[HN Gopher] Love is biological bribery?
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Love is biological bribery?
Author : dnetesn
Score : 141 points
Date : 2022-02-16 11:04 UTC (11 hours ago)
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| esarbe wrote:
| Love can be many things. Love is lust, is the desire for company,
| the yearning for friendship; it's a single word used for a
| plethora of emotions.
|
| We would do better to differentiate these and make it clear what
| we mean when we say 'I love you'. Someone looking for a partner
| does not mean the same as someone under the spells of passion and
| desire.
| CaptArmchair wrote:
| The Ancient Greeks had distinct terms for different types of
| love.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love
| Sapere_Aude wrote:
| I love material reductionism. It pretends to explain the thing it
| actually renders meaningless with its "explanation".
|
| This "explanation" is utter rubbish mumbled by the philsophically
| inept. It even pretends to be "science" all the while bringing in
| their "darwinian" "evolutionary" philosophy. (One thing I wonder
| often is, don't these people know fallacies, e.g. when trying to
| prove sth. to be caused by evolution, as a proof for evolution,
| while assuming evolution to be true in the first place? Classic
| "begging the question"-fallacy.)
| quenix wrote:
| You don't seem to bring forth any real rebuttal of the
| arguments in the article. I personally think it's a bit
| oversimplified but very much viable. Why don't you think so?
| swayvil wrote:
| Love is a vision of divinity. Inevitable when illusion is
| stripped away. Which happens when you look at anything long
| enough. Be it an intentional looking or a fascination born of
| biochemical trickery.
| eric4smith wrote:
| The author was talking about romantic love.
|
| And indeed, they are right. Love is biological bribery. Science
| has proven that love is a mix of chemistry and emotions. (Or
| emotions caused by chemistry) that waxes and wanes and goes away
| over time. And the main reason for it is the perpetuation of the
| species by a mechanism that is outside of our consciousness and
| reason.
|
| When love is gone, what is generally left is (sometimes
| hopefully) a caring, appreciation, and high regard for the object
| of "love".
|
| And this is exactly why modern divorce rates are so high.
|
| Because marriages were always meant to be a coming together for
| reasons of survival, children, sharing of responsibilities and a
| series of common missions.
|
| Instead we have ruined the institution by making the main reason
| for it to be "love".
|
| So when the love inevitably wanes -- as it naturally does, if the
| couple has nothing else left (children, shared goals, common
| missions), why stay together?
|
| And yes, some people might say they have been in love for
| decades. Which is great! But it rarely happens. Generally love
| waxes and wanes. Rises and falls. Comes and goes. And those same
| couples that have been in love for decades will tell you all of
| the downswings and upswings over the years.
|
| I wish more people knew and understood this. A lot of heartache
| could be saved. Then again, the world would not be so
| interesting. Sigh.
| papito wrote:
| It is almost upsetting how much humans are hostages to our
| hormones. One of the most interesting This American Life
| episodes was about what happens when you are too high or too
| low on testosterone, for example. It changes your entire
| personality.
|
| This is why I don't think the Black Mirror promise of
| "uploading" your brain is that simple. Without hormones, you
| will be a husk of your former self.
| troyvit wrote:
| Yeah and I think that would make another, more excellent
| Black Mirror. It also doesn't take into account the possible
| affect of bacteria and other organisms that help shape
| (granted I can't find a source for that right now that isn't
| pop science so maybe take it with a grain of salt).
| papito wrote:
| It's reasonable to assume that even gut bacteria affects
| your personality, or chronic pain, or anything really that
| makes you _feel_.
| dinkleberg wrote:
| I don't get this attitude though, not just love, but everything
| about us is chemistry.
|
| At the end of the day we are biological machinery.
| frockington1 wrote:
| I agree, at some point drilling down lower on a biological
| scale provides no additional value. "Love is nothing but
| atomic particles interacting" is the logical next step that
| is just as useless to state
| tonis2 wrote:
| Love is just bunch of quantum strings entangled.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| I suspect some people need to believe in a sort of
| biological determinism, where there was never a concept of
| will, just chemicals preordaining everything.
|
| It's all so strangely religious-sounding. :)
| oldsecondhand wrote:
| Both free will and predetermination are core concepts in
| Christianity and one of the fundamental differences
| between protestantism and Catholicism.
| twoxproblematic wrote:
| Zigurd wrote:
| You position re marriage is curious and seems backwards. You
| seem to value marriage over the goals and needs of the
| participants. Modern conventional marriage and the often
| unrealistic expectations of marriage for life are what's wrong
| with marriage. Humans made marriage that way. Humans can decide
| to make it different.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| > Science has proven that love is a mix of chemistry and
| emotions.
|
| When did that happen?
|
| As I understand it we've got to the point of understanding some
| of the chemical signals our bodies use to reflect the idea we
| called love, and that's about as far as it is reasonable to
| take that notion. Taking it further is unscientific.
|
| We don't even remotely understand our own bodies' signalling
| processes so I'm not sure how we reached the conclusion that
| love is solved.
| troyvit wrote:
| Yeah. If it had been solved it also would have been bottled
| and on the shelf at Walmart.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I'm not sure to get your point on marriage. If people divorce
| because they have no other reason to stay together (no survival
| level risk, children, common missions etc.) how is it "ruined"
| ?
|
| Seems to me it's necessity has just waned over time, being
| single has become a lot more viable in our societies and the
| system is pretty much working as it's supposed to.
| Kbelicius wrote:
| > If people divorce because they have no other reason to stay
| together (no survival level risk, children, common missions
| etc.) how is it "ruined" ?
|
| You aren't reading what GP has written so maybe you'll read
| it if I quote it without the context. GP wrote: "Instead we
| have ruined the institution by making the main reason for it
| to be 'love'.".
|
| So the answer to your question would be, it isn't. The
| institution of marriage isn't ruined, in GPs view, by the act
| of divorce when love is gone and there are no other reasons
| to say together but when entering in to marriage when no
| other reason besides love exists.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Sorry, it still makes no sense to me, but perhaps I'm just
| missing a viewpoint.
|
| Marrying and divorcing based on love alone, with nothing
| else at stake doesn't look to me like a bad thing. If it
| wasn't for that, half of the people wouldn't be marrying I
| think, and as an institution it would be in a way worse
| shape.
|
| Perhaps GP isn't embracing divorcing as a sane rational
| decision, and that would be the "ruined" part, on which we
| would diverge.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > Marrying and divorcing based on love alone, with
| nothing else at stake doesn't look to me like a bad
| thing.
|
| This is just the difference of opinion OP is making; they
| see marriage as having the functional purpose of
| dedicating one's life to the other person, sharing
| responsibilities and goals with them (and taxes), ie. the
| development of platonic love; this is required if the
| couple doesn't want to divorce when/if that eros /
| romantic love dies out.
|
| In reality, nobody likes going through a divorce, so if
| they do marry without being ready to commit to shared
| goals like this, they're hoping that eros love never dies
| out, which I bet doesn't happen often.
| twoxproblematic wrote:
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| IMO love is the thing that remains after you stop being blinded
| by lust, novelty, etc.
|
| Love is quite boring, hardly the most stimulating thing in a
| relationship, almost the dullest thing because it's the force
| that keeps you together through the pits. The feeling of
| emotional security, someone to care for / be cared for by. The
| reason it takes a longer time to fall in love than wanting to
| bang is because you need the previous qualities to appear, peak
| and then wither to notice it.
|
| Old people aren't all going at it like knives, familial love is
| pretty mundane, even the love people have for pets is not very
| exciting. But that is the essence, the ecstasy of divine
| tedium.
| onion2k wrote:
| _when the love inevitably wanes_
|
| You only need to look at the way some old people act around
| their spouse to see that there is nothing inevitable about
| that.
| Kbelicius wrote:
| GP already addressed that:
|
| > Science has proven that love is a mix of chemistry and
| emotions. (Or emotions caused by chemistry) that waxes and
| wanes and goes away over time.
|
| > And yes, some people might say they have been in love for
| decades. Which is great! But it rarely happens. Generally
| love waxes and wanes. Rises and falls. Comes and goes. And
| those same couples that have been in love for decades will
| tell you all of the downswings and upswings over the years.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I think GGP actually addresses that via:
|
| > what is generally left is (sometimes hopefully) a caring,
| appreciation, and high regard for the object of "love".
|
| You still value the shared responsibility you have for your
| partner high enough that you have developed platonic love
| to a certain degree, ie. you can't imagine finding someone
| else to build up the same amount of
| caring/appreciation/shared life experiences with, even if
| the romantic love between the couple is at a low point.
| Even if one partner grows attracted to another person, that
| is only the romantic / eros love that brought the initial
| couple together, while that platonic love still exists and
| would take a lot longer to build up with the new romantic
| partner, should they choose to give up all the progress
| they've already made and re-marry.
| onion2k wrote:
| I don't think saying "Love wanes except when it doesn't"
| addresses anything.
| krageon wrote:
| It doesn't address anything because the statement is just
| untrue, but by using it and later on putting in some
| ameliorating statement your text gets to be both
| factually true _and_ espousing something which is wrong.
| The best of all worlds.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| The statement is that love usually wanes. Science is
| quantitative. You would laugh at people arguing "so
| vaccine works except when it doesn't?", wouldn't you?
| Kbelicius wrote:
| No, what is being said is that love waxes and wanes.
| Maybe you are unfamiliar with the idiom and thus are
| having problems understanding what is written.
| onion2k wrote:
| _No, what is being said is that love waxes and wanes.
| Maybe you are unfamiliar with the idiom and thus are
| having problems understanding what is written._
|
| I understand what someone means when they say something
| wanes. They means it wanes; it fades over time. If they
| meant to say it both waxes _and_ wanes they 'd have said
| that instead.
| Kbelicius wrote:
| They did say it waxes and wanes.... I even quoted it to
| you, so that would be 2 times that you didn't read it. In
| fact, GP used it twice, so it would be 4 times.
| fristechill wrote:
| Love as I understand it is not strictly an emotion but rather an
| absence of fear when attending to the object of love. It appears
| emotional because there's a change in the baseline emotional
| state. The results is a whole-hearted engagement which with
| sufficient investment of time has the potential to become
| creative.
| blable2 wrote:
| The title made me chuckle. *Must read* as it has a "Love
| Scientist" with photo.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| In my experience article that says "X is what separates us from
| the animals" is very likely to have a high horseshit quotient
| diag wrote:
| Right. Humans are animals. Trying to make a distinction on a
| biological level is always going to be tenuous.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| A couple of thoughts:
|
| I ran an email list at one point where we posted articles about
| research into brain wiring and discussed it and this doesn't jibe
| with my understanding.
|
| My understanding is that emotion is another means to relate to
| certain kinds of information. It's like a TLDR, a file summing up
| all of your experiences with X and informing you how to relate to
| X.
|
| So if your brain tells you "I'm in love!" that's shorthand for
| something like "This person meets some bar compared to other
| people." It's a summary of your life experience with all people,
| all romantic situations and all of your interactions with this
| one individual.
|
| People with high affect can make snap judgements because they
| have a strong signal, a loud TLDR file telling them "I _love_
| this! " or "I _hate_ this! " People with low affect can't make
| snap decisions. They have to take their time to think things
| through and make conscious, intentional choices. They can't _go
| with their gut._
|
| So I don't think of love as bribery. Love is a density of
| information telling you _don 't sweat the small stuff_. You think
| this is someone to bet your future on when it's not possible to
| ever know for sure how that will go.
|
| The second thought is that her idea of _choosing_ your friends
| doesn 't resonate with me. Just like with romantic partners, my
| friends are people I just hit it off with. That mutual spark is
| there or it's not.
|
| I work at friendship. Friends are important to me. But if I could
| just decide somewhat unilaterally that "I want to be friends with
| x person" and make that happen, I wouldn't have been so socially
| isolated in recent years.
| visarga wrote:
| Looks like the value function in reinforcement learning. You
| assign a high value to being close to your loved one. The value
| function is like you say a synthesis of your past experiences,
| learning what leads to positive or negative rewards. The
| rewards themselves are biologically coded in our brains by
| evolutionary pressures, but the value function is like
| integrating rewards over chains of situations and actions.
| foxhop wrote:
| Love is energy which compells forward motion in the universe.
|
| We know that the law of attraction manifests collaboration &
| cooperation from the smallest parts like our models of the atom,
| to a single cell, to a human's body, to the mind & the global
| subconscious.
|
| This law is love. Love is not always right but it's the fuel,
| it's what drives this whole mad universe and it's you and it's me
| and we are excellent! Can you imagine, your heart beating for you
| each and everyday, the bacteria in your gut digesting food for
| your cells to uptake and absorb. Everything in perfect balance
| and homeostasis!
|
| Sure we may fall ill, but our bodies repair even without our
| focus. In fact it's often better to sleep when feeling sick and
| turn down the conscious ego altogether and slip into lala land:
| to the place of archetypes, the shadow, the subconscious, and
| unconscious. Our bodies rescue us, we do nothing (wu wei) and
| only need to wait through the uncomfortable now. A new day will
| rise and after a short time we feel whole again. We have all
| experienced this. We know this because this is love. Our bodies
| love us and if we treat others inside the universal system with
| love, I don't see why peaceful Freedom United with Love cannot
| find a natural balance, especially if love were inherently part
| of the technological constraints and engineering decisions.
|
| You know what true love is, you might have forgotten, but you
| know it.
|
| Love must be grown voluntary.
| caaqil wrote:
| The "law of attraction" is not a thing, it's a pseudoscientific
| concept used by woo-woo peddlers. It is impressive how much
| text this comment contains and how little sense it makes.
| foxhop wrote:
| & ur comment is also poetry in motion. Do not spiral yourself
| down too low, u might not find a way back out! Good luck & I
| love u regardless for showing me significant contrast to my
| own well being & awareness, conciousness, & spirit.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Love and empathy may well just be strategies that do well
| evolutionarily, but they are what we have. Without them we
| wouldn't be social animals because we'd have no problem killing
| each other -- "bribery" would not even have a place. I'd rather
| think of these qualities as noble than as mere evolutionary
| accidents that amount to "bribery".
| mediocregopher wrote:
| > That's what separates us from the animals. Animals don't use
| love to manipulate others. We do.
|
| I'm not convinced this isn't the exact modus operandi of my cat.
| esarbe wrote:
| Love and lust and passion are things that are difficult to square
| with our (mis)understanding as 'rational' entities; we are not
| thinking machines, we're reproduction machines.
|
| > But a lot of women, in particular, find it hard to accept that
| they are still looking for a protector and a provider.
|
| Our biology doesn't care what your carefully crafted self-image
| looks like; in the end male and female are two reproductive
| strategies that perpetuate the genes.
|
| It would do us good to keep that in mind and not be willfully
| blind to the biological sources of our behavior.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Arguably, we have a culture and education problem, where the idea
| of love as being invested in someone else's happiness gets
| conflated with sex as a hook for roping someone into co-
| dependency. The whole enterprise is rotten. When you stop using
| the word, and just mentally recognize, "I feel invested in this
| persons happiness," it provides for a more sound emotional
| foundation. When you have lust for someone, you aren't
| necessarily invested in their happiness, it's really something
| else.
|
| The reason (imo) it gets so messy is because we have elevated and
| romanticized co-dependency as a culture. Biologically, a woman
| only really needs a man around for the first few years of infant
| vulnerability, and not even that these days, however, the
| flipside of that is that we ignore the weaning and developmental
| effect of having fathers around to offset the dependent identity
| a child has on its mother.
|
| I'm of a more conservative view that when we started raising kids
| to become adults, we stopped raising them to be men and women,
| and so we are left with adult, vaguely defined persons, who take
| supervision from proxies for their mothers in a co-dependent
| relationship with interchangeable authorities, and who are not
| fully actualized men and women.
|
| Language itself comes from our mothers, and to keep us surviving
| as children, the base sentiments complex language is designed to
| transmit are disgust and shame, to warn you away from danger and
| misbehavior, so as to keep us safe. Our internal monlologue of
| self speaks to us in language, so most of our ontology of being
| is predicated on this substrate. It's that powerful. When you
| look at traditional or tribal rites of passage, they tend to have
| an element of disgust and danger in them, where you are forced to
| become the thing that as a child you were forbidden to be, and
| then in this state, you are celebrated and accepted into the
| group as a trusted man or woman, because you have survived the
| disgusting things that were forbidden, and you are now _you_ ,
| and the tribe loves you for that which is the true you, and not
| your child identity defined by good behaviour.
|
| We don't have those rites of passage anymore, and so we have
| generations of unweaned "adult people" who aren't accepted men or
| women, who can still be operated on by pulling these childhood
| linguistic levers of disgust and shame. Love in a world of
| adults, and not of men and women, is an absolute disaster as a
| result, since the long tail of men are treating women like their
| mothers, and women have to hide who they truly are to represent
| as these weird sexless adult authority figures.
|
| This is a bit much for an off hand comment, but it's important in
| this context, as by rethinking love as being invested in someones
| happiness, it creates the necessary personal boundary that
| enables us to have something to bring to a relationship, instead
| of self sacrificing for a co-dependent identity regulated by an
| internal monologue of shame.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Articles that speak of evolution as a person with intent are
| strange to me.
| Starlevel001 wrote:
| Hypocrite that you are, for you trust the chemicals in your brain
| to tell you that they are chemicals. All knowledge is ultimately
| based on that which we cannot prove. Will you fight? Or will you
| perish like a dog?
| badrabbit wrote:
| Confusing intimacy with love? Even then, I am convinced the
| biological need for sex is rooted in a core psychological need
| for intimacy (to know and mutually be known), this need is so
| crucial, the body works to help obtain it similar to food or
| water.
| esarbe wrote:
| > I am convinced the biological need for sex is rooted in a
| core psychological need for intimacy
|
| The biological need for sex is rooted in the necessity for
| reproduction.
|
| > this need is so crucial, the body works to help obtain it
| similar to food or water.
|
| The body serves the need for reproduction.
| badrabbit wrote:
| There is no need for reproduction biologically. Socially,
| sure. But if anything, offsprings put the survival of the
| parent at risk (more bellies to feed, more risks to take,
| more exposure to disease). However there is a psychological
| need to reproduce but certainly secondary to intimacy, which
| makes sense since children require a stable environment which
| is only helped by parents' intimacy.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| There is a biological need - the only reason that the
| specimen exists is because their parents had that urge.
| Evolution will 100% select those who want to breed over
| those who don't. Those who don't won't pass on their
| genetics and their evolution will end.
| vitno wrote:
| The process of evolution doesn't care much about survival
| of the parent if they aren't passing down genes.
| fleddr wrote:
| There's no such thing as a psychological need when it comes
| to reproduction. The very existence of the person having
| such needs (which you made up) is based on biological
| reproduction, which trumps any and all needs. You cannot
| have needs if you don't exist.
|
| Likewise, offspring cannot be a risk to you if you don't
| exist.
|
| The point of life is to reproduce. The point of life before
| the moment you reproduce is to not die.
| badrabbit wrote:
| What evidence is there to prove the biological trumps
| psychological? People can literally starve to death
| because of a psychological disorder. The desire to see
| more of one's self and a continuation of one's story is
| what I am talking about. The point of life is not
| reproduce, reproduction is a means by which lineage is
| continued. In order for life to have a point you have to
| talk about intent behind life, if you believe life is
| unintended then there is no point to it aside from what
| sentient beings self-assign it.
| fleddr wrote:
| The evidence is that you exist, which is solely the
| result of biological reproduction. Life indeed has no
| intent other than to continue. That is the point in
| itself.
|
| Quite a lot of species take this reality to the extreme.
| They die immediately after reproducing. Or, they generate
| thousands of offspring of which 99.99% dies within the
| day.
|
| Humans, like all species ever, are hard-wired to
| reproduce. Whatever bullshit story you tell yourself on
| top of that (opting out, or optin in for wanting to
| maintain a legacy) are mere fabrications of a mind, only
| possible in recent luxury times in very particular parts
| of the world.
|
| Some people call this nihilism but I call it freedom. Not
| only does life other than reproducing have no point, your
| life is also completely irrelevant at macro level. When
| you embrace that, you can finally start living.
| esarbe wrote:
| > What evidence is there to prove the biological trumps
| psychological?
|
| The psychological _is_ biological.
|
| > The point of life is not reproduce,
|
| The point of life is the continuation of life - that
| means reproduction. It might not be your _own_
| reproduction, but the reproduction of your genes. That 's
| what the last 3.5billion years of your own cellular
| existence has been about.
|
| > In order for life to have a point you have to talk
| about intent behind life
|
| Life has a point whether you talk about it or not. The
| point of life is life itself.
| bobthechef wrote:
| zby wrote:
| The article does not explain why bribery is the chosen analogy
| and not for example salary or something. Bribery for me is about
| paying someone to do something bad - here they talk about the
| reward i.e. the payment part but there is no mention about the
| 'something bad' part.
| hasmanean wrote:
| No, love is a low entropy state between two people, like a
| chemical bond.
|
| Emotions like hatred, greed, jealousy etc have no place in that
| state.
| sytelus wrote:
| If people getting married were forced to spend a day in divorce
| court, very few people would ever dare get married. "Love" is the
| biggest snake oil humans have produced and marketted to death.
| It's all good for survival of the species but if you want to
| change the world, do something above and beyon, make an impact -
| avoid this "love" bullshit and, no matter what happens, don't get
| married. Songs of the sirens will be loud and irresistable. You
| must learn to close your ears or you will ruin your life.
| amelius wrote:
| > people with higher levels of oxytocin generally are more open
| to relationships, they are more committed to wanting to work
| toward a relationship
|
| Can people get a test for this?
| krageon wrote:
| No, because it is the kind of blanket statement that is a huge
| red flag for someone constructing a story that sounds nice to
| them.
| msoad wrote:
| It should not be too difficult to measure tho. Imagine a
| speed dating setup
| amelius wrote:
| Even nicer if you can predict oxytocin from DNA sequences.
| krageon wrote:
| Oxytocin has a popsci connotation and an actual use and
| those are only peripherally related.
| throw0101a wrote:
| The English language is lacking in some words and so a whole
| bunch of things get lumped under the single word of "love":
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love
|
| * https://iep.utm.edu/love/
|
| For Aristotle (Rhet. ii, 4) and Aquinas (STh I-II,26 4), _to
| love_ is to "will the good of the other"; it is an act of
| 'reason' rather than emotion. That is how one can "love one's
| enemy": it's not necessarily that we find pleasure from them, but
| rather we desire that they (e.g.) reform their ways.
| Connor_Creegan wrote:
| While this is true, the interviewee Anne Machin clarifies that
| she is referring to the phenomenon of romantic love (Eros).
|
| That said, I find it interesting that there is no mention of
| the phenomenon of same-sex romance. This exception alone would
| seem to fly in the face of the notion that romantic love can be
| conceptually-modeled as a mere epiphenomenon of genetic
| sovereignty and autonomy. I guess the counter would be that
| this lies outside the boundaries of ordinary romantic love and
| therefore should be taxonomically-distinct?
|
| Who knows. These gene-centered theories of evolution require
| quite a bit of ad hoc rationalization, speculation and routine
| defiance of folk phenomenology.
| hirundo wrote:
| > This exception alone would seem to fly in the face of the
| notion that romantic love can be conceptually-modeled as a
| mere epiphenomenon of genetic sovereignty and autonomy.
|
| Biologically romantic love between same sex partners is more
| or less equivalent to love with an infertile partner. Such
| love doesn't have to mean that there has been evolutionary
| pressure for such feelings to those particular partners. It
| could just mean that there has been strong evolutionary
| pressure to support the feeling of love, but the genetic
| mechanisms for identifying a fertile partner of the
| complimentary sex is imperfect. If it works often enough that
| sufficient babies are produced those false positives are
| tolerable.
|
| This can be thought of as similar to disease resistance. When
| someone young dies from a disease it isn't evidence that we
| are evolved to die from the disease, just that our biology
| has limitations.
|
| Of course we can't rule out that homosexual and other
| infertile relationships have evolutionary advantages. See
| e.g. John Maynard Smith's "sneaky fuckers strategy".
| Connor_Creegan wrote:
| >Biologically romantic love between same sex partners is
| more or less equivalent to love with an infertile partner.
|
| I am uncertain as to the intention of the adjective
| "biologically" is in this sentence, but it seems to me that
| to maintain the above thesis consistently in the face of
| counter-evidence you would have to reduce vast portions of
| the conscious decision-making matrix to the epiphenomena of
| a genetic teleology. Infertility is typically not an
| acknowledged fact prior to romantic engagement, while same-
| sex attracted persons go to great lengths to hide their
| romantic pursuits from others. Unless we are assuming a
| highly-restrictive helpless spectator theory of
| consciousness, dismissing the difference between these two
| sets of phenomena as reducible to some kind widespread of
| lack of discretion is quite the hypothetical leap.
|
| It seems far more parsimonious and practical to assume
| either a multi-level or meme/concept-centered model when
| attempting to explain something as abstract, private and
| irreplicable as romantic love.
| hirundo wrote:
| > you would have to reduce vast portions of the conscious
| decision-making matrix to the epiphenomena of a genetic
| teleology.
|
| You have put your finger directly on the issue. How could
| it be possible for sequences of amino acids to influence
| our emotional reactions to particular classes of stimuli
| in the real world? Whatever influence there is must come
| from long and tortuously complex and unreliable chains of
| causation. Those amino acids cannot simply encode a
| virility detector in our neural nets. Your skepticism of
| the connection is quite reasonable.
|
| And yet we keep finding examples of the connection. Like
| the funny reaction of cats to cucumbers in all of those
| youtube videos. Something biological and not social makes
| many cats fear a certain class of shapes. Somehow, that
| emotional and physical response is genetically encoded.
| Something similar is at work with romantic love. Like a
| cat fears a snake-shaped blob, a human is aroused by a
| mate-shaped blob or smell. That arousal in turn
| influences our emotions, notoriously blinding us to other
| inputs.
|
| Our emotions are written on the dirtiest slates
| imaginable, scribbled on over and over for billions of
| generations.
| Connor_Creegan wrote:
| I don't really doubt the connection, I doubt the
| reduction. There is no reason to isolate the phylogenetic
| march as the primary efficient cause of its own change
| through time in opposition to the claim that it is a
| register of that change. There are other possible
| explanations for innate aptic structures than a genetic
| determinism which ultimately requires us to accept a
| theory of consciousness as simply a passive witness to
| unceasing, out-of-control volitional states.
| hirundo wrote:
| That's why the topic is a political football. The scope
| of that volition is a constraint on the scope of
| effective governance, particularly as fueled by blame.
| ravi-delia wrote:
| I'd expect that your brain has to figure out who it's
| attracted to. The fact that on the order of 90% of the
| population reports themselves as straight (surely some
| closeted and bisexual folks in straight relationships
| included in that number, but it's probably not too far off)
| suggests that evolution has largely organized us well for
| reproduction, but obviously isn't perfect. I mean, when I
| find men attractive it's often for the same reasons straight
| women do, modulo individual differences in type.
|
| That being said, I suspect you're right that evolution is
| much more constrained than evo-psych explanations give it
| credit for (though I wonder what a non-gene-centered theory
| of evolution would look like!). There are only 20,000 genes
| or so, and most of them are just simple recipes for necessary
| proteins. Obviously evolution does a lot with a little, but
| it still strains credibility to suggest that every aspect of
| human behavior is so well controlled by so few genes.
| kang wrote:
| > Love is chemicals & emotions
|
| No, love is not chemicals & emotions but the state of chemicals &
| emotions that is cause-effect for inter-human attraction/stable
| togetherness.
|
| Wow! IMAGINE THINKING LOVE EVOLVED at some point in time. There
| are other issues as well.
|
| To start off if I defined love minimally as that which is the
| cause of attraction then,
|
| --- What is the cause of attraction between poles of a magnet? *
| Using the socratic method, the concept of an "ideal North Pole"
| is inseparable from the "ideal South Pole", their togetherness is
| eternal and when they are not together they are attracted to be
| together, when they are together it is sustainable, so much so
| that the reason for their creation is for the other to exist.
|
| Why do they behave so though? Because they are "circular". No
| they are not circular jk but because they have a "natural
| configuration" or simply put its their "nature". Nature of
| circles is to roll, similarly, what is an object that has nature
| is to be attracted to this subject. ---
|
| Love itself, is eternal, and has no origin. It is name for a
| "thing"(conceptual, abstract, but a noun), like a circle.
|
| We say one's mind is in prayer but technically whole of their
| "natural configuration" is praying. Similarly, we say someone's
| body is in the game, but their whole self is involved. Similarly
| thus, heart is in love but their "whole configuration" is in the
| act of active loving, during their existence.
|
| At the very least it must NOT be taken for granted that a common
| subset of such configuration exists for all humans. Nature of
| their lover is subjective to lovers.
|
| Furthermore, to end, when you study the properties of theos and
| of love, they turn out to be same 'things'; god is love and love
| is god. OP needs to read about what they are writing.
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| tantalor wrote:
| Gives a new meaning to the phrase "having chemistry with someone"
| blurker wrote:
| > At the basis of love are four neurochemicals. Each has a
| different role but together they motivate us or to give us
| confidence to go into social relationships.
|
| So love is basically some chemicals causing us to feel lovey.
| Makes sense...
|
| > That's what separates us from the animals. Animals don't use
| love to manipulate others. We do.
|
| Wait, what? Do none of the animals have the same chemical
| processes? This is a big red flag to me. Time and time again we
| have found that when people have said "animals don't X, only
| humans do" we find that to be wrong.
|
| I stopped reading after this.
| tpoacher wrote:
| There's a corollary to the whole "love is contingent on reward
| chemicals and can be addictive". Which is that people can use the
| initial large offering vs later withholding of love to manipulate
| you. And boy have I seen this done. Particularly in friends who
| have manipulative parents, and in sociopathic individuals in the
| context of relationships (a.k.a. the 'love bombing' technique:
| https://datingasociopath.com/sociopath-character-traits/cunn...)
| andrewclunn wrote:
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I think this has it the wrong way around. it's not that love is
| biological bribery, it's that someone studying biology has tried
| to redefine biological bribery to be love.
|
| Love comes in many shapes. Love for one's family, one's nation,
| one's profession, even God. It's at best uninformative, at worst
| nonsensical to try to reduce all of this to interaction found in
| sexual interaction / reproduction. It's a common thing with these
| evo-psych explanations. If all you have is a hammer, everything
| looks like a nail. The more scientific sounding version of
| thinking every skyscraper represents a phallus.
|
| I doubt this even makes sense across cultural boundaries. For
| example the fact that oxytocin is apparently indicative of how
| long a relationsihp lasts. In a Western culture where people
| nowadays are prone to form relationships spontaneously, sure. In
| a culture where parents organize relationships based on class,
| caste or faith? Probably not.
| CipherThrowaway wrote:
| You are 100% right. The OP is textbook biological reductionism.
| This "love scientist" is not promoting science but instead
| passing off her pet theories as the final word on a nearly
| universal human experience that takes dramatically different
| forms across time and culture.
| esarbe wrote:
| > on a nearly universal human experience
|
| Love is not a nearly universal human experience. Love is a
| whole lot of concepts and emotions and experiences that are
| highly dependent on the cultural context.
|
| That's one of the points of the article.
| CipherThrowaway wrote:
| It's quite the opposite. Culture is mentioned three times
| in the article and each mention is to point out that
| culture doesn't make a difference to the supposed immutable
| evolutionary truths.
| selestify wrote:
| > The OP is textbook biological reductionism
|
| And is that wrong? Of course we're reducible down to
| biological impulses in the end. Part of understanding higher
| level cultural phenomena is understanding our biological
| interactions, how they were historically shaped by our
| evolutionary past, and how those adaptations affect us in a
| drastically different modern context.
|
| Certainly sounds a lot more scientific than, say, dismissing
| all the research as "biological reductionism."
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Biological reductionism is different from just simply
| science. There is a lot above love that we simply can't
| explain at the level of neurotransmitters because our
| understanding of such high level functions is highly
| incomplete. Trying to say that there is nothing more to it
| that the incomplete understanding we have is reductionism.
| CipherThrowaway wrote:
| The reductionism is the attempt to generalize incomplete
| biological understandings to the high level systems of
| which biology is the basis. This ignores the complex
| interactions and properties that emerge at various points
| between the two domains. It's as misguided as saying that
| computers aren't digital because the underlying
| electromagnetism is analog.
|
| The article would be fine if it recognized that it was
| speaking in trends and generalities. But the information is
| presented as universal and individually applicable. For
| example:
|
| > But a lot of women, in particular, find it hard to accept
| that they are still looking for a protector and a provider.
|
| No doubt women find it hard to accept someone lecturing
| them on their preferences without allowing them any
| individuality.
|
| The idea that searching for a protector is adaptive seems
| reasonable enough. The fallacy is thinking it must
| therefore apply unconditionally to every individual person
| and culture. Individual behavior does not always adhere to
| what is adaptive and there is no reason to think there
| aren't other adaptations that may interact with, override
| or invert this "provider seeking" behavior on an individual
| basis.
|
| The diverse spectrum of human sexuality and romantic
| disposition is completely at odds with the simplistic view
| presented in the article. The system is too complex to
| understand in a few generalities.
|
| > Part of understanding higher level cultural phenomena is
| understanding our biological interactions
|
| I think It's more often part of an _anti-understanding_ of
| higher level cultural phenomenon. My observation is that
| people who strongly believe in reducing love to chemicals
| or atoms are intellectualizing an area of their life where
| they do not feel capable, confident or in control. These
| beliefs then inhibit personal growth and an understanding
| of others. In the last couple of decades I have seen dozens
| of men and a handful of women grow out of reductionist
| beliefs.
| selestify wrote:
| > The article would be fine if it recognized that it was
| speaking in trends and generalities. But the information
| is presented as universal and individually applicable.
|
| I agree. I assume that's just the journalist doing a bad
| job of getting the nuance across.
|
| > No doubt women find it hard to accept someone lecturing
| them on their preferences without allowing them any
| individuality.
|
| At the same time, we humans are notorious for
| rationalizing nice sounding, preferable reasons for why
| we engage in certain actions. I don't have the context on
| these personal discussions, of course, but perhaps those
| women were indeed acting in ways that were more congruent
| than not with the evo-psych explanation espoused here.
|
| > The diverse spectrum of human sexuality and romantic
| disposition is completely at odds with the simplistic
| view presented in the article. The system is too complex
| to understand in a few generalities.
|
| I agree with the complexity. Again, I assume that much of
| it is just the usual pop-science article being a pop-
| science article. Perhaps I assume wrongly.
|
| I do think however that overall, this is a research
| direction worth pursuing. There's a diverse spectrum of
| human sexuality and romantic dispositions, but what are
| some of the common driving forces in the background
| across time and culture? Why are some romantic
| experiences (e.g. an unreasonable crush on a specific
| person that fades over time) so common in the general
| population, and why do these experiences happen and play
| out in these common ways?
|
| > I think It's more often part of an anti-understanding
| of higher level cultural phenomenon.
|
| Quite possible, but IMO we shouldn't let popular
| misunderstandings of science detract from the actual
| scientific inquiry taking place. A lot of woo
| spiritualists have repurposed popular misconceptions of
| quantum mechanics for their own ends, but that doesn't
| detract from the legitimacy of actual quantum physicists.
| CipherThrowaway wrote:
| > Quite possible, but IMO we shouldn't let popular
| misunderstandings of science detract from the actual
| scientific inquiry taking place.
|
| The idea that articles like this are science _is_ a
| popular misunderstanding of science. The article is not a
| scientific work. It 's a pop science piece where an
| individual scientist promotes her personal philosophies
| on love to a public audience. Her beliefs may integrate
| individual scientific facts but that does not make them
| scientific in themselves.
|
| > Why are some romantic experiences (e.g. an unreasonable
| crush on a specific person that fades over time) so
| common in the general population, and why do these
| experiences happen and play out in these common ways?
|
| Let's say you're feeling anxious before an important
| exam. Someone notices your anxiety and asks you why
| you're feeling that way. So you provide a detailed
| explanation of the neurochemical signalling cascade
| involved in an acute anxiety response and say that is why
| you are feeling anxious. Does this answer the question?
| In a very literal way it does. But it's a useless and
| incomplete answer. "I'm feeling anxious because I have an
| important exam coming up" is in many senses more useful
| and accurate.
|
| Our biology is shaped and acted on by our environment
| which includes many psychosocial factors. Culture and
| individual experience are biopsychosocial. Biology is to
| human behavior what electromagnetism is to computing. You
| can't build an understanding by considering only the
| lowest level details.
| selestify wrote:
| > The article is not a scientific work.
|
| I never said it was. I said it was pop science -- in
| other words, a highly mangled portrayal of scientific
| work, made fit for public consumption.
|
| > It's a pop science piece where an individual scientist
| promotes her personal philosophies on love to a public
| audience. Her beliefs may integrate individual scientific
| facts but that does not make them scientific in
| themselves.
|
| She's promoting the theory that she believes best fits
| the data. Assuming she's not one of those scientists who
| fakes her data, that is very much a part of regular
| scientific discourse. Her theory may very well be wrong,
| but that doesn't mean she's not being scientific.
|
| Again, I am assuming that the claims she's making are
| backed by actual data that she's reviewed. Have you
| reviewed her work and found that this is not in fact the
| case? If so, I'll cede that to you.
|
| > You can't build an understanding by considering only
| the lowest level details.
|
| No, but abstractions are leaky. You can't build a full
| understanding without ignoring the lower level details
| either, which is what she certainly seems to be doing.
|
| As an example,
|
| > "I'm feeling anxious because I have an important exam
| coming up" is in many senses more useful and accurate.
|
| If someone notices that you're _always_ anxious, this is
| likely just your brain rationalizing the exam being the
| main or most important cause of your anxiety. On its own,
| it's a perfectly plausible explanation. But in reality,
| how good of a predictor is the presence of an exam for
| your mental state?
|
| How good of a predictor for mating preferences is this
| evo-psych theory? I'm sure the women the author mentioned
| here have a unique reason for every man they passed on,
| but were those men by and large bad protectors and low
| earners? If so, those unique reasons for rejection sound
| more like post-hoc rationalizations than "real" reasons,
| and the cause of such biases deserve to be looked into
| further to ascertain the magnitude of biological or
| cultural influences.
|
| Unfortunately, as we both note, it's a pop sci article
| that doesn't contain that much information about the
| methodology or the results. I'm just saying, just as I
| can't draw strong conclusions that it's true based on
| this article itself, I don't believe you can draw strong
| conclusions that it's bunk and "not science," either.
| adenner wrote:
| Part of the problem you are having is the English word love is
| an overloaded term.
| raducu wrote:
| Surely love has functional meaning, just like all sensations
| and feelings. Love is one of the most powerful feelings that
| can bring joy or so much sorrow for some.
|
| Do the biochemical aspects of love matter that much? When it is
| no longer functional, sure.
|
| Besides, all pleasurable feelings/sensations are "bribes".
|
| Really funny how we make separations about male vs female
| dating strategy, and they are right to a great degree, but both
| men and women share a lot of DNA, I don't know if there are
| many male specific genes.
|
| Sure, all animals are the same and just a few different
| hormones make a huge difference (male vs female gorilla?) but
| not to that extent in humans.
|
| Men can be manipulated too when they fall inlove, I wish the
| article talked about that.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Re: sharing DNA. That's like saying why does this same binary
| behave differently depending on configuration: in other
| words, non sequitur. It is normal: some female fish is 10x
| larger than male fish.
| raducu wrote:
| But there's no need to look into fish or gorillas, as a
| child I was very different than today.
|
| Hormones, neurotransmitters, all make a big difference,
| sure.
|
| But humans do not show such a pronounced dimorphism and
| human minds are extremely complex things, surely the
| brains/minds of male/female share a lot more than they
| differ on average.
|
| There are outliers -- like a man pumped with testosterone,
| a leader's brain flooded with dopamine, an adrenaline
| junkie, a nymphomaniac and so on, but these are outliers.
|
| My problem is people who take the "men produce billions and
| billions of sperm and women ovulate once a month, therefore
| men and women are completely different" -- that's a
| tendency sure, and there are differences and different
| drives, but not to the extent people interpret them to be.
| xenocratus wrote:
| > and there are differences and different drives, but not
| to the extent people interpret them to be.
|
| Do you have any meaningful data that backs those claims
| up? I mean, first of all - "not to the extent people
| interpret them to be" - which people, more precisely, and
| what's that extent? And secondly, how do you know that
| it's not to that extent?
|
| Don't want to be pedantic here, but we could be rambling
| on about how "people say this, but it's actually like
| that" all day long - show me the numbers, how they were
| obtained, and your interpretation of them and we can
| discuss, something like [1], hopefully.
|
| [1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/
| journal...
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| Some counterpoints to consider ..
|
| You can get very large differences in computer systems
| just by flipping one single bit.
|
| Anecdata is not the opposite of anecdata.
|
| But this is all conjecture, if we seek to understand
| reality instead of just what we imagine, then we need to
| empirically measure reality.
| msoad wrote:
| This is about romantic love for reproduction. I feel like a lot
| of top comments in HN are from people who didn't read the
| article these days
| selestify wrote:
| Those other forms of love are fairly different from the sexual,
| romantic love that the article is focusing on. It's not "reduce
| all of this" to sexual interaction, it's focusing on romantic
| love instead of conflating it with other love.
|
| > It's a common thing with these evo-psych explanations. If all
| you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
|
| If everything in reality is made from nails, then it makes
| sense to look for the hammer that hammered it in. Everything in
| human psychology was in fact molded through evolution, so of
| course it makes sense to look to evolution for potential
| answers.
|
| > For example the fact that oxytocin is apparently indicative
| of how long a relationsihp lasts.
|
| If a culture artificially forces relationships to last by, say,
| heavily stigmatizing divorce, then of course that's going to
| override the "natural" course of events. That hardly means
| there isn't useful information to be gleaned from our
| biological nature in situations where such artificial forces
| are not in force. (Or you could argue, where different
| artificial forces are in force.)
| polypodiopsi wrote:
| The appeal of theories like these to a lot of people is that
| they are quite simple to understand. Has also to do with that
| in a society where all subjectivity is informed by the
| valueform everything seems to appear as a market. And isn't
| it flattering to be part of the group that has access to the
| hegemony of scientific knowledge? Probably. You can thus
| think about why you re conditioned to find ideas like these
| appealing. Or why a popularscientific enterprise (the authors
| book in the article wich is basically advertisement and as
| such partaking in libidinal economy) emphasises these aspects
| and reserves the position of "exception to the rule" to
| cutting edge research on neuroplasticity.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| > Everything in human psychology was in fact molded through
| evolution, so of course it makes sense to look to evolution
| for potential answers.
|
| I disagree with the sense that evolution has answers to begin
| with, or that everything in human psychology can be assumed
| to be touched by evolution. Sometimes weird shit happens and
| it doesn't prevent you from fucking so it sticks and there's
| no greater purpose to it.
|
| I feel this understanding of evolution ascribes too much
| anthropomorphism to the phenomenon.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| >Sometimes weird shit happens and it doesn't prevent you
| from fucking so it sticks and there's no greater purpose to
| it.
|
| That's how you end up with random maladaptive mutations.
| But they aren't distributed across a species.
|
| You don't end up with near universal traits in a species
| without them being molded by evolutionary pressures.
| agumonkey wrote:
| wild theory, sometimes I have this feeling that divorce is
| badly seen because
|
| 1) people jump between partners too often when free, it's
| easier but maybe less deep
|
| 2) family stability is important, and noble (it's a hard
| compromise but others complicated things are important and
| noble)
|
| 3) in the past social, family and intimate stability were
| probably a lot more important than today, so we inherited
| that perspective, even though today we may care less
|
| ps: saying this I understand perfectly how human
| relationship, marriage are complex, volatile and how no one
| wants to rot in a bad relationship. :)
| einpoklum wrote:
| > 3) in the past social, family and intimate stability were
| probably a lot more important than today
|
| Many past societies did not have atomic families like we do
| today.
|
| In fact, even couple-marriage is not _that_ old (several
| thousands of years)? I remember reading about this stuff in
| "Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State",
| which, while somewhat dated (125 years ago or so?) is quite
| interesting. Matrilineal societies, group marriage (i.e.
| being 'married' to all people in a certain category so that
| if you travel to another village you have people in your
| 'family' or 'marriage group' there even if you've never met
| them) and other arrangements.
| buscoquadnary wrote:
| > "Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State"
|
| By Fredrick Engles, known most popularly when associated
| with his co-author Karl Marx. Who among their many
| philisophical ideas advocated things such as
|
| - "All history is class warfare"
|
| - Dialectical materialism that proved to be so wrong no
| one even knows about it anymore.
|
| - Or my personal favorite that the communist revolution
| would come first to the most capitalist countries, when
| in fact the only countries that fell to communism were
| backward feudal societies or those that had communism
| forced on them by the Soviet Union.
|
| My point if your source of information is Engles then I'd
| suggest checking out some resources from people haven't
| been quite so thoroughly eviscerated by actual reality
| when their ideas were put to any sort of test.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _In fact, even couple-marriage is not _that_ old
| (several thousands of years)?_
|
| Cities and written language and written laws and such are
| not that old either...
|
| What was the case in some earlier societies shouldn't be
| a yardstick...
| agumonkey wrote:
| Even without the social contract. First time I held
| someone in my arms I had visions of life long
| companionship. Not everybody is wired this way but it's
| often programmed deep down inside of us. Marriage is just
| the social incarnation of that feeling IMO.
|
| Also some people say that a lot of animals have similar
| emotional/biological needs. It's not just a matter of
| homo-* history it seems.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > Even without the social contract. First time I held
| someone in my arms I had visions of life long
| companionship
|
| I would assume you were brought up in a modern cultural
| environment. That means your view of the world, your
| values, your expectations, your fantasies - are shaped by
| that upbringing.
|
| So, your feelings are not good evidence that this is
| "programmed deep down inside of us".
| throwaheyy wrote:
| Are you claiming that a desire for companionship with
| another human being is purely a modern social construct?
|
| That seems a ... bizarre opinion. Until
| industrialization, human relationships were directly tied
| to survival.
| einpoklum wrote:
| I claimed no such thing...
|
| And, in fact you're making the point even more strongly,
| in that you seem to identify lifelong, formal, monogamous
| pairing with the potential for human companionship.
| BigRedDog1669 wrote:
| I'm not saying that there isn't something biological or
| authentic to it, but you probably saw a bunch of Disney
| movies and a bunch of other cultural messaging when you
| were a child that helped prime you to have this response.
| rackjack wrote:
| Reminds me of this image:
|
| https://i.redd.it/lr5rfu3paen61.jpg
| agumonkey wrote:
| I always have a big problem with this argument. To me the
| social protocol take roots in the emotional thus the
| biological. It's not really propaganda, it's self
| amplified reflection.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _ps: saying this I understand perfectly how human
| relationship, marriage are complex, volatile and how no one
| wants to rot in a bad relationship. :)_
|
| There's a difference between "no one wants to rot in a bad
| relationship" and "no one wants to put the effort and time
| to make a relationship work", though.
|
| And while a number of divorces are because of the first,
| another number is because of the latter.
|
| Now, a question would be "So? Why shouldn't people just
| jump ship, even if they're just frivolous/bored/have short
| relationship attention spans/etc?"
|
| And an answer would be, "Well, look at our modern
| relationship landscape. Does these trends work out well for
| us? Is yes, then fine..."
| jsnodlin wrote:
| agumonkey wrote:
| > There's a difference between "no one wants to rot in a
| bad relationship" and "no one wants to put the effort and
| time to make a relationship work", though.
|
| This is a very timely question. There are a few topics
| about how easy our lives should be, how much effort is
| considered normal. And beyond efforts, the skills to know
| when, what and how to apply them to avoid just struggling
| 24/7.
| dahfizz wrote:
| There is a certain level of arrogance in looking at how
| fundamentally important the family unit is for all of
| human history, and then deciding that this generation
| knows better than the billions who came before us and
| that marriage / family / kids is a sham.
|
| And shockingly, depression and anxiety is on the rise, we
| have a "loneliness epidemic", etc because people can't
| seem to fill that void.
| chc wrote:
| If that were how it worked, we'd expect Utah (the state
| with the lowest divorce rate) to have very low levels of
| depression and anxiety compared to the rest of the US.
| That is not what we see. I don't think it's realistic to
| say that the alienation of modern society is because we
| allow divorce.
| throwaheyy wrote:
| Not a valid conclusion -- you're not controlling for all
| other factors that contribute to happiness, such as
| weather, social environment, local opportunities etc.
| chc wrote:
| Definitely feel free to do all that work if you think
| there's a case to make. While I agree it's not an
| exhaustive analysis, I think it's much more rigorous than
| the comment it was meant to refute.
| agumonkey wrote:
| We could argue that modern technology-oriented cultures
| are even stretching the social fabric.
|
| I'm nobody but it seems that survival made most mammals
| social, but we don't owe our survival to the group now,
| but to a blurry and large system. So why bother with
| people when I can swipe for all my needs /s
|
| But the thing is, as an ex introvert I can understand,
| dealing with people is not easy. Just like dealing with
| love, intimacy, marriage, existence is not easy. But we
| used to try to find solutions of better quality. Not just
| "i'm out".
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "There's a difference between "no one wants to rot in a
| bad relationship" and "no one wants to put the effort and
| time to make a relationship work", though."
|
| I am not sure, if I understand you right, but you seem to
| romantize the old version of marriage relationships.
|
| Well, as far as I know, they had only very rarely
| something to do with love, but rather with violence and
| domination and "making the relationship work" meant
| beating the wife to submission. And one of the written
| duties of a wife were sex, whether they wanted, or not,
| so basically rape.
|
| And the thought of leaving an abusive partner was
| considered sin, with real punishment (sometimes torture
| to death) for making those thoughts real.
|
| It has not been even so long ago, that these laws were
| abolished in the west. And to my knowledge, they still
| exist de facto (or even de jure) in many parts of the
| world.
|
| The only reason I can think of, of "making a relationship
| work", is when there are already kids, who need
| stability. Then both adults should get their act together
| and work it out like responsible, mature people. But in
| the cases I have witnessed, the children usually were
| acting more mature, than their parents.
| dahfizz wrote:
| I'm not sure how you made the leap from "lasting
| relationships require work" ---> "lasting relationships
| are inherently abusive and rapey".
|
| All relationships require upkeep. If you never make any
| time for a friend, the friendship deteriorates. You need
| to make time for each other and show each other that you
| care.
|
| The fact that you see this as abusive is perhaps
| revealing why marriage and lasting relationships are at
| an all time low.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| And I do not know, how you made the leap from traditional
| (forced) marriages I was specifically talking about - to
| any relationship.
| [deleted]
| chottocharaii wrote:
| I think this is overly reductive of the types of things that
| can result from darwinian forces
| raducu wrote:
| > If everything in reality is made from nails, then it makes
| sense to look for the hammer that hammered it in. Everything
| in human psychology was in fact molded through evolution, so
| of course it makes sense to look to evolution for potential
| answers.
|
| What is the question and what are the possible answers? What
| difference would it make in our morals?
|
| That sounds like the reverse of the good old "Well, if God
| does not exist, why don't you just kill random people, then?"
|
| Anger and violence and rape and murder, are all bilogical and
| evolutionary based. So what?
|
| > "If a culture artificially forces relationships to last by,
| say, heavily stigmatizing divorce, then of course that's
| going to override the "natural" course of events.
|
| See the above argument, it changes nothing. And by the way,
| divorce is more normalized than ever and divorce rates are
| falling in the developed world.
|
| On the countrary, if lustful love is just a chemical process
| that eventually wears off, you're better off not divorcing.
| If love was this astral magestic thing, then sure, divorce
| and pursue it.
|
| People have this idea "yeah, but back then, there was no
| marriage and both men and women could just fuck arround".
|
| Sure, some people did just like today, but back then, we
| lived in small groups, a coule hundred individuals, the
| opportunities to fuck around were not as great as today and
| there was no anonymity as today.
|
| I've been 20 pumped with testosterone. Was it not for my
| religious education and moral sense, I would probably have
| slept with a lot more women. Between age 20-35 I think I only
| cried 3 times, when my grandparents died.
|
| As my testosterone levels are declining, my emotions are
| coming back.
|
| I'm still the same biological organism, evolution did not
| intend one course or the other. I just find a lot of
| satisfaction now from family life.
|
| There is no contradiction or dilema for me. I do not feel
| oppressed by society or morals or biology.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| > And by the way, divorce is more normalized than ever and
| divorce rates are falling in the developed world.
|
| I think people are dealing with the issue on the other end,
| by just not getting married in the first place.
| raducu wrote:
| Some people, sure, but I'm willing to bet it's not
| because they want to to more easily dump the other
| person. Most of them, at least.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Why else would you avoid marriage, then?
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| Avoiding getting your assets stripped?
| dahfizz wrote:
| That feels like a variation on "they want to more easily
| dump the other person."
| thatcat wrote:
| The other person could dump you and still result in loss
| of assets.
| selestify wrote:
| > What is the question and what are the possible answers?
| What difference would it make in our morals?
|
| Who said anything about morals here? The questions are, why
| do we feel the way we do, and why do our feelings make us
| act the way we do? Evo-psych gives some ways of possibly
| answering that. How we got here is largely independent of
| where we want to go from here.
|
| > There is no contradiction or dilema for me. I do not feel
| oppressed by society or morals or biology.
|
| I honestly don't know what the rest of your comment has
| anything to do with any of what the article is talking
| about. When did the article bring up any contradictions?
| hoseja wrote:
| >one's nation, one's profession, even God
|
| Those are cases of institutions hijacking the mechanism of
| love.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| If someone wanted to bulldoze your home town to build a
| nuclear reactor, you'd be upset, right? That said, there are
| different sorts of love. The Greeks had many words for it.
| We're impoverished in that regard.
| blowski wrote:
| If such institutions have successfully hijacked love pretty
| much universally for much of human history, then it's worth
| saying they're connected.
| golemotron wrote:
| > It's at best uninformative, at worst nonsensical to try to
| reduce all of this to interaction found in sexual interaction /
| reproduction.
|
| Understanding doesn't have to lead to disenchantment. Getting
| yourself into the frame of mind where you feel the wonder of
| things is worthwhile for topics like this, science and
| religion.
|
| Disenchantment is a choice and it comes from saying "X is
| `just' Y." We don't have to minimize things when people point
| out their aspects.
| mLuby wrote:
| Well-said.
|
| Airplanes are relatively straightforward machines. Computers
| just do trivial math and logic very fast. Listening to Bach
| in a cathedral is just hearing metal tubes vibrating air in
| an artificial cave.
|
| But if you've never stopped and wondered that you're
| "partaking in the miracle of human flight"[1] or that the
| block of metal and sand in your desk lets you see loved ones
| across time and space, or that countless people worked for
| ages so you could experience the music and art in that
| building, well you're missing out.
|
| Humans are lucky that we experience both understanding and
| awe.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/b3dYS7PcAG4 (CW:LCK)
| scotty79 wrote:
| Or maybe just word love is so vague and general and used in so
| many unrelated contexts that it's not useful when people attept
| to explain anything.
|
| And whenever somebody talks about something useful they
| discovered using word love, arguments like yours crop up.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| When I was young, I always wondered if LOVE is just a biological
| reaction to some chemical substance secreted by the brain when
| you meet someone you like. And of course after failing multiple
| times to "help" the brains of girls I liked to secret such
| substance, I quickly retreated to the safe haven of computer
| world and never thought about it.
|
| Now I read the article and wonder the same question: Is there a
| way to recreate the experience of love by agitating the brain to
| secret certain chemical substances?
| andruby wrote:
| > Is there a way to recreate the experience of love by
| agitating the brain to secret certain chemical substances?
|
| Yes. But I really don't think you want to go there.
| jarpschop wrote:
| People would get hooked to that worse than heroin lol. I
| recently fell for a girl and being without her definitely felt
| like having abstinence syndrome. I was obsessively and
| relentlessly thinking about her every waking second.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| haha good luck man, you are having fun~~
|
| yeah agreed with the addiction things.
| meowface wrote:
| Oxytocin nasal sprays may be able to temporarily induce a
| portion of this feeling, for some.
| ciphol wrote:
| That idea is called "aphrodisiacs". Many have been tried
| throughout history but I don't think any of them really work.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| I guess we are still at the bottom of things. There is a lot
| to be researched by the intelligent human. I believe humans
| are essentially machines that can be predicted (to certain
| precision) given enough research and computing power.
| kirsebaer wrote:
| Try MDMA.
| LeroyRaz wrote:
| What a mess.
|
| A) you are your brain chemistry. It makes no difference to the
| nature of love that you can point to chemical mechanisms.
|
| B) It is easier to cooperate between people with asymmetric wants
| and offers, as you a far more likely to have a mutually
| beneficial trade. It is rubbish to say that somehow building a
| relationship with someone of the other gender is harder, or
| evolutionarily more 'advanced'
|
| This reads like someone just using the credibility of research
| (which may or may not be credible) to put forwards their only
| slightly related pet philosophising.
|
| I feel this is actually doing a disservice to the wider community
| of those who try and discuss and study e.g. evolutionary motives,
| or gender differences, by being full of so much dross.
| deweywsu wrote:
| techer wrote:
| "Slavoj Zizek: Love is evil"
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hg7qdowoemo
| dahart wrote:
| I didn't follow any of that, it didn't make any sense at all,
| but he sure is entertaining to watch, and like totally adorable
| somehow. I'd have to speculate that he is using the words
| "love" and "evil" to mean very different things than anyone
| else using those words.
|
| Who is this guy? I've seen a few other links to videos of him
| flying into outer space on other topics posted on HN recently.
| I just went and read a bit of his Wikipedia page, so I see he's
| a philosopher, but I don't know what the abstract terms
| materialism and Hegelian idealism and Lancanian psychoanalysis
| mean. Is there a less abstract way to understand his position,
| or important philosophical contributions he's made that would
| help me understand him or his ideas on love?
| robocat wrote:
| Try: https://iep.utm.edu/zizek/
|
| He is interesting and from the little I know he says some
| useful things, however I suspect you really need to spend
| some effort to understand his philosophy before you can
| understand a stand-alone video of him. The "Love is Evil"
| video on its surface certainly seems just like nonsense to me
| too.
| ksarw wrote:
| I used to watch some of Zizek's videos, though I hadn't seen
| the one that was linked until now. I'm no student of
| philosophy though, just a casual viewer so I don't think I
| can help much in answering your questions. I will say that he
| is definitely using uncommon definitions of the words "love"
| and "evil" as far as I can tell. As to who is this guy, I
| personally would recommend this video if you are trying to
| get a better sense of his thoughts as it is relatively clear
| and covers a large number of stances (the analogy at 7:15 is
| quite amusing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x0eyNkNpL0
|
| On a side note, I am pleased though that you find him
| entertaining to watch regardless. I find it disappointing
| when people take speakers like Zizek too seriously; I think
| even if 80% of what is said is not insightful/intelligible,
| the occasional grain of truth can be very much worth it.
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