Is "love" a product of evolution?

by AlmostAtheist 27 Replies latest jw friends

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  DanTheMan

  I've been reading through an introductory philosophy textbook titled Does the Center Hold ? It's an excellent book, thanks to Valis for recommending it on this forum. On the subject of free will vs. determinism, the author states that perhaps free will is an "emergent" characteristic of our brain chemistry, the same way liquidity is an emergent characteristic of large quantities of H20 molecules in close proximity that doesn't exist in the individual molecules themselves.

  Perhaps it's a bad analogy, but it got me thinking that maybe, just maybe, strict mechanical determinism really isn't the way things are. If that's the case, then maybe love does mean something, maybe Plato's ideal world does exist in some sense, and we do well to strive for those ideals.

  At any rate, even if determinism is true, that's not how we experience life and I think that to always be consciously looking at the world through a deterministic lens results in a lack of joy or passion, and given how shitty life is most of the time I think it's those moments of joy and passion that make it worth it.

  Every person is so unique, and to feel like there's somebody, if only one person in the whole world, who truly understands and *chooses* to accept us in our totality, I can't imagine a more satisfying feeling than that. Of course I'm a hapless romantic who has never had success in love, so everybody who reads this is probably going "ugh, if he only knew what it's really like after you've been with someone a while."

  Dan, sophomoric-ponderer class
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  hamsterbait

  Don't you think that LOVE is something that is greater than the sum of all its parts.

  In primates the emotions we now as humans called "love " produce the same physiological reactions, as with cats dogs and other mammals. They experience the same physical sensations.

  Yet human advancement has produced another love, that can cross centuries - this is possibly what is called a "pre-adaptation" - along the lines that some bacteria are already equiped to resist antibiotics that have not yet been invented.

  i read poetry and literature from hundreds of years ago and find myself loving the author.. Have you ever listened to old medieval love songs - people felt the same things we do.

  When a person feels loved and has a purpose in life he is more likely to survive. Does this make love any the less special? At the very least it stimulates our pleasure centers.

  Is "hunger" a product of evolution. Does that mean there is no point to enjoying dinner?

  HB
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  bebu

  Great post, Dan.

  At any rate, even if determinism is true, that's not how we experience life and I think that to always be consciously looking at the world through a deterministic lens results in a lack of joy or passion, and given how shitty life is most of the time I think it's those moments of joy and passion that make it worth it.

  That is one of my thoughts, but you said it better!

  bebu
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  AlmostAtheist

  even if determinism is true, that's not how we experience life

  Excellent point!

  Is "hunger" a product of evolution. ; Does that mean there is no point to enjoying dinner?

  Another excellent point!

  (Of course once you've chosen a restaurant, you're not stuck with the choice forever. So the analogy only goes so far...)

  You've all given me food for thought, thanks!

  Dave
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  Cordelia

  good post its something ive wondered about, in fact i just started athread on is there a thing as true love would u give up everything u had for the love of one person?

  im really interested in this, is finding someone who loves u as much as u love them special or does it come round quite often??

  (too late for me to think deep about evolution!!)
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  Terry

  I honestly don't see how this can be discussed without defining our terms first!

  You put the word love in quotations marks, why?

  "Love" is different from love.

  Life exists where it exists and does what it does. In so doing life reveals its nature. Living things tend to do things which enable the continuance of life on one level only: immediate appetites.

  Long range? No. That is conceptual. That is evaluative and subjective and involves personal valuations. The closest you can get to a common understanding is to talk in terms of norms or median statistics. But, that isn't where you wanted to go with this I fancy.

  People do things KNOWING they are destructive in the long term (smoking, drugs, alcohol, sexual risks, thrill-seeking, etc.) Now, if that is true (and we know it is) shouldn't there be a corollary for NOT KNOWING?

  LOVE is the highest value a human can create conceptually. A value is something humans seek to obtain and keep. To obtain something of value there is a transaction involved; a barter, a trade. We tend to "spend" to get. That can be spending our time, our money, our thinking....whatever. We give to get. That is what a transaction is. Is this particular transaction PRO survival in any way above the primal appetite?

  I think we may tend to romanticize the primal appetite by sublimation and mix it with the superstitious mythos of our ethos. Voila! LOVE becomes something we conceptually place on a transcendant plane. But, it may well be no more so than eating.

  T.
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  Carmel

  Is romantic love a result of alleelic dissentary? Social evolution can't be traced to diploidy or haploidy, but it sure can be traced to specific outstanding historical individuals that promulgated higher orders of ethics and morality.

  carmel
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  chrissy

  I dont even think there is such a thing as love. That's right. I said it. There is no love. Possibly between mother and infant, but I suspect that can fade as well. It's an illusion projected by our minds to convince ourselves that all of the energy that we are transmitting out of us and onto our subject is done for something other than self-gratification. But because deep down we are completely selfish beings on one level or another, it somehow justifies our selfishness and makes us feel good.

  Like that saying that the only love you get is the love you give... No one really "loves" us in the sense we believe, as one is only capable of loving ones' self. All the while, we confuse ourselves into thinking we love other persons. It's a cultural norm to accept a belief that we love and are in love. The emotional attachment we feel is present to fill a void, cure loneliness, convince another person to assist us in procreation, and so on.

  I admit my theory needs some work... I haven't completely thought it through. Just throwing it out there.