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| organic god |
 Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:32 pm Post subject: Love |
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I have experienced love in my life, just got out of a relationship where we both loved eachother but she had to concentrate on school.
it was painful and it made me wonder why human beings love.
it seems such an odd thing to have evolved, or perhaps it has always been there.
but reading about neanderthals they don't seem to love, the main aim is too reproduce as much as possible. surely love gets in the way of this?
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| Pendragon |
| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 5:53 am Post subject: |
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Love means commitment. When people reproduce but don't commit to eachother then they probably wont commit to their offspring either. Such offspring will have to mature fast to take care of itself. In developped countries human children get up to 20 years or even more to slowly develop themselves, because their parents usually stay together and take care of them. I think this long, slow development allows humans to eventually reach such high levels of intelligence and skill. Without love such longterm commitment would be very hard to maintain, in a way the good feelings that come with love are the reward for commitment.
Ofcourse a lot of humans love eachother while they don't reproduce yet, but I guess that's mostly a modern concept (effective anticonception is a recent invention). So in a way we cheat: we take the rewards for commitment long before we commit to children 
The next question may be whether other animals can also feel love, as some species clearly commit to eachother and to their offspring as well. Maybe not as long as humans, but for example apes and elephants seem to invest a lot of energy and effort into their offspring. Perhaps they too 'feel good' when they're in eachother's company, which could be called a basic form of love. |
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| KALSTER |
| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 6:57 am Post subject: |
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Forum Cosmic Wizard
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| Quote: |
| The next question may be whether other animals can also feel love, as some species clearly commit to eachother and to their offspring as well. Maybe not as long as humans, but for example apes and elephants seem to invest a lot of energy and effort into their offspring. Perhaps they too 'feel good' when they're in eachother's company, which could be called a basic form of love. |
I agree with this, but there are a lot of people that would call it outrageous. Oh well, what can you do?
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| paralith |
| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 9:37 am Post subject: |
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To add to Pendragon's excellent post, the human analog of love (that is, affection for your mate who is an individual unrelated to you) in other animals would have to be what is called pair bonding. Pair bonding is necessary when the specifics of raising offspring in a given environment are so challenging that the full commitment of both parents is usually the best route to success. Take the now-famous emperor penguins. To successfully hatch one chick definitely requires the cooperation of both parents. Human offspring are particularly needy compared to other mammalian young, so parental commitment is important for their success.
Similarly, the amount of attachment an individual of a given species feels for his/her offspring is probably related to the amount of care required to successfully raise them. Once the offspring are self-sufficient, for many species this attachment ends. But if there is further adaptive advantage to maintaining a bond with your adult offspring, then it may not end with self-sufficiency.
To take a primate example, baboon females stay in the group they were born in and form strong bonds with their female relatives. All the females in the group form a strict hierarchy, and when it comes to aggressive interactions and hierarchy disputes, your relatives are the first ones who come running to help you, including your adult daughters. Baboon mothers experience a skyrocketing of stress hormones when one of their adult daughters dies.
Likewise, the core of an elephant social group is a matriarch and her daughters and all their offspring. I have little doubt that the matriarch forms a strong bond with her adult daughters, and they with her.
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| Selene |
| Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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I love love.
It really does make the world go round. And i have found every relationship and friendship i have based on love are each unique and individual.
It is difficult to give love a proper definition because of this, but of course the same qualities of caring about each other exists.
Personally i find the idea of exclusivity of love strange.
And i think it is good to have as big a circle of people as possible to love ( i am not talking about sex here! For once  )
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| organic god |
| Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 1:38 pm Post subject: |
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so do people think animals love? or is it pair bonding trying to make help there offspring/society survive.
love seems such a strange thing to have evolved? considering examples where people in love dont reproduce, or perhaps they fall in love but one person is infertile, they stay in love. seems to go against evolution
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| paralith |
| Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 7:47 pm Post subject: |
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| organic god wrote: |
so do people think animals love? or is it pair bonding trying to make help there offspring/society survive.
love seems such a strange thing to have evolved? considering examples where people in love dont reproduce, or perhaps they fall in love but one person is infertile, they stay in love. seems to go against evolution |
Evolution works on averages. On average, if mates who love each other tend to pass on their genes more successfully than mates who don't love each other, then over time love will become the dominant behavior in the population. There will always be variation across the individuals of the population in how love is expressed and whether or not it actually contributes to reproductive success for each and every individual.
Love is pair bonding. We humans are probably on a more extreme end of the scale, but it's still the same scale.
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Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.
~Jean-Paul Sartre
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| Behr_25 |
| Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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I don't think love is just some sort of aphrodisiac. But, I'm a romantic so, what the hell.
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| Nj14 |
| Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 9:13 pm Post subject: |
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perhaps its this feeling that allows us to reproduce more effectively
mabye its this compassion and team work that allows our offsring to go to matureity and then reproduce
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| 425 Chaotic Requisition |
| Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 4:35 am Post subject: |
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You make love sound so cold. Do animals feel it? They are perfectly capable of creating offspring.
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| Kolt |
| Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:06 am Post subject: |
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Love isn't all that crucial to evolution.
LONG VERSION: Love is merely a byproduct of the biological machine in addition to basic elements of human interaction. Neither sharks nor viruses nor cockroaches feel love, and they do just fine. Essentially, love is nothing more than a kind of chemical/emotional residue that causes varying levels of euphoria. Beyond that, the concept of love is just bad science.
The bond that is formed between two human beings is a thing of complex material; physical attraction, mutual affection, shared vulnerabilities, friendship, trust, loyalty, commitment, social acceptance, ...contract agreements etc.. - Any time a relationship consist of two or more ingredients (which is almost all the time) then the whole process becomes too categorically complex. Nobody ever really wants to take the time to analyze the dynamics involved. So instead, we use the word "Love" as a default term that covers all bases in one swift stroke. But the word "Love" itself exist purely in the abstract.
SHORT VERSON: Love is for poets. |
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| Selene |
| Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 5:54 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know where i'd be without love in my life
Sane?
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| Cosmo |
| Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 6:20 am Post subject: Re: Love |
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Joined: 22 Nov 2007
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| organic god wrote: |
I have experienced love in my life, just got out of a relationship where we both loved eachother but she had to concentrate on school.
it was painful and it made me wonder why human beings love.
it seems such an odd thing to have evolved, or perhaps it has always been there.
but reading about neanderthals they don't seem to love, the main aim is too reproduce as much as possible. surely love gets in the way of this? |
Love is the 'euphoria' that the males get from these encounters. The females, of course, get the final product.
It is because of this euphoria that most sex crimes are committed like spousal murders, rapes, pedophilia and the perversions like homosexuality, lesbianism and masturbation.
I hate to put it so bluntly but it is the truth.
Love is good, but hate is bad and the driving force of all evils in our social environments.
Cosmo |
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| Selene |
| Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 6:33 am Post subject: Re: Love |
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| Cosmo wrote: |
Love is the 'euphoria' that the males get from these encounters. The females, of course, get the final product.
It is because of this euphoria that most sex crimes are committed like spousal murders, rapes, pedophilia and the perversions like homosexuality, lesbianism and masturbation.
I hate to put it so bluntly but it is the truth.
Love is good, but hate is bad and the driving force of all evils in our social environments.
Cosmo |
Woooaaa! Hang on a minute Cosmo
Who says girls don't find sex euphoric as much as a guy?
Females get the final product? Sex isn't exclusive to making babies
It's a damn fine pleasurable past-time as well!
And what's wrong with masturbation???????
Let me tell you from one of the horse's mouths!
Most girls love sex and experience euphoria when they practice it without wanting an 'end product' except ecstatic bliss and a good snooze in the arms of our lover with a big smile on our fizzogs!
Masturbation isn't BAD! The attitude towards it that says it's bad is more BAD!
So there!
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| paralith |
| Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 6:41 am Post subject: Re: Love |
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| Cosmo wrote: |
| It is because of this euphoria that most sex crimes are committed like spousal murders, rapes, pedophilia and the perversions like homosexuality, lesbianism and masturbation. |
1. You are a bigoted homophobe, Cosmo. Homosexuality and masturbation are not perversions and I'll be happy to debate you all day about that.
2. Are you saying that love is the source of sex crimes and sexual perversion?
Uh....what about all those sex crimes and perversions the euphoria of love causes? Are you saying sex crimes are good, Cosmo?
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| but hate is bad and the driving force of all evils in our social environments. |
Take a page from your own book and learn to not hate people whose sexual orientation is different from yours.
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Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.
~Jean-Paul Sartre
Monkeys in Clothes - hosted by SFN blogs |
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