prosequence

I know that love is a matter of faith and that the existence of Love is not disprovable. My question is whether anyone actually thinks that the belief in Love is not a matter of faith but rather is there irrefutable proof that Love exists.

Is there any proof of Love? What is it?

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And now here I stand because of you, Mister Anderson, because of you I'm no longer an agent of the system, because of you I've changed...

Kyo

- I'm not certain I understand the question, because if I do, then the question is trivial: to prove that love exists, one needs only love someone or something else. Since love is an intangible thing - something that you cannot taste, see, smell, hear, or hold in your hand - whether it exists or not depends solely on whether you choose to allow it to exist.

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wilbjammin

I think the difference between love and faith in god is that faith in god relies on a believe in something external, whereas love can be completely self-contained. As to prove whether it exists in another, well, I know from what I've seen that asking that from one's lover tends to do something that destroys whatever love they had.

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Innominate.

Mantus

Well KnifeMissle did you just replace the word god with...err..wait a minute, you are not KnifeMissle. Well then...

Yes love exists as a concept (a rather poorly defined one) of the perfect outlook and interaction between a human being and it's surroundings. I could word it better but I am too lazy.

pyraxis

Mantus has a good point... to see whether love exists you've first got to decide on a definition. Sometimes I think the Greeks had the right idea, dividing it into its own little categories, agape/eros/etc.

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"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." -Emerson

tecoyah

dopamine induced bliss,brought about by chemical changes in the brain. Induced by stimulation,either internal or external.Do you
"love"to feel good?

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dragon2fire

I dont think your question is very clear

:::OshnSoul:::

You don't have to have proof of anything to know that it exists. Knowing it intuitively is what matters. Staying in touch with your feelings is what will tell you what Love Is and that is does exist.
There is everything that is either out of Love or out of Fear.
The only way to know Love is to experience it. Not "romantic" Love, per say, but the simple passion for something or someone that has no boundaries, no limitations, and that no matter what happens, you still feel the same about it/them. That is True Love, or Unconditional Love. That is what God gives us. Love is ALWAYS there, it's a matter of making your choices out of that Love or out of Fear. If you choose something out of Fear, you may feel like the Love is not there. If you choose out of Love, you feel that Love like nothing could stop it. Even if that choice hurts, especially when the choice hurts, it is out of Love. I have experienced Love on so many different levels, but I know first-hand that as I think back on experiences that hurt the most, I realize now why I made the choices I did, and that it is all out of Love. Love exists- it's the source that binds us together, so much in fact, that we can either take advantage of it or deny it.

wilbjammin

I've experienced the most painful, prolonged love before... if I loved just to feel good, I would have done it for other reasons since the rewards were few and far between.

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Innominate.

Sho Nuff

When someone gives his life to protect someone else it is proof that love exists. He either loves the person he is protecting because he violates the most basic instinct of self preservation for someone elses sake or loves an ideal that makes him willing to forfeit his life.

I define love and the state in which something else is more important to you than yourself.

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I know Nietzsche doesnt rhyme with peachy, but you sound like a pretentious prick when you correct me.

Mantus

I don’t think that dying for some one constitutes love.

Dying for some one is not going against our instincts. Animals of many species will protect their young to the death. It is instinctive behaviors to protect our genes.

If we die for a cause, or rather, die for society. Then we are exhibiting our behavior as a social species. Dying for a cause is dying for the good of the group, so there is nothing illogical there, in fact it could be instinctive.



Here is something I wrote a while back, though I don’t fully agree with my own thoughts…perhaps out of distaste more then anything else, I think it's interesting.

It is quite possible that when we human gave thought to our attractions, devotions and relationships with with other people we were frightened by what we saw. We saw selfish intentions and instinctive decisions. We saw that we always viewed as our most distinct quality as a species, our relationships with others, was the most animalistic of all. To safeguard our sanity, and keep away the guilt, our minds made up the concept of love. We placed love above instinct and selfishness. Therefore lifting us once again above the other animals.

Sho Nuff

When most animals fight to protect their young it is a conditioned response, not a conscious sacrifice. Humans possess an advanced sense of logic and reasoning. A human decision to fight to the death for the protection of another person or group is because for that individual those persons survival means more to him than his own. Humans are uniquely able to make that judgment call. A human can love his dog, but I would argue that the dog lacks the mental capacity to love him back regardless of the level of devotion and loyalty that dog has.

That is not to say that love isn’t in part a conditioned response. It is much easier to love family and those that elicit a conditioned response than it is to love a stranger.

In the situation where someone becomes a martyr for a cause in which the survival of others is not directly threatened, generally that cause is so deeply engrained into the person’s identity that to die for that cause is to die for himself. It would only be love if it were a cause that he didn’t personally care about but deeply affected others that he valued more highly than himself.

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I know Nietzsche doesnt rhyme with peachy, but you sound like a pretentious prick when you correct me.

pyraxis

By that definition, a person who gave up family, career, and dreams to move across the world and be with their partner would be deeply in love. Yet I've heard that advised against more often than for, for the sake of the person's mental health. One example: students are usually told to go to college where they want even if it means leaving a bf/gf at home and possibly destroying the relationship. If love is the state where your entire existence and everything you've worked towards has less value to you than your partner, is that really a good thing? How long can a person exist only for the sake of another?

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"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." -Emerson

XenuHubbard

Hey, that describes me perfectly. But I disagree about dreams. For one to do such a thing, they would have to have their dreams suddenly replaced or updated.

I know love exists. I know that feeling I get, that feeling I have right know. I know I'm in love, the same way I know when I'm unhappy, happy or bored. The problem is that the word "love" is misused, and also different to everybody. When I was younger, I thought I was in love, since the feelings I had seemed to fit other people's explanations of the word. Now I know more about myself, and what I consider to be love.

But my definition of the word "love" may also be totally different from other people's. And I can not prove my love, no matter what I do. Nobody else will ever be sure whether I'm in love or not. I did all those things in the quote from pyraxis, but that doesn't have to mean anything to anybody else.

I know love exists, since I've felt it, and feel it. But my definition of love may differ from yours, and if you had my feelings, you might label them something else.

For scientific proof, we could go into pheromones and all that, but I will not do so, because then I would have done all those things I did only because my wife smelled so good when I met her.

You'll just have to take my word for it. And if you don't agree with me, it's okay. I'm happy anyway.

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"What doesn't kill you, makes you bitter and paranoid". - SB2000

Sledge

I don't know how you "prove" that any abstract thing exists. You're certainly not going to find a piece of love lying by the side of the road.

Since this question could be interpreted in any number of ways, would you mind giving your definition of love, prosequence?

Sho Nuff

It depends on the reason for the move. Example, If I move because I want/ need/ desire to be with someone then the motivation is selfish. Being with the person is more important to me than the other things in my life.

On the other hand if the other person were sick and needed me and I wouldnt want to go under normal circumstances but I moved to take care of that person for unselfish reasons then that is love.

Unselfish reasons rule out things like guilt, psychological self fulfillment, etc. While these selfish reasons may also play a role, love at its core is built of the willingness for self sacrifice for little or no personal gain. A grey area comes in though because of the good feeling that love gives a person which is why love is best seen through pain. Caring for a sick parent shows love when watching that person be sick causes pain but you endure for no other reason than to comfort that person. Sure there are some internal rewards but when the pain outweighs the pleasure but you persist anyway, thats love.

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I know Nietzsche doesnt rhyme with peachy, but you sound like a pretentious prick when you correct me.

moonstrucksoul

i don't have to prove something that exists in my heart.

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prosequence

I'm not really looking for a DEFINITION, more so for proof.

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And now here I stand because of you, Mister Anderson, because of you I'm no longer an agent of the system, because of you I've changed...

moonstrucksoul

take your greatest joy, now take the best moment from it, that is love

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Mantus

I hate statement like that. Just because you feel something, doesn’t mean you understand it. It is not wise to be left in the dark about feelings, which control so much of your life. I am not saying that one should expect a final answer, for they questions never end. Yet one must understand, even if just a little, for in understanding comes freedom and power. Love is certainly something wonderful yet if we leave it be we may never know it for all it could be. A fancy stone can turn into a beautiful gem if we only work on it. Worse of all if one does not understand one can make mistakes, it is the people who do not understand the nature of love that can so easily confuse it for lust or so many other human tendencies.

dragon2fire

while you dont have to prove it no one can make you


you will be liveing without understanding yourself


many times i have agured that love does not exist however i could agree on a defenation based on action

pyraxis

I'm curious, does that mean it would be more loving to go (for example) on a mission trip to a 3rd world country to help people that you've never even met, than to marry a person you have deep feelings for despite the disapproval of your family or society?

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"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." -Emerson

pyraxis

The problem is, you can't find proof of a thing without first deciding on a definition. If person A defines love as caring about your partner's well being more than your own, then any person who sacrifices their life to save the person they love is proof by example that love exists. But if person B defines love as the feeling in their heart when they look into their partner's eyes, it's going to be much more difficult to prove as we currently have very little technology for objectively identifying emotions.

So that's why I ask, what is your definition of love?

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"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." -Emerson

wilbjammin

Are we still talking about God?

hah

Um... "The unexamined life is not worth living." - Socrates

Following that - the unexamined love is not worth having. Whether you have answers or not, I think the defensiveness of that statement leaves us wondering what the purpose of saying that is. This whole thread started with the question "can you prove it?" not "should you?"

My assumption from your answer is that you cannot. Is this correct? If you have love... what is the meaning of it? and... what gives it that meaning?

I think the questions matter. At least they did with me; without them I'd be living a life of no action and all courtly love. I'd probably have several thousands of pages of crappy poetry that lacks perspective waiting to be lost in history written by now. And a depressed, cold heart...

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Innominate.

prosequence

Because of the exact fact that you mention above, MY definition would only set the parameters for MY proof. I'm asking you and others to provide proof of your "Definition" of love.

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And now here I stand because of you, Mister Anderson, because of you I'm no longer an agent of the system, because of you I've changed...

:::OshnSoul:::

Feelings tell you everything about YOU. They make up WHO YOU ARE. Thoughts don't. Thoughts are very different from feelings. You may have those two confused. Once you "feel" something, you may not understand it right away, but once you "feel" that feeling and see it for what it is, you will know that it is a part of YOU. Does that need proving?

Again, Understanding yourself is realizing that your feelings ARE YOU. ALL feelings are based on Love or Fear. That's not too hard to realize.



NOBODY is quite understanding what he is saying.
*sidenote: understanding others helps you understand yourself.*
He did not say anything about understanding his feelings.


wow. couldn't put it better myself. That says it all.


Now,my question for you, so that all of you may clarify: What is it about understanding yourself regarding your feelings and proof that love exists? Proof is known to mean outside of yourself- proof is not within, knowing is within. If you look for proof, you will never find it.

Please, I am interested in hearing others' thoughts on this.

pyraxis

Yes, I think it does. Thoughts and emotions are initiated by two different parts of the brain, but both originate within ourselves and both are part of a healthy person's self-concept. If you're interested in the subject, I'd suggest this article on the NIMH (National Institute for Mental Health) website:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/dob/davidson.cfm

While it's true that often people come to an intuitive understanding of things before they apply rational thought, the opposite happens just as often... a logical debate can clue you in that something you feel (jealousy, fear, or whatever) may not make much sense. Instinct isn't always the best response, and nor is detached logic. The key word is balance.

Yes, if by love you're willing to encompass all positive emotions, and by fear you're willing to encompass all negative emotions.

I disagree. Proof is an integral part of knowledge. Would you say a person with schizophrenia knows their delusions are real? Every internal signal may point to their reality, but that doesn't mean they actually exist.

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"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." -Emerson

pyraxis

Fair enough, hope this answers your question a little more directly. To me, love is when your well-being is so tightly bound to another that to act in your own self-interest is indistinguishable from acting in theirs.

Actually living this can lead to some really difficult decisions that may seem like self-sacrifice, but I disagree that they really are. I hold that if you follow selflessness to its logical conclusion, it's actually immoral. (Though this is a debate for another thread....)

As for proof:
Since you can never know what might have been, it can't be proven that any action really was in the self-interest of both you and your partner. But if, when you took it, you believed it was... and if (through introspection, since we don't have the tech to read minds) you can offer evidence why you held that belief, then by my definition you've proven you acted out of love. Yes it can and has been done.

PS. Love the avatar, prosequence!

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"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." -Emerson

Sledge

pyraxis: That's a great definition. It's one that I share. Really enjoying your contributions to TFP in general, by the way.

prosequence

I believe in love (geez, sounds like the opening of cheesy 80's songs), but I cannot offer any proof that it exist other than my actions. If a person would to have never experienced love, they may not believe in love, although to those that had, to deny its existence would be absurd (that word is getting a lot of use lately eh?). I wonder how many other things in life we dismiss as non existent just because we cannot hold the physical "proof" within our hands?

__________________
And now here I stand because of you, Mister Anderson, because of you I'm no longer an agent of the system, because of you I've changed...

:::OshnSoul:::

Exactly. I want to repeat this again:

The truest things that exist aren't physical- they cannot be seen. You have to open your eyes beyond the normal physical perception to see, feel, and accept that.

Moonduck

I thought I knew what love was, what it felt like, then I met my the woman who would become my wife. She opened entirely new vistas on what my definition of love is. The "love" I thought I'd felt before paled in comparison, best described as somewhere between fondness and lust.

Then we had kids. My definition of love was shaken wildly again. I used to think about love similarly to Pyraxis' excellent definition above. It served my purposes because there simply was no difference between my self-interest and my wife's. I would gladly sacrifice myself for her. The kids changed that. When our first, my daughter, was born, I experienced a terrifying new level of love. I realized that while I would sacrifice myself to protect my wife, I would actively sacrifice myself, others, and whatever it took to insure the safety and well-being of that squalling infant.

It is frightening, for me, to realize that there exists something that can so strongly modify my own internal processes. I'm a tightly controlled person emotionally, but I can genuinely say that my children destroy that control, and that I am not being facetious in the slightest in saying that I would kill to protect them.

You always hear how things change when you're married, when you have kids. It's true, and it radically changed my viewpoint of love each time.

As to proof, how can we prove any internal condition exists except by external observation? There is precisely zero way to determine and prove any person's inner thought process in the slightest. I can easily point to many signs and symptoms associated with love, but I challenge anyone to prove it, or any other higher emotional state (lower states such as nervous, anxious, enraged, etc are all biomechanically based and easy to show).

I really think that anyone that does not better understand what love is as a parent must be emotionally defective.

Mantus

Not if the mind incorporates the symptoms of neurological behavior into its image of the supposed “higher” emotion. The three example of love can illustrate this.

- Relationship love is simply basic bonding that happens between sexual partners.

- Love of one’s wife is the lust and infatuation we experience when we meet a potential mate.

- Love of one’s children is the paternal instinct to protect your genetic investment.

With each case one’s experience of love seems became more real. While from aside I can say that with each step the love became more instinctive.

I am theorizing greatly of course. Nor am I denying that true love exists, simply trying to understand it.

Dilbert1234567

i qualify for all of them, so yes i do belive in love, it is a word with a meaning, i belive in the meanings, so i belive in the word.

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"Love is not finding the perfect person, but learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." -Sam Keen

Moonduck

>> With each case one’s experience of love seems became more real. While from aside I can say that with each step the love became more instinctive.

I can see this, to an extent. I don't really see how it is relevant to the discussion at hand though, no offese intended. So love is instinctual *shrug*. Does that somehow lessen its' 'reality', or it's significance? Love is probably the single most powerful emotion we feel, and is frequently cited as reasoning behind some entirely bizarre and contra-instinctual acts. If it is instinctual, a concept that I do not doubt, then that provides better explanation for the facility with which it wreaks havoc upon higher reason.

We, or at least I, pride ourselves on being rational creatures. Yet even the most rational among us acts like a loon when falling in love. It is as if we are hard-wired to apprent lunacy when love walks in the room.

And why is it that I keeping seeing lyrics from love songs in this thread, my own posts even? ("when love walks in the room", in this very post)


>> - Relationship love is simply basic bonding that happens between sexual partners.

Agreed. In retrospect, and as I alluded to above, it is a pale shadow of more advanced stages of love.

>> - Love of one’s wife is the lust and infatuation we experience when we meet a potential mate.

More than that. It is the realization that this is the person that you should be spending the rest of your life with. It transcends lust in that, if it is truly the emotional level I am referring to (though explaining poorly), it will still be going strong far beyond the capacity for lust. In other words, she looks great now, but in 20 years, she'll look like her mother does now. If you're cool with that idea, your in love, or she has a really hot Mother.

>> - Love of one’s children is the paternal instinct to protect your genetic investment.

Only to an extent. There are far too many people that fail utterly to manifest this level of supposedly instinctual emotion. Yes, it is possible that they are as defective as my earlier post implied them to be, but the lack of sympathy for one's own offspring has become prevalent enough that I begin to wonder if the instinct is properly in place or if it has atrophied in our increasingly me-centered culture.

>> I am theorizing greatly of course. Nor am I denying that true love exists, simply trying to understand it.

I personally consider love to be, experientially, so contra-rational that it is almost impossible to thoroughly understand it. The quest is laudable of course, but I think doomed to failure. Love is so tightly wound with sentimentality and emotion that it would be virtually impossible to get good subjective rational impressions should you chose to research it via interview, and most of the treatises on love are written as art, muddying the waters there. Love is just not rational.

pyraxis

I think the problem is more that we don't understand the human brain well enough to be able to pinpoint the cause. It's when the biochemical aspects are combined with the thoughts that we run into trouble. Neither one, alone, can explain it... and while we can detect when certain regions of the brain are activated, we're a long way from being able to track a single thought.

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"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." -Emerson

Starfish

This is a good question.. Lately I have been questioning everything fom the existance of God to weather Love is real or just a feeling that is produced when you brain admits a certian chemical that we percieve as love. There have been many time that at a certian time i "thaught" that I was in love, but then I came to realize that what I felt was never love. I was recently asked by someone if "I loved them when we were together?" At the time we were together it seemed that I was.... after a while of thinking about this I realized that I never was "in love" with this person. That is why this question is hard and you will never have the proof that you want. Just like proof with God dosen't exist. You have to believe or not believe in whatever you want. You have to make a choice of weather YOU believe that love exists. As for me I don't know if I can believe in "true love". It is not real to me and I dont think that it ever will be. I believe that every emotion that we as humans have is a chemical reaction (physical reaction) to what our brains percieve. If you think about it being sad and being scared is the same feeling it's only magnified in different degrees. This is only my opinion and you don't have to agree. And I won't be offended of you disagree.....

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Moonduck

I still don't see how love being instinctual or biochemically based detracts from it. What are you, at the (almost) most basic level, but the sum of your biochemical reactions? Why would an instinct be less-than-real? Each are integral to you, at some level, thus making it your own reality.experience/etc.

Piss. Can't express a bloody thing correctly today. Going to bed =P

Sho Nuff

The two aren’t exactly comparable. To go on a mission trip can be for love of people or it can be selfish because you are making a conscious sacrifice in hopes of winning favor with God. Selfish here should not carry a negative connotation. It means that your motivated is derived MOSTLY from self-interest.

As far as marriage, if you are giving up approval because the person makes you feel better than the sum of societies approval then it doesn’t take a great deal of love to make the decision. If you are marrying a person that is hard to be with and the tangible negatives outweigh the positives then that is proof of the existence of love.

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I know Nietzsche doesnt rhyme with peachy, but you sound like a pretentious prick when you correct me.

prosequence

Sort of like fire, it's a chemical or physical reaction/change... so does fire exist?

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And now here I stand because of you, Mister Anderson, because of you I'm no longer an agent of the system, because of you I've changed...