Love

[Interbane]

This will be much more brief than my thoughts on the subject, to promote feedback. Hop in and show me my faulty thinking.

A room full of average people, and a beautiful female walks in. I'd point out that the behavior of some of the men, perhaps not all, subtly changes. Even if it is a subconscious change, it is there. The difference in their behavior is related to survival. From what was once baseline behavior altered and from inside the head of one of these men, a goal has emerged, the cause or the effect of the alteration I'm not sure. A cause to both is that winning the hand of the female would ensure his offspring have a greater chance at reproducing. It's ambiguous and slippery, but definitely tastes of behavior influenced by evolution.

Also ambiguous and slippery is the idea of love, with respect again to evolution. What is within us to persuade us to protect our children? The answer obviously is love, but then is that all love is? From in our heads it's much more, but objectively, love can be seen as a behavioral bond where human interest in genetically similar people is more than requested, it's required. We must love, or we'd abandon our similar genes. Love has been evolved into us.

A child is less likely to survive without both parents, so love toward a mate who doesn't share your genes would benefit the child who does share your genes. Caring for the other parent increases the survivability of the child. Woman to man, protection. Man to woman, infant feeding, care and nurture. We can say the ability to love is not a solid leash based on who shares your genes, but can be attached to persons living a life parallel to your own. However, this mechanism still exists as it positively affects the survivability of one's child.

On a side note, I've forgotten my depression medication and have no more till tomorrow. I'm struggling with the mutiny inside of reason vs love. To quell the emotions with chemicals changes the hierarchy I'd say. It does seem to be a hierarchy, otherwise why would I originally consider it a mutiny? How rude ponderings of love seem to the delicate philosophical senses when we degrade it to nothing more than evolutionary behaviorism? I guess that's what has made this thought bubble to the surface.

[Saffron]

From what was once baseline behavior altered and from inside the head of one of these men, a goal has emerged, the cause or the effect of the alteration I'm not sure. A cause to both is that winning the hand of the female would ensure his offspring have a greater chance at reproducing. --------


I'm struggling with the mutiny inside of reason vs love. .

Just to start us off -- why is the fact that this woman is beautiful important? How does that attribute ensure his offspring a greater chance at reproducing?

And what do you mean by baseline? Are you saying that interest in the opposite sex and behaviors associated with those feelings are baseline for human beings but, no longer are? I would argue that biologically humans have not changed much, if at all, in say the past several 100 thousands years. Culture has changed for sure, but then there have always been cultural variations between different groups.

And to the final bolded words -- reason vs love. Emotions existed well before thought ever did -- evidenced by the evolutionary development of the brain. I'm not sure reason has anything to do with love. How we respond to our emotions and what we do about them can certainly (and maybe should) involve reason.

[Interbane]

Saffron: "why is the fact that this woman is beautiful important? How does that attribute ensure his offspring a greater chance at reproducing?"

A more attractive person is more likely to produce offspring, since more people of the opposite sex are attracted to them. All things being equal beside appearance, would a man choose an ugly woman or a beautiful woman to reproduce with?

Saffron: "And what do you mean by baseline?"

A hypothetical reference point within the example. Normal behavior prior to the arrival of a beautiful woman.

Saffron: "Emotions existed well before thought ever did"

I was referring to myself, now. Love held in high esteem may cause ideas against it's transcendent or divine aspects(as some would see it) to be met with more opposition than objectively called for.

[Saffron]

Saffron: "why is the fact that this woman is beautiful important? How does that attribute ensure his offspring a greater chance at reproducing?"

A more attractive person is more likely to produce offspring, since more people of the opposite sex are attracted to them. All things being equal beside appearance, would a man choose an ugly woman or a beautiful woman to reproduce with?

.

Something I did not say in my last post and can't believe I miss the first go round, is that love and attraction are not the same -- connected, but two very different feelings.

I can see how maybe a very ugly woman might have the least chance of reproducing, but I think there is a flaw in your statement about the beautiful woman at the party. I think it might be fair to say she may have the pick of suitors and is likely to have a very high chance at opportunities to reproduce. However, her beauty will not help her actually crank out babies or help her to keep them alive. Nor will her having first choice, prevent other women from being chosen by those poor unfortunate men who did not get the beauty.

In reality it is the women, regardless of appearance, who can actually produce live babies and keep them alive to sexual maturity that will pass on the most genetic material. It doesn't matter that these women may not necessarily get first choice of mates.

Now back to beauty. Beauty is a hard thing to pin down anyway. What definition of beauty are you using? or whose? Clear skin, shinny hair, bright eyes and no foul odor are all indications of health - I would argue that without awareness men are attracted to women with these characteristics, which are part of what makes up what we call beautiful, because they indicate general good health.

I think (and this is just me making my own connections) that a man's response to "beauty" is a bit like a person's response to sweet taste. We human's generally like sweat tasting things and it turns out that generally in nature sweat tasting things are not poisonous. Bitter, however, can be and many people have taste buds that are hyper sensitive to bitter taste and therefore, do not like bitter tasting food. You can even take a test to see if you are hyper sensitive to bitter -- but really all you need to do is ask yourself if you like the cabbage family of vegetables. If you do, most likely you are not hyper sensitive. Thanks to evolution humans have developed taste preferences that help us know what is safe to eat. I think this example is similar to attractiveness in that what we (men and women) find attractive in the opposite sex are made up of traits that are often indicators of good health.

I haven't even addressed the fact that beauty is such a difficult concept to define in specifics. You remember the little saying, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"? And beauty does not necessarily insure attraction. What about pheromones? How do you explain that a women of average looks can be considered very sexy? And isn't sexy more likely to get a person bedded anyway.

And what about this odd little bit of research -- I've read about studies done that indicate that we are attracted to people who have genetically different immune systems than ourselves. This makes some sense for the survival of offspring.

Love and attraction? Who can figure them.

[Thomas Hood]

On a side note, I've forgotten my depression medication and have no more till tomorrow.

Interbane, you might find that The Secret Garden can lift a few dark clouds. And it does deal with the issue of what make beautiful people beautiful.

Tom

[Interbane]

It's different than you'd think if you've never had to rely on depression medication Thomas. It's almost not at all about emotions, against my earlier post. It's an odd electrocuting wooziness inside my head.

Too much hangup on the first part of my post. I hadn't anticipated this and it's actually not the topic of this thread, so I'm creating another one. This thread is about the evolution of love.

[Interbane]

But nobody wants to play with me.

[DWill]

This might be giving your topic short shrift, but I'm most interested in the uapproachability of love by the conventional means of science. I mean in the sense of finding laws and using these to make predictions. We can look at the origins of love more easily through science, and I assume that these are embedded in animal behaviors such as maternal protectiveness and social bonding that aid in survival. But when we advance into the ways that love manifests in human life, we have a bunch of phenomena that don't seem to have regularities that can become the basis for scientific theory. The case is the same for the way technology developes and the workings of the human economy. This is only to say that other ways, especially literature, art, and perhaps religion, have always been the preferred means of examining love. We may be able to say what the scientific seed of love is, but it is the blossom and the fruit that take up all of our attention and have meaning for us. These haven't usually been thought of as suited to scientific study.

[Dissident Heart]

DWill: We may be able to say what the scientific seed of love is, but it is the blossom and the fruit that take up all of our attention and have meaning for us. These haven't usually been thought of as suited to scientific study.

It is the love of science that establishes science as the most effective tool for understanding love. Those who claim science as the best way to understand love would do well to understand how their love of science shapes their understanding of love. What they love about science will tell a great deal more about their understanding of love than what they have to say about love itself. Understand why science has regency and you will understand what they mean by love.

[Interbane]

Will: "But when we advance into the ways that love manifests in human life, we have a bunch of phenomena that don't seem to have regularities that can become the basis for scientific theory."

Regarding evolution, there are far many more topics than love that have evolutionary byproducts which find other uses, are useless, or sometimes even detrimental. There's no reason to hammer exceptions into any basis. The origins of love as you say, that is the basis.

DH: "It is the love of science that establishes science as the most effective tool for understanding love."

Don't be so quick to claim that science is the most effective tool for understanding love, regardless of whose perspective you try to apply it to. I'd say that science cannot understand love, just as an imaging computer can't understand the Mona Lisa if it were to image the picture. Science can certainly give us insight into the origins of love, however.