at all. There are many things that simply take time, them being rational or irrational is totally beside the point. I have never seen anybody who felt himself committed or feeling the person they are facing is irreplaceable etc etc during the first day of a relationship put aside the first five minutes.

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JollyJoker
JollyJoker


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posted December 04, 2013 03:41 PM

artu said:
Quote:
Nothing natural about it - it's just an assumption, and one that doesn't even make much sense, because that would only be true for a RATIONAL decision. But it isn't.

Not at all. There are many things that simply take time, them being rational or irrational is totally beside the point.
Not at all, because the actual RATIONAL (vocal) commitment to someone "being No 1" may be something you've known all along on another level, but rationally committing to it may take time.

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artu
artu


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My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 04, 2013 03:57 PM

That is just being mystical. What is your explanation to the fact that we never feel really sad when someone we know very briefly is out of our life then? Besides, keep in mind that we are not talking about the aspect of desire, we are talking about the aspect of commitment, that can not happen on a subconscious level, to have that, you got to actually know someone. Not entirely maybe, which would be impossible anyway, but five minutes of small talk wont cut it.

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JollyJoker
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posted December 04, 2013 04:11 PM

Because we generally do not trust intuition - we would dismiss any feeling of loss after 5 minutes of small talk as, well, being alone too long or any some such.

Also, it would be possible that love at first sight can only happen when it's mutual.

Lastly, "mystical" is a non-word in this environment, since the concept of love in itself is already mystical.

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artu
artu


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My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 04, 2013 06:28 PM

Meh...

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Fauch
Fauch


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posted December 04, 2013 06:30 PM

JollyJoker said:
The reason for that is, that it feels great to be "in love", but it would seem that for a lot of people this is a rather fading feeling, otherwise people supposedly in love with each other wouldn't cheat on each other and go their separate ways after some time.

Maybe people think that the relationship is what will make the feeling last, but people normally know that it doesn't last life-long, unless they are teenagers.

Maybe we get the wrong message. We feel "in love" and immediately think we have to spend our live with the other person. Maybe we are just supposed to enjoy her company while the feeling lasts and that's it.

Of course it can be motivated by the fact that it is painful to be rejected when we are "in love", but is it the feeling which is painful, or is it because of the way we interpret it? when we can't get something we really, really want, we are able to deal with it, but why does it seem so much harder, when it comes to "love"?


JollyJoker said:

This, however, is in compliance with capitalism. Keeping up appearances - dishonesty, if you want to - is what we learn; putting up a front, designed to make us more "attractive", whatever this is supposed to meant. Only that in this case it's detrimental for everyone, because no one actually profits in the middle and long run.


I suppose than linking capitalism and what people seem to call "love" may appear weird, but I wonder if capitalism isn't actually a problem here as well. it seems that capitalism is trying to impose itself as the dominant (and only acceptable) ideology. what people call "love" is just something that can't be conceived by capitalism, it's irrational, or impossible maybe. and seriously, looking for a mate feels like looking for a job, isn't there something really wrong here?

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mvassilev
mvassilev


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posted December 04, 2013 07:19 PM
Edited by mvassilev at 04:44, 29 Jan 2014.

artu:
2 - Okay, strictly speaking love isn't a proposition of any kind, but "I should/shouldn't love" is one. This is clearly what we were talking about.
3 - Yes, people are often irrational in love and in their personal relationships in general, to their detriment. I think much of that is just because the idea of analyzing things rationally doesn't occur to them. Also, I think you exaggerate the extent to which people are expected be rational - they're expected to follow rules that other (hopefully rational) people have made, but that's not the same thing as being rational themselves. I think you may be conflating rational thinking with stressful on-the-job kind of decisionmaking, and while the latter is sometimes a subset of the former, they're not the same thing. Rational thinking, in its most general form, just means that you figure out the relevant aspects of your desired state of the world, the relevant aspects of the current state of the world, and figure out how to get from here to there (if possible). If you're hungry and want cheese, and need to go to store to buy some, and think "I want to go to the store and buy cheese", you're engaging in rational thinking. Not wanting to think rationally makes as much sense as saying "I don't want what I want" (and meaning it literally).

bak:
No, I'm not offended, sorry if I gave that impression. I just wanted to point out that you misinterpreted me.
Quote:
Correct me if I'm wrong. Your points were:

- It's not impossible, but incongruent, to feel love when it's a bad idea.
- Incongruent, here, you explained as internally inconsistent.
- Therefore, it is internally inconsistent to love someone if they do not give a high priority to your well being, and if there are moments when you don't enjoy being around them (essentially your definition of "bad idea" on this matter).
Correction incoming. I agree with the first two, but not with the third. To substitute what I actually believe for the third:
- It is internally inconsistent to love someone if you think they don't give a high priority to your well-being, and if in net you don't enjoy being around them.

Most relationships, even good ones, have moments when at least one of the people doesn't enjoy being around the other, but in a good relationship, overall, each of them still enjoys being with the other. But when there's abuse, that means that one of the partners doesn't enjoy being around the other, in net. (They can say "He's nice when he's not being abusive", but that's the same sort of thing as "Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" ) There is a range in which it's subjective to what extent bad moments add up to "unenjoyable overall" (heavy abuse is outside that range), but this brings me to my second point - regardless of what your personal threshold is for it being unenjoyable in net, once you reach it, it becomes internally inconsistent of you to continue to love. I'm not saying there has to be a static (not varying from person to person) X number (or proportion) of unpleasant moments (of some magnitude), and once you reach it, regardless of who you are, it becomes internally inconsistent for you to love. I'm saying that for each person, there is some number X (that can vary from person to person), and once they reach it, it becomes internally inconsistent for them to continue to love.

It's sort of like ice cream flavors. Which is better, vanilla or chocolate? Completely subjective. Assuming equal nutritional value, should a person with a strong preference for chocolate eat chocolate or vanilla? The answer to that is not subjective.
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artu
artu


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My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 04, 2013 08:29 PM

2- No, we were talking about if love at first sight is possible or not, not if it's right or wrong. Suddenly you came up with the weird notion of correct love and harmful love. And while some love can be destructive to a point (it even has a special name, kara sevda in Turkish, meaning black love), that doesnt mean it should be dysinfected or something. But I'll come to that...
3- (And also on what you write to baklava). I think you misinterpreted me here. And your examples have the emotional depth of a rabbit. This is not chocolate or vanilla, this is not taste over nutrition, this is not food. (And dude, what is it with you and the food analogies) People dont write novels or make films about "chocolate or vanilla." If you are with someone that matches you by rational standards, yet you are in love with someone else who seems like an awkward match, you will be very very miserable. Food cant do that to you.

Although this may have the effect of a cross aimed at a vampire for you, the fact is people are not in full control of how they feel towards whom, decisions are not the basic play here. You can motivate yourself only to a certain point. Rationality isnt the only motivator, actually it isnt even the main motivator when it comes to people, just look around you, look at all the wars, superstition, religion, mass mentality, addiction, obsession, compulsion... People are NOT orchestrated by their logic alone, if they are orchestrated by it at all. The sooner you realize this the better.  

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mvassilev
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posted December 04, 2013 09:14 PM

2 - That's what we were talking about initially, but then we started talking about whether feelings can be wrong, which is how we got to this point.
3 - It's like chocolate or vanilla, just applied to something different. It's the same principle. The point of my "chocolate or vanilla" analogy is that even when preferences are subjective, that doesn't mean that how  one should act in accordance with them is subjective.

And I'm well aware that people are often irrational. I'm fighting against that. It's true that people have emotional impulses that they can't always control, but it's valuable to learn to be rational to get as much of what you want out of the world. It can often be useful to examine the sources of a feeling and determine whether it's valid or not, and if it's not, once you internalize why it's not a good feeling to have, it'll go away eventually - and in the meantime you won't make the mistake of acting in accordance with it. For example, if you're having a bad day and someone pokes your back, you may snap, lose your temper, and start hitting them - but that would be worse for you, because you would suffer a loss of reputation, potentially go to jail, feel bad about it, etc. But if you catch yourself quickly and ask yourself whether this is what you really want, you can calm yourself down and avoid all those negative consequences. It doesn't mean the irritation will go away instantly, but you'll stop yourself from doing something you shouldn't do.

People are sometimes irrational, and look at all the problems that causes. You said it - "wars, superstition, religion, mass mentality, addiction, obsession, compulsion". Isn't the common source of all those bad things worth fighting against? Remember, I'm talking about what people should do, not what they actually do.
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artu
artu


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My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 04, 2013 09:20 PM

Mvass, for just one second let us assume everything in life can be based on rationality, don't you think it would be a little boring?

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mvassilev
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posted December 04, 2013 09:23 PM
Edited by mvassilev at 21:30, 04 Dec 2013.

No. Why would it be? It'd be a great life. If you think rationality leads to boredom, you probably have a Straw Vulcan or some other mistaken idea of what a rational life is like.
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artu
artu


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My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 04, 2013 10:02 PM

No Straw Vulcan, on the contrary, as I've said before, I think emotions and intelligence are inter-cumulative (I just made this word up, I hope it makes sense) but on a greater scale. Yours is a policy and a one dimensional policy (hence boring). It is also a very hard policy to even try to execute for people who are passionate and spontaneous. Keep in mind that for some people, spontaneous beats flawless or a passionate fight is better than dull days in a row...

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mvassilev
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posted December 04, 2013 10:29 PM
Edited by mvassilev at 22:31, 04 Dec 2013.

It's a question of getting used to it. A lot of people aren't brought up to be rational, so being rational about everything seems strange to them. But saying that you don't want to always act rationally is like saying "I don't want to know how I can get the most of what I want" - it's nonsense.
I don't know what you mean about it being a "policy", a "one-dimensional policy", and why it's boring.
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artu
artu


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My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 04, 2013 10:43 PM

Well, let me explain it to you this way then, it's a one dimensional policy because "saying that you don't want to always act rationally ISN'T like saying I don't want to know how I can get the most of what I want" What you want can include to let go and not overthink about things. It also amazes me that your ego fails to grasp the possibility that it is maybe not some people who are not used to rationality, it may very well be you who lacks passion. As I've mentioned before, there are two sides to your equation.

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