the case for love
It has been a long time in the making, and here is the conclusion I have finally arrived at: there is no rational case for love as most of us know it - a universal absolute. Yet I still believe in love itself, and not out of irrational belief. Here's why, briefly.
Modern science can help us with a mechanistic understanding of love, and by that I mean that if we presuppose the existence of love, science can help describe the origins of phenomena we attribute to love and its related concepts, and what we go through when we experience them.
For instance, lust, or short-term attraction is, perhaps, a biological proclivity to have one desire a mate so as to initiate propagation. Love or long-term attachment might be, after millenia of natural selection, a mate's incentive to stay on with his partner so as to ensure an optimum condition for the survival of its offspring, or a parent's bond with its child that keeps them together for the same reason. Limerance and yearning may well be an unfortunate firing of the latter that meets with no reciprocation.
In spite of this, it cannot affirm the existence of love; rather, it can only help us understand the scientific basis behind phenomena we attribute to love. On the other hand, it can also attribute our belief in love to our experience with such phenomena.
Yet we cling on to the belief that love exists. More than our own experiences, from the stories we tell to the art that we make, we are conditioned right from our birth into believing in a universal absolute - love - and its related terms by our cultures. For the sake of example and comparison, consider that other presupposed concept, god (or the divine): it can be described as an attempt by humanity to explain the unknown and organise the known by means of convenient, albeit logical thinking. When examined through the lenses of rationality - the proportioning of evidence to theory - its existence is in no way probable; possible, but infinitesimally so.
So how can we even begin contemplating love? The limited human consciousness has, as of yet, no way of proving the existence of universal absolutes, much as we would like to believe in them.
However, there is nothing to stop us from positive affirmation of such concepts in our societies. Consider human rights and morality (divorced from religion and natural law). While it is spurious to declare that our existence was created with every human universally born with unalienable rights, governments can agree on making human rights axiomatic in legislation, and operate on those grounds; while it is not possible to prove the existence of universal morality that all humans adhere to, through a similar concept of positivism, cultures and societies are not prevented from agreeing on a standard of morality that their people may live by.
Likewise, we may never make a rational case for love as a universal absolute. But we may certainly preserve values within which we deem to be cherishable and virtuous, form our own positive concept of love, and live and share it as we deem fit. With that, what need for the former?
Happy Valentine's Day.
[fin]
Modern science can help us with a mechanistic understanding of love, and by that I mean that if we presuppose the existence of love, science can help describe the origins of phenomena we attribute to love and its related concepts, and what we go through when we experience them.
For instance, lust, or short-term attraction is, perhaps, a biological proclivity to have one desire a mate so as to initiate propagation. Love or long-term attachment might be, after millenia of natural selection, a mate's incentive to stay on with his partner so as to ensure an optimum condition for the survival of its offspring, or a parent's bond with its child that keeps them together for the same reason. Limerance and yearning may well be an unfortunate firing of the latter that meets with no reciprocation.
In spite of this, it cannot affirm the existence of love; rather, it can only help us understand the scientific basis behind phenomena we attribute to love. On the other hand, it can also attribute our belief in love to our experience with such phenomena.
Yet we cling on to the belief that love exists. More than our own experiences, from the stories we tell to the art that we make, we are conditioned right from our birth into believing in a universal absolute - love - and its related terms by our cultures. For the sake of example and comparison, consider that other presupposed concept, god (or the divine): it can be described as an attempt by humanity to explain the unknown and organise the known by means of convenient, albeit logical thinking. When examined through the lenses of rationality - the proportioning of evidence to theory - its existence is in no way probable; possible, but infinitesimally so.
So how can we even begin contemplating love? The limited human consciousness has, as of yet, no way of proving the existence of universal absolutes, much as we would like to believe in them.
However, there is nothing to stop us from positive affirmation of such concepts in our societies. Consider human rights and morality (divorced from religion and natural law). While it is spurious to declare that our existence was created with every human universally born with unalienable rights, governments can agree on making human rights axiomatic in legislation, and operate on those grounds; while it is not possible to prove the existence of universal morality that all humans adhere to, through a similar concept of positivism, cultures and societies are not prevented from agreeing on a standard of morality that their people may live by.
Likewise, we may never make a rational case for love as a universal absolute. But we may certainly preserve values within which we deem to be cherishable and virtuous, form our own positive concept of love, and live and share it as we deem fit. With that, what need for the former?
Happy Valentine's Day.
[fin]
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