Would anyone care to prove that 'love' exists?

[dust1n]

To the objective it doesn't.
So?

Maybe it does, but who cares? I only exist through my own eyes after all anyways.

 

[Wombat]

Love is a feeling..

Hmmmm....
Some love is a feeling.
Some love is a doing for others (in absence or spite of feeling).
Some love is a doing with others (but this involves consenting adults)

You cannot prove a feeling..

I have a deep and abiding feeling that's true...but I can't prove it.

Unless maybe your mind possessed someone elses body and felt that feeling.

Hmmmm.....Or a Vulcan 'Mind Meld'.....Would Dr Spock recognise 'love'?...

 

[OneThatGotAway]

"Our eyes are great scientific tools for observation of love exhibited from the heart." ---- LovePeaceHappiness

Not really...they are little orbs of jelly that allow the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to be focused upon our retinas.

How is that the eyes are not scientific tools? What would you consider a scientific tool for observation of love? :hugkiss:

 

[Meow Mix]

Perhaps beginning with a definition that is historically consistent, acceptable to all and followed by empirical data that proves ‘love’ exists?

(Please....No &#8216;experiential&#8217; or &#8216;faith&#8217; statements...just the scientific >facts<)
(PS...Brain Scans showing people 'experiencing love'?....they have those for 'experiencing God' too ;-)

You're asking the impossible since "love" is a quale (Qualia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

For instance, there is no way for us to be certain that our quale of the color red is the same: perhaps my red is your blue, or perhaps your red is some completely unfathomable shade to me; even if we can both look at a certain spectrum of photons and agree that it appears "red."

The quale is the experience, not the photons.

Likewise, love is the quale of an experience with another person. You can demonstrate that both people exist and that both behave as might be expected if the quale of love is experienced by both, but you can't prove that each person isn't a p-zombie from outside (Philosophical zombie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

Much like Descarte's cogito ergo sum, where we can know (and absolutely so) that we ourselves exist but can't demonstrate so to others, if we experience the quale of love then we already have the justification that it exists since it's an experience and we have experienced it. You can't prove this to others, though. So again, you're asking the impossible. That doesn't mean that belief that love exists in others is irrational though.

Think about a similar scenario: it seems less dubious to accept the existence of the quale pain because we can see someone cracked by a whip or stuck by a thumb tack and witness an expression that we identify with pain on their face, but we can't prove that pain exists externally. Again, they may just be p-zombies behaving in a way that mimics the experience of pain. Pain, as a quale, can be proven to exist to ourselves if we experience it, but we can't prove the existence of pain externally: but again, it's still pretty reasonable to conclude that it does.

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

Not quite science, but philosophy: "
Love, if you're referring to the romantic variety, is selfish, it causes one to suspend one's ability to reason, and therefore act irrationally. Romantic love is just attachment to illusion, caused by emotional responses of sensory stimuli. "True" love is compassion and kindness for all beings, without making a distinction between them."

 

[AntEmpire]

[youtube]SoISbhyN-KY[/youtube]
YouTube - Lovers Turn to Monsters- Words (Waking Life)

 

[Wombat]

You're asking the impossible since "love" is a quale (Qualia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)..

Late catching up and intimidated by the prospect of arguing with/offsiding any potential/future “Planetary Empress”
From the Wiki link provided-
“There are many definitions of qualia, which have changed over time. One of the simpler, broader definitions is "The 'what it is like' character of mental states. The way it feels to have mental states such as pain, seeing red, smelling a rose, etc”
And-


“Daniel Dennett identifies four properties that are commonly ascribed to qualia. According to these, qualia are:

1. ineffable; that is, they cannot be communicated, or apprehended by any other means than direct experience.
2. intrinsic; that is, they are non-relational properties, which do not change depending on the experience's relation to other things.
3. private; that is, all interpersonal comparisons of qualia are systematically impossible.
4. directly or immediately apprehensible in consciousness; that is, to experience a quale is to know one experiences a quale, and to know all there is to know about that quale.”

Is ‘love’ “ineffable”? “cannot be communicated, or apprehended by any other means than direct experience.”?
Seems to this humble servant of the Planetary Empress that love would fail the first of four “commonly ascribed properties” of ‘qualia’
And 2? Love is “intrinsic; that is, they are non-relational properties, which do not change depending on the experience's relation to other things.”?
I have my doubts Oh Mighty One....but hey......what the hell would I know?

“....if we experience the quale of love then we already have the justification that it exists since it's an experience and we have experienced it. You can't prove this to others, though. So again, you're asking the impossible. That doesn't mean that belief that love exists in others is irrational though.”.

And if we transpose the notion/quale(?)/experience- ‘God’ for ‘love’ does the proposition still hold true?
“....if we experience God then we already have the justification that it exists since it's an experience and we have experienced it. You can't prove this to others, though. So again, you're asking the impossible. That doesn't mean that belief that God exists is irrational though.”
?
>If< that is the outcome I would be well satisfied....it eliminates the pointless attempts and expectations of “proof” of God (“You can't prove this/God to others”) and retains both “justification” for the belief in/experience of God and recognition that such belief/experience is not “irrational”.

I can live with that.

 

[Meow Mix]

Late catching up and intimidated by the prospect of arguing with/offsiding any potential/future “Planetary Empress”

You're walking a fiiiiiine line, mister

From the Wiki link provided-

“There are many definitions of qualia, which have changed over time. One of the simpler, broader definitions is "The 'what it is like' character of mental states. The way it feels to have mental states such as pain, seeing red, smelling a rose, etc”
And-



“Daniel Dennett identifies four properties that are commonly ascribed to qualia. According to these, qualia are:

1. ineffable; that is, they cannot be communicated, or apprehended by any other means than direct experience.
2. intrinsic; that is, they are non-relational properties, which do not change depending on the experience's relation to other things.
3. private; that is, all interpersonal comparisons of qualia are systematically impossible.
4. directly or immediately apprehensible in consciousness; that is, to experience a quale is to know one experiences a quale, and to know all there is to know about that quale.”

Is ‘love’ “ineffable”? “cannot be communicated, or apprehended by any other means than direct experience.”?
Seems to this humble servant of the Planetary Empress that love would fail the first of four “commonly ascribed properties” of ‘qualia’
And 2? Love is “intrinsic; that is, they are non-relational properties, which do not change depending on the experience's relation to other things.”?
I have my doubts Oh Mighty One....but hey......what the hell would I know?

Yes, I'd say love is ineffable. I can try to describe it to you with analogies or by appealing to what I hope might be your previous experiences with it: "You know how it feels when you just can't stop thinking about someone?" "You know how it feels to have butterflies in your stomach around someone?" etc.

In fact, can you describe to me what love is? I bet you can't without referring to other qualia that are also ineffable, such as feelings of "liking" someone.

As for "intrinsic," being "non-relational" just means that it isn't a comparison. Love isn't just to like someone a lot more than someone else, it's something more and different.

And if we transpose the notion/quale(?)/experience- ‘God’ for ‘love’ does the proposition still hold true?

“....if we experience God then we already have the justification that it exists since it's an experience and we have experienced it. You can't prove this to others, though. So again, you're asking the impossible. That doesn't mean that belief that God exists is irrational though.”
?
>If< that is the outcome I would be well satisfied....it eliminates the pointless attempts and expectations of “proof” of God (“You can't prove this/God to others”) and retains both “justification” for the belief in/experience of God and recognition that such belief/experience is not “irrational”.

I can live with that.

The problem here though is that love is an experience while God is a being. I don't doubt that people have experiences they ascribe to God -- and the experience is the quale. God -- the being supposed to actually exist and supposed to be the source of the quale -- does still need to be justified, unfortunately

This is sort of like someone trying to say that because they've experienced quale that came from a ghost that they don't have to prove the ghost exists. No, this just means that you don't have to prove that you experienced something; that this something came from a ghost is what needs justifying :yes:

 

[bobhikes]

I don't know but I would say we can prove an emotion we call love exists.

In today's world we are pretty scientific.

With fear a persons body expressions change, muscles tighten for flight or fight, there are chemical changes that can be observed their are mental changes that can be observed.

Hate produces the similar but different changes in the body.

Here's a study where they did the same with love and measure body changes, chemical changes and mental changes

The science of lovehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/articles/emotions/teenagers/love.shtml

 

[Wombat]

[/font][/color]
You're walking a fiiiiiine line, mister

Yes your Majesty...and skating on thin ice.
But it was only while performing such high risk tasks that I learned how to catch Polar Bears.
You walk the fine line, you cut a hole in the thin ice, you place a single green pea floating on the water, you sit back and wait.
Sooner or later a Polar Bear will come along to take a pea...then you kick him in the icehole.

Yes, I'd say love is ineffable

“..“ineffable” “cannot be communicated, or apprehended by any other means than direct experience.”
Please allow me to introduce you to those “communications” of ‘love’ whereby it is so eloquently “apprehended”-
[youtube]GeEuFWLt3WU[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeEuFWLt3WU
[youtube]WpYeekQkAdc[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpYeekQkAdc
[youtube]JErVP6xLZwg[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JErVP6xLZwg
[youtube]2GmVajkqLNU[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GmVajkqLNU
[youtube]WvzTV6wfkvA[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvzTV6wfkvA

The problem here though is that love is an experience while God is a being.

Is She? A temporal “being”?, an embodied “being”?, a “being” of substance? a “being” bound by time and space? A located or locatable “being”?
Methinks there has been/is/always will be as many difficulties and divergences in defining ‘God’ as there are defining ‘love’....

This is sort of like someone trying to say that because they've experienced quale that came from a ghost that they don't have to prove the ghost exists. No, this just means that you don't have to prove that you experienced something; that this something came from a ghost is what needs justifying.

Indeed... “they don't have to prove the ghost exists”...how could they/why should they? All there is- is the claim of an experience- take it or leave it, buy the book or ignore it.

"I'm in love"............"Yea? >Prove< it"!

"I saw a ghost"......"Yea? >Prove< it"!

What's the point of the challenge to the claimed experience?

Love,ghosts,God... it is highly improbable that any is ever going to be proven in science. A ghost in a jar? Love in a bottle? God in a box?

The pursuit of such “proof” strikes me as the most pointless and fruitless of human endeavours... after motor sports.

I remain satisfied with any of the following-

if we experience the quale of love then we already have the justification that it exists since it's an experience and we have experienced it. You can't prove this to others, though
if we experience the quale of God then we already have the justification that it exists since it's an experience and we have experienced it. You can't prove this to others, though
if we experience the quale of ghost then we already have the justification that it exists since it's an experience and we have experienced it. You can't prove this to others, though

You may add the quale of Santa and the quale of Unicorns the quale of Astrology and the quale of Democracy if you like.

Human beings experience/believe all manner of unprovable things...my only interest/concern is what those unprovable experiences/beliefs lead them to >do<.