Does love exist...

[Squanchy]

Saying love isn't real "because it's just chemicals in the brain" is like saying pain isn't real "because it's just nerves telling your brain something is wrong."

I am sorry to say I have heard that argument uttered in sincerity before.

This kind of conversation is so strange to me. Empirical evidence of love's existence causes people to respond by questioning whether love exists, because if love was real we wouldn't be able to prove it?

Hopefully you were in school at the time, or stoned. Those are the acceptable times to hear that argument.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

I'm going to hop into the "so what if it's a chemical reaction?" camp.
I'll admit, I'm a little poetic, if I'm going to love somebody, I want to treat it more deeply than the "reproduce" impulse natural evolution programmed me to have but I can be aware of it at the same time.
And you've heard this one already, but since it's a chemical reaction, I feel like that makes it more real, you know?

 

[Trunkage]

Let's take this concept a bit further. You maybe aware that due to the interactions of things like cones, rods and the visual cortex that the world we see is nothing like how the world actually looks like (as if it understands 'looks like'). To start with we only see at a certain resolution and wave lengths. So why do we use vision if it is so faulty? We need some way to interface with the world. What's the purpose of emotions? In my opinion, to give value to life. We, as a species, seem to thrive off valuing things that we even made a piece of paper be more valuable than other pieces of paper, and it can be as valuable as food or other products.

It isn't that it's faulty, it's just that it happened to be just useful enough for us to survive more efficiently than the surrounding creatures. We are still evolving. albeit more socially than physically these days. But that is because it is how we work best; together. What we choose to value is our own until we die. Then...who knows? People always claim to. But they are more interested in controlling the alive than enlightening them. Love is our very personal magic we can choose how to inspire us. Be it to kindness, bitterness or worse, it is our own personal fuel. Some don't want to fill up or dont know how to. Some spend their entire lives trying to find out why...when, if the possibilty is no reason, we will never know even when we die.

(Edit: Rick n Morty is one of the bezt cartoon series..s going right now. Don't let any of the verg quick jokes get to you, there is plenty more to enjoy and even more to muse upon. )

Many species have a sense that is better than ours. I agree, vision isn't faulty, its just at the level that makes multi-parallel processing efficient. Too much information cant be processed.

The value thing comes down to us needing an identity. For example, I've met plenty who have failed at achieving something. Instead of the loss being a failure, they class themselves as a failure, and they take this as an identity. For example (about love), a person who doesn't break up with a partner that doesn't match them due to the fact that they don't want to be seen as a failure (again).

 

[Trunkage]

Let's take this concept a bit further. You maybe aware that due to the interactions of things like cones, rods and the visual cortex that the world we see is nothing like how the world actually looks like (as if it understands 'looks like'). To start with we only see at a certain resolution and wave lengths. So why do we use vision if it is so faulty? We need some way to interface with the world. What's the purpose of emotions? In my opinion, to give value to life. We, as a species, seem to thrive off valuing things that we even made a piece of paper be more valuable than other pieces of paper, and it can be as valuable as food or other products.

It isn't that it's faulty, it's just that it happened to be just useful enough for us to survive more efficiently than the surrounding creatures. We are still evolving. albeit more socially than physically these days. But that is because it is how we work best; together. What we choose to value is our own until we die. Then...who knows? People always claim to. But they are more interested in controlling the alive than enlightening them. Love is our very personal magic we can choose how to inspire us. Be it to kindness, bitterness or worse, it is our own personal fuel. Some don't want to fill up or dont know how to. Some spend their entire lives trying to find out why...when, if the possibilty is no reason, we will never know even when we die.

(Edit: Rick n Morty is one of the bezt cartoon series..s going right now. Don't let any of the verg quick jokes get to you, there is plenty more to enjoy and even more to muse upon. )

Many species have a sense that is better than ours. I agree, vision isn't faulty, its just at the level that makes multi-parallel processing efficient. Too much information cant be processed.

The value thing comes down to us needing an identity. For example, I've met plenty who have failed at achieving something. Instead of the loss being a failure, they class themselves as a failure, and they take this as an identity. For example (about love), a person who doesn't break up with a partner that doesn't match them due to the fact that they don't want to be seen as a failure (again).

 

[Kaymish]

Love is just a delusion it makes people stupid and allows people to betray you(well not me obviously since the only preson i love cannot betray me) and all this for zero reward or advantage its foolish to give into a delusion and people who profess love as a good thing are dangerous crackpots

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Walking is a result of chemical reactions creating electrical charges that contract muscles in the right order, digestion is a chemical reaction, its all fucking chemicals and energy exchange. Arguing reality by breaking it down into the basic forms and denigrating the experience with that analysis is the height of arrogance and misanthropy, not the sign of a healthy learned mindset.
Its arguments like these that I see people who believe they're uber-intelligent rail against things they don't understand, despite understanding the science of why they're wholly ignorant that science doesn't discount the reality of those experiences. Overanalyzing plus ego equals detached sociopath.

 

[HybridChangeling]

If it wasn't Rick saying that, I would mistake that as some EDGE hiding being science. But hey, what do I know?

Anyway all of your emotions are chemicals in your brain. If you think love is dumb because of them then you better be ready to also remove a ton of other stuff in your like. This is literally the "Coffee is just hot coffee bean water" debate. But to each their own.

 

[BeeGeenie]

Everybody talking about love and chemicals in the brain. pfff.

Everyone knows that love is created by a combination of "baby don't hurt me," and "don't hurt me no more."

 

[Mad World]

I think that true love is more than just the result of different chemical reactions (or whatever) occurring in the brain. I can't scientifically prove it, but yeah.

 

[Flathole]

Yes, love exists, but it's really just a synonym for morphine.

 

[xaszatm]

The true question is whether love can exist on the battlefield.

OT: I'm gonna parrot what others are saying and say "so what?" The understanding of how love works does not diminish its beauty.

 

[Azrael the Cat]

Love is being comfortable with another person while you're using the toilet.

Hey, keep your scatological fantasies to yourself, bud.

 

[Asita]

Of course love exists. I've heard fictional robots describe it with ludicrous precision.

Spoiler

That counts for something, right?

 

[Zontar]

Love is being comfortable with another person while you're using the toilet.

Hey, keep your scatological fantasies to yourself, bud.

Hey, I'll share my perverted fantasies with the world as I so choose.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

I'm gonna parrot what most of the people here say, yes love is a chemical reaction in the brain, but so is every single thing we are able to perceive. That of course includes all emotions that we feel, every thought we have, and really even our ability to perform scientific experiments and observe the results. In fact everything we experience is a chemical reaction in the brain, because that's how the human brain works. So everything we see, hear, feel, taste, smell, or experience in anyway is the result of a chemical reaction in the brain, because that's how our brains process the universe around us. Our entire lives are just series complicated chemical reactions that we define as being "life", as is the life of anything we classify as "living".

Let's take this concept a bit further. You maybe aware that due to the interactions of things like cones, rods and the visual cortex that the world we see is nothing like how the world actually looks like (as if it understands 'looks like'). To start with we only see at a certain resolution and wave lengths. So why do we use vision if it is so faulty? We need some way to interface with the world. What's the purpose of emotions? In my opinion, to give value to life. We, as a species, seem to thrive off valuing things that we even made a piece of paper be more valuable than other pieces of paper, and it can be as valuable as food or other products.

Well it's essentially true, also while there might be a scientific explanation for everything we perceive and value, that doesn't exclude the possibility of deeper meaning. This is why I don't write off the potential of all living things having souls. We can't know for sure either way and we might never know either, but still just because we can't observe it, doesn't mean it's impossible at the same time. Spiritual matters could quite possibly be far too removed from our living perspective to ever comprehend, even in the abstract. The funny part is that even with souls, live could still be meaningless at the same time.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I'm gonna parrot what most of the people here say, yes love is a chemical reaction in the brain, but so is every single thing we are able to perceive. That of course includes all emotions that we feel, every thought we have, and really even our ability to perform scientific experiments and observe the results. In fact everything we experience is a chemical reaction in the brain, because that's how the human brain works. So everything we see, hear, feel, taste, smell, or experience in anyway is the result of a chemical reaction in the brain, because that's how our brains process the universe around us. Our entire lives are just series complicated chemical reactions that we define as being "life", as is the life of anything we classify as "living".

Let's take this concept a bit further. You maybe aware that due to the interactions of things like cones, rods and the visual cortex that the world we see is nothing like how the world actually looks like (as if it understands 'looks like'). To start with we only see at a certain resolution and wave lengths. So why do we use vision if it is so faulty? We need some way to interface with the world. What's the purpose of emotions? In my opinion, to give value to life. We, as a species, seem to thrive off valuing things that we even made a piece of paper be more valuable than other pieces of paper, and it can be as valuable as food or other products.

It's funny you bring up the vision thing, because I think about that easily once a week that the world may actually look radically different then what I can interpret... and I find that notion very disturbing.

Walking is a result of chemical reactions creating electrical charges that contract muscles in the right order, digestion is a chemical reaction, its all fucking chemicals and energy exchange. Arguing reality by breaking it down into the basic forms and denigrating the experience with that analysis is the height of arrogance and misanthropy, not the sign of a healthy learned mindset.
Its arguments like these that I see people who believe they're uber-intelligent rail against things they don't understand, despite understanding the science of why they're wholly ignorant that science doesn't discount the reality of those experiences. Overanalyzing plus ego equals detached sociopath.

I am willing to concede I potentially am not in a very healthy mindset. It's part of the reasons I've been making threads like this. Just trying to peace together...

I don't know what I'm trying to peace together.

 

[9tailedflame]

Well sure, love exists, otherwise we wouldn't have made a name for it. Of course it's chemicals in the brain, everything we are is chemicals in the brain. There's no shame in that, that doesn't cheapen anything about the human experience, that's just the physical level on which it exists. So yea, love exists, but yes, it also is nothing more than chemicals in the brain, and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I am willing to concede I potentially am not in a very healthy mindset. It's part of the reasons I've been making threads like this. Just trying to peace together...

I don't know what I'm trying to peace together.

Advice: Don't overanalyze the science of why, just let go of the science for a little while and enjoy the chemical reactions. Its like arguing the whole idea of fate vs. free will, if we're unable to do anything about our outcomes then worrying about things is a null point, if we have free will then still worrying about our choices overmuch leaves us stagnant and stuck in one spot.
Better to just live life and do our best not to overanalyze things. This comes from a long, long time of being stuck on introspection and other analyses of life and the only answer I can come up with that doesn't put me in an asylum (not hyperbole by the way) is to let go. Trying not to control life by analyzing it, trying to rationalize everything. Some things in life just aren't rational. Reality is truly what you make it, and if you make your reality too logical, too rational then meaning disappears.

 

[Glongpre]

It is real because you experience it. How is it not real just because it is the product of a chemical reaction?

I think the real question should be what is love? Because I feel a lot of people have a poor conception of love due to the media.

 

[Asita]

...Silly thought. I might have just remembered the perfect retort.

Spoiler