Hate much?
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Is Love Anything More than an Oxytocin Addiction?
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
Hate much?
Midnight Pete
Well-Known Member
No, but some do.
sandandfoam
Veteran Member
P.73 ff The western idea of love is culturally specific
Understanding emotions - Google Books
I'm not disputing the existence of love. I believe in it. But by this standard God can exist.
There is also the argument that self reports use imperfect concepts.
Pleasure and pain - do they exist inside me?
A large number of researchers and academics in critical pychological perspectives such as discursive and phenomenological psychology would argue that they do not. They would argue meaning arises between people and that the modern concept of an individual thinker in society has been superseded by the post modern concept of individual and world as inextricably intertwined and relational.
This is not knowable. You cannot know this. You can infer it. But never know it.
No argument there. But it is arguably between the person and the thing. Not within the person.
Here are the basic emotions Paul Ekman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
No one has located the emotions inside the person - pick up any psychology textbook and you'll see it is so. Schachter and Singer etc. etc.
Russell (2003, cited Parkinson 2007) argues that emotion concepts are specific cultural meanings imposed on experience rather than direct reflections of psychological reality. Russell concludes that basic emotions cohere in perception rather than reality.
There are also arguments by phenomenologists (e.g. Langdridge and Butt., Merleau-Ponty) which present emotions and human experience as arising between people - from their view the 'naive realism' of 'objective thought' which locates emotions , thoughts and behaviours as being in external relation to each other is mistaken and fails to capture lived experience.
I happen to think that the postmodern psychological perspectives are the most useful for understanding people and their behaviours.
Modern paradigms are sticky because they are the most useful to capitalistic societies such as those we live in in the West.
Whichever view one holds to be correct I do not think that one can claim that either is 'proven' - as such modernist accounts which reduce lived experience to neuro-chemistry should not be afford the status of facts because such status has not been earned.
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Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
It's so cute that you think your question actually makes sense.
(They're so adorable when they're asleep).
sandandfoam
Veteran Member
You believe in something intangible. I understand.
It's only other peoples views that are irrational.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
So cute. He's telling me what I believe now. Simply precious.
sandandfoam
Veteran Member
I'd rather you tell me.
Why would an 'objective' thinker not be skeptical about 'love'?
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
Sorry sport, can't answer that for you, as I'm sure our understanding of the concepts 'objective,' 'skeptical,' and 'love' are very different. You see, it would be meaningless to attempt to answer your silly question, as you wouldn't be able to understand my answer contextually, and you're not actually interested in an answer anyways. Although, it's sadly adorable that you probably think you really do.
sandandfoam
Veteran Member
This is like talking to my Dad after he's had 10 pints. I give up.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
Good call. Sleep well.
dust1n
Zindīq
dust1n
Zindīq
It would be important to note that circumstances play an important role for meaning to arise. Whether you are in love, just a good mood, on drugs, etc. etc. (things which have been proven to have various drugs present at time of incidence) which would heavily effect any ones meaning for existence.
Think about it... at any point in time, your thought process can fork in a infinite amount of directions, and you are constantly taking them so quickly and so numerously that the process has to be narrowed down for the human brain to function properly. Whether you are feeling lazy, productive, in love, exhilarated, etc. etc. is going to have a very important role in determining which fork in the path is taken.
Pst, what is this not true for other than "I exist" and "Something else exists".
So? Trying to specifically nail down the spot between a thought taking place and it's biological phenomenon is near impossible, at least as of now, since the brain is only, oh the fastest computer ever known. But that doesn't mean that the correlation doesn't exist, or that it plays a major role. Humans have always had the ability to reflect, but the ability to reflect has a biological foundation; specific reflections are a little more difficult no? Especially when your body doesn't communicate with it self in any human-esque language.
Dogs have brains, humans have brains. Now what is the difference that creates the divisions in the perception of reality?
linwood
Well-Known Member
You said that "Love does not occur in all cultures"
Now you`re moving the goal posts.
The "western idea of love" was never specified until now.
Do you stand by your earlier statement that "Love does not occur in all cultures" or do you abandon it?
Because regardless of whose "idea" of love it is it does exist everywhere any human exists.
I don`t see the correlation here.
Love can be evidenced as has been repeatedly shown in this thread.
No human concept of "god" has ever been evidenced in millions of years.
Yes they do and biology can show you why, how, and where.
It can then provide hard empirical evidence to support it`s claims.
Nervous system..heard of it?
And they would be wrong...again.
Certainly I can.
I love my Macbook.
I love Lasagna
I love the art of John Singer Sargent
I know I do and it can be evidenced that I do.
Where`s the problem?
No, it is not arguable any longer.
Have you not listened to a single post in this thread about what oxytocin is and what it does and what it has been evidenced doing?
We may not yet understand all the intricate implications and chemical inter-reactions but we do know they cause us to "feel".
This is fact, deal with it.
Why would I do such a thing?
Asking a psychologist to speak objective truth about human emotion is akin to asking a Tarot reader if your wife is cheating on you.
They don`t know but they`ll give you an answer anyway in order to justify their existence.
If you really want to understand human emotion I suggest your reading list should contain less psychology and more neuroscience.
croak
Trickster
Rama-Kandra: No. I don't mind. The answer is simple. I love my daughter
very much. I find her to be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. But
where we are from, that is not enough. Every program that is created must
have a purpose; if it does not, it is deleted. I went to the Frenchman to
save my daughter. You do not understand.
Neo: I just have never...
Rama-Kandra: ...heard a program speak of love?
Neo: It's a... human emotion.
Rama-Kandra: No, it is a word. What matters is the connection the word
implies. I see that you are in love. Can you tell me what you would give to
hold on to that connection?
Neo: Anything.
Rama-Kandra: Then perhaps the reason you're here is not so different from
the reason I'm here.
The Matrix: Revolutions
Sorry, I watched it the other day and this conversation came to mind. Carry on.
Midnight Pete
Well-Known Member
Books can't teach you all there is to know about human emotion. Having relationships with other humans is how you learn about human emotion. Stop trying to be so cerebral!
dust1n
Zindīq
No, but they can teach a lot more than not reading books and having relationships can by itself.
Are you the superior product of a bookless education? You who hate so deeply any opinion different than yours? Is that the ideal you hold up to us?
linwood
Well-Known Member
Stop trying NOT TO BE!
Human relationships cannot teach you about the interactions of our neural systems.
Education about our neural systems can shine light on our human relationships and perhaps even allow us to understand exactly what they are and how to make them stronger.
Read a book.
Midnight Pete
Well-Known Member
Book-smarts is overrated.