Aw, BenGreen, if I want to know what love is, I just open the newspaper! To date, I haven't seen the two naked eight-year-olds disambiguating harmonic resonance. Nor, for that matter, have I heard the experience of disambiguating harmonic resonance mused upon by pop stars or poets. Indeed, while it would not be such a stretch to say that love actually is all around, I have yet to hear anyone say anything similar about the experience of disambiguating harmonic resonance. So regardless of whether or not your statement is true, it makes no sense, inasfar as you're rather foolishly attempting to use a term that is bafflingly opaque in meaning in order to define a term which everyone already knows the meaning of. Bass. Ackwards.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
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Everyone knows the meaning of love? Seriously? I missed the boat I guess.
What about "disambiguating harmonic resonance" is baffling opaque? Doesn't it obviously mean a harmonic resonance which causes disambiguation? While it might be a very dense statement thick with unstated assertions, I don't know that it's necessarily opaque... heavily murky perhaps... but opaque?
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...What does the disambiguation of harmonic resonances have to do with love? In fact, what IS the act of disambiguating harmonic resonances? Can human beings even do that?
Oh, and everyone knows the meaning of love? Can someone share please??
Love is the experience of interpersonal transparency.
Love is subject-object nondualism.
So there.
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All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the light that you see. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
But the rainbow is an image of hope for many reasons, as it is a brilliant sight coming out of oftimes dismal weather.
Disambiguating - making more clear, solid, or understandable.
Harmonic Resonance - in this case, between two people, minds, or hearts.
Thus, the statement is saying that love is a resonance between two people which makes life clearer, easier to understand. I think that's easy enough to see.
You can also have harmonic resonance with a place, an animal, a story, or a game.
If love is subject-object nondualism, wouldn't that mean that only enlightened persons could love?
And isn't interpersonal transparency relative? Is love not being able to distinguish between oneself and another?
"Enlightenment" is a description of an end-state. Love is like an aspect of what "enlightentment" is before it can be described as an end-state. It has been said that love is the road to awareness, and awareness the road to love. For instance, empathy is considered to be a transcendence of the boundary between subject (self) and object (others people and stuff). In an essential sense, to empathize is to impute subjectivity to something you usually have treated as an object. The idea is that people generally experience themselves as subjects and view their world (inlcuding other people) as objects relative to them. This is usually what I am talking about when I talk about people needing to see others as being real (such as with theory of mind).
As for transparency, I was referring to this. I tried to loosely define love (that is, loving someone) as imputing import and value to another as you might value yourself. I didn't mean transparency to mean total assimilation or absorption, but a closeness between the two points - whether that in action means understanding, compassion, insight, etc.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the light that you see. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
But the rainbow is an image of hope for many reasons, as it is a brilliant sight coming out of oftimes dismal weather.
The name of the game is, does the following statement make any sense to you at all? What does it mean?
"Love is the experience of a disambiguating harmonic resonance."
Well, a harmonic resonance is the consonance (the sync'ing up) of two oscillations, necessitating that the frequencies be certain multiples of each other, and that the phase be in alignment.
With poetic license, you can call an 'oscillation' anything you want; same with frequency and phase. Oscillation -> Rhythm. Frequency -> tune/setting/feeling. Phase -> mood, external circumstance
Disambiguation is the resolution of a misunderstanding in terms. I don't think it's as simple as s/he loves me, s/he loves me not. I think it meant the disambiguation of all of life's questions - this person is the really romantic type, who thinks that finding love (which he would call 'true love') is some sort of crucial step that is ultimately enlightening to some understanding of purpose.
I really hate that kind of thinking and I believe it to be one of the worst kinds of cancers on our minds, but that's another rant.
Anyway, what I think the author of that sentence meant, is that the experience of love is like finding a resonance with the oscillation of another person (his/her nuances, details, personality), and it is 'enlightening' in the sense of personal realization - the disambiguation of reality to find personal calm.
Or summat like that. Sound about right?
BlinkingSpirit, I'm surprised you are so dismissive of the poetry. ... I just am. I'd have expected that sort of thing from... and I'll finish this sentence another time.
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BlinkingSpirit, I'm surprised you are so dismissive of the poetry. ... I just am. I'd have expected that sort of thing from... and I'll finish this sentence another time.
(a) You think I'm being dismissive?
(b) You think that's poetry?
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I think it meant the disambiguation of all of life's questions - this person is the really romantic type, who thinks that finding love is some sort of crucial step that is ultimately enlightening to some understanding of purpose.
This wouldn't be a new idea. Buddhism and Christianity both maintain that "loving-kindness" is the only emotion that does not arise out of delusion, suffering, fear, or desire.
I really hate that kind of thinking and I believe it to be one of the worst kinds of cancers on our minds, but that's another rant.
Rant on! I'm interested.
Anyway, what I think the author of that sentence meant, is that the experience of love is like finding a resonance with the oscillation of another person (his/her nuances, details, personality), and it is 'enlightening' in the sense of personal realization - the disambiguation of reality to find personal calm.
I disagree. What's more, there's a huge body of Buddhist literature meant to disabuse us of this very notion.
Then I don't see the problem. When you asked if people had to be enlightened to love, it seemed like you were asking if love were even possible for most people since most people aren't enlightened.
If enlightenment doesn't describe an end-state you reach, then I would say that truly loving is to be enlightened.
Depending on how we define "enlightened."
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All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the light that you see. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
But the rainbow is an image of hope for many reasons, as it is a brilliant sight coming out of oftimes dismal weather.
But based on how people use the word, and how I understand it, love is... I would say most likely, a great feeling of pleasure brought about by the object of love, especially one that the person feels can only be brought about by the loved person/thing. With romantic love, it would probably be accompanied by sexual feelings and a desire to stay with that person for a long time, in a close relationship (and possibly raising a family). Familiarity is probably a part of it as well, which is why we would find it strange to say you loved someone who was merely an acquaintance, even if you had some of those other feelings.
I don't really think of love as being a special category of feeling apart from other sorts of feelings of liking people. Probably my description will be seen as too reductionist or science-y or something. Oh well.
There is a school of New Age poppycock philosophical thought that postulates that we beings (and every other damned thing) emanate a "harmonic resonance." This harmonic resonance is "love," and when things come together their harmonic resonances interact, blending and somehow raising the vibrations of both.
I don't know if this is what the author of the quote is talking about, but said quote makes about as much sense as New Age "thought." (And I've been exposed to entirely too much of that.)
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So I wrote this quote sort of as compacted derivation of a debate from a couple years ago on this thread. Though my thinking on the subject has clarified quite a bit in the last two years, these excerpts should help explain what I was getting at here:
Quote from BenGreen »
Beauty is, if anything a geometric relationship of an indeterminate nature between two dynamic structures or a single dynamic structure relating to itself. I use these terms in the most abstract sense possible....
E=mc^2. This revelation has truly incredible implications, though the only one directly relevant to the question at hand is that matter does not turn into energy or visa versa but rather, that they are equivalent states of being. Energy is by definition in motion and it moves at a fairly regular rate that is the speed of light (c). As a uniform fluid substance of infinite granularity and density in motion it has developed somewhat turbulent behavior. I suggest that matter is a stable turbulent system (like the Great Red Spot on Jupiter).
To cut to the chase (perhaps at the expense of comprehensibility) I believe that beauty is a relationship between one complex and dynamic energy structure and itself or another. Why only two? Because structures within such fluid systems are essentially just abstractions regardless of their stability within the system, a "structure" is any behavior of the system that can be regularly identified (and so, abstracted). Thus, any number of structures can be identified as a single structure so long as the identifying member (in this case "you") can conceive of their relationship. The fact that any set of structures in the system are related is certain since the structures are merely abstractions of an ultimately interdependent system.
So we have generally abstracted ourselves to be structures that "perceive" beauty by relating to other structures. The nature of that perception is geometric in the sense that it is defined (as all such relationships are) by the information exchange between them. This exchange occurs through the intervening fluid medium. The angular relationship, which is to say their relative orientation, composition and structural characteristics generate a meta-structure that encompasses them both. "Beauty" (as well as other emotional responses) is a classification of these meta-structures. To say that we think something is beautiful is to say that we are in a particular geometric relationship to it.
Thinking in terms of energy structures as composite waveforms (as per quantum mechanics), you could say that beauty is a particular type of harmonic resonance that can be generated by interference (interference is when two or more waves collide).
On a side-note I'm in the process of writing a screenplay that's about the resonant meta-structure of violence manifesting in human form (it's an action flick). Pointless Violence III: Death Blood: The Movie.
On the topic of religion, I'd be willing to speculate that an "immaculate conception" is possible as the result of an appropriate structure (The Virgin) being very finely tuned to resonance with a high magnitude waveform. It's conceivable that the relationship between the two structures could cause the latter to "collapse" into a material substructure (The Jesus Fetus). That said, this happening seems to be really, really improbable.
What I haven't mentioned that deserves some is who "we" are to be making abstractions or relating to ourselves at all. I believe that it's not that we are conscious, but rather that we are consciousness. Not that consciousness is energy, but that the behavior of energy is consciousness. Since the behavior of the system is interdependent and undifferentiated, it's not that "we" are conscious, but the whole of reality is conscious and what we typically conceive of as ourselves are abstractions generated by the conscious Universe! If I were to say that I believe in "God" I would have to redefine the word to refer to the undifferentiated conscious Universe. In terms of waveforms, “God” would be the composite waveform of the entire system. This definition makes “God” synonymous with “reality” as God is simply as “all that is.” I’m merely suggesting that reality is self-aware. So when we say, “I think therefore I am,” I contend that it’s none other than the Universe affirming it’s own existence through itself, to itself.
In the sense that I believe that all things are true (though they're not always true in the way that we think they are), I’ve attempted to reinterpret the Bible with this model. At first I thought that by “creating us in His image” we were abstracted to be able to make abstractions of our own. But I’ve seen a great deal of evidence that other animals can do that as well. Perhaps we were abstracted to be able to self-modify our abstractions, perhaps even to “dissolve ourselves” (or “absolve ourselves of our sins (of abstraction)”) “transcending” notions of self thereby “entering the Kingdom of God” of undifferentiated existence. By doing that, we could be said to achieve “everlasting life,” though as we are now, we would be unable to recognize “ourselves.”
Perhaps when Jesus allegedly said that he was “the way, the truth and the light,” he was speaking literally as such an undifferentiated manifestation. As I said earlier, consciousness is not a what, but a how, "the way" of moving. If anything could be said to be “the truth” would it not be the whole of reality? As I said right off, everything is energy or light.
Of all this, the most startling idea to me is that not only might the Universe be self-aware, but self-modifying as well. The implications of that possibility would be staggaring.In this thread, I wrote quite a bit more on the topic, but I'll leave it at this for now.
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"Enlightenment" is a description of an end-state. Love is like an aspect of what "enlightentment" is before it can be described as an end-state. It has been said that love is the road to awareness, and awareness the road to love. For instance, empathy is considered to be a transcendence of the boundary between subject (self) and object (others people and stuff). In an essential sense, to empathize is to impute subjectivity to something you usually have treated as an object. The idea is that people generally experience themselves as subjects and view their world (inlcuding other people) as objects relative to them. This is usually what I am talking about when I talk about people needing to see others as being real (such as with theory of mind).
As for transparency, I was referring to this. I tried to loosely define love (that is, loving someone) as imputing import and value to another as you might value yourself. I didn't mean transparency to mean total assimilation or absorption, but a closeness between the two points - whether that in action means understanding, compassion, insight, etc.
This is humorous in the way that a narcoleptic puppy trying to run a marathon is.
Guys, love is an emotion. You cannot decipher emotions. You cannot use words like "harmonic resonance" to describe them. Love is not a wave. You cannot use physics to describe it. Nor can you use words like "subject-object nondualism". Where did you get that from? It's an emotion. It's not rational by its very nature. It needs to be felt, not thought.
Guys, love is an emotion. You cannot decipher emotions. You cannot use words like "harmonic resonance" to describe them. Love is not a wave. You cannot use physics to describe it. Nor can you use words like "subject-object nondualism". Where did you get that from? It's an emotion. It's not rational by its very nature. It needs to be felt, not thought.
Oh, come now. It's not about deciphering. The terms I used are psychological in nature. It comes from the theory that people, by default, view themselves as real and whole persons (subjects) and all other people as mere elements of their environment (objects). Part of love is seeing others as being independent in their own right. The realization (more than just intellectual realization) that others have their own minds and will and feelings, and that they are different from your own, is referred to as "theory of mind." Theory of mind is the basis of empathy, which is important to be really loving.
To say "love is an emotion" sells it short. Love is more than that. It's a deep dynamic of interaction, not only interpersonally but with your world; it's a whole state of mind.
It's true, you can't rationally break down something as personal as this, but you don't have to in order to talk about it in some detail.
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All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the light that you see. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
But the rainbow is an image of hope for many reasons, as it is a brilliant sight coming out of oftimes dismal weather.
Oh, come now. It's not about deciphering. The terms I used are psychological in nature. It comes from the theory that people, by default, view themselves as real and whole persons (subjects) and all other people as mere elements of their environment (objects). Part of love is seeing others as being independent in their own right. The realization (more than just intellectual realization) that others have their own minds and will and feelings, and that they are different from your own, is referred to as "theory of mind." Theory of mind is the basis of empathy, which is important to be really loving.
Umm... That theory is bull. I can view people and animals as other living things as "not objects", and I can do it without loving them. Love's quite a bit more than that.
To say "love is an emotion" sells it short.
That's like saying, "Calling a spade a spade sells it short". It is what it is.
Umm... That theory is bull. I can view people and animals as other living things as "not objects", and I can do it without loving them. Love's quite a bit more than that.
No, it isn't "bull." Regardless of whether or not you realize, intellectually, that these creatures have their own will and existence, you may or may not really treat them that way. For instance, someone narcissistic can easily understand on an abstract level that other people are "real" people - but that doesn't mean anything to them. They seem others as elaborate walking props, like characters or figures in a dream. They don't treat them as having import.
That's not unusual, just more extreme.
That's like saying, "Calling a spade a spade sells it short". It is what it is.
Which is also a grossly uninformative thing to say. If someone asked you what a spade was, would you really just say "it's a spade"? Why would you think that was even close to an explanatory response? Even if love is an emotion, that doesn't say anything about what kind of emotion it is, or what else it is.
Because love is not just an emotion. Saying that is not a crackpot theorism, it's not overly-analytical, and it's not over-elaboration. Saying "love is an emotion" isn't even too simplistic, it's also just incorrect.
We had another thread about defining love here.
There's actually a need, I'd say, for a detailed definition of what love is, considering how great and broad a concept it is, and how integral it is to things like social interaction and morality.
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All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the light that you see. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
But the rainbow is an image of hope for many reasons, as it is a brilliant sight coming out of oftimes dismal weather.
I think, and hopefully I'm not reading this wrong, since I have only read a little so far in class, that Jean-Paul Sartre would say you can only know if someone loves another person based on their actions.
No, it isn't "bull." Regardless of whether or not you realize, intellectually, that these creatures have their own will and existence, you may or may not really treat them that way. For instance, someone narcissistic can easily understand on an abstract level that other people are "real" people - but that doesn't mean anything to them. They seem others as elaborate walking props, like characters or figures in a dream. They don't treat them as having import.
That's not unusual, just more extreme.
Once again, I can perceive other people as things other than objects. That's not love. That's "the ability to treat things as not objects", or the ability to distinguish animate from inanimate.
Maybe you're trying to get at the ability to put oneself in the position of another in one's mind? But that's not love either. It's empathy. Empathy is not love.
Besides, someone narcissistic is not incapable of love. Hardly.
Which is also a grossly uninformative thing to say. If someone asked you what a spade was, would you really just say "it's a spade"? Why would you think that was even close to an explanatory response? Even if love is an emotion, that doesn't say anything about what kind of emotion it is, or what else it is.
Because that's all you CAN say about it. Love is an emotion. Trying to "scientifically" define it like trying to scientifically explain anger, or sadness, or happiness. These emotions existed before words existed. You can create words to evoke them, but you cannot define them. They can only be felt.
Because love is not just an emotion.
What do you mean just an emotion? You seem to think that emotions aren't complex.
Saying that is not a crackpot theorism, it's not overly-analytical, and it's not over-elaboration. Saying "love is an emotion" isn't even too simplistic, it's also just incorrect.
We had another thread about defining love here.
There's actually a need, I'd say, for a detailed definition of what love is, considering how great and broad a concept it is, and how integral it is to things like social interaction and morality.
Your failing is you attempt to define love. You can understand what love is. You cannot define it.
Because that's all you CAN say about it. Love is an emotion. Trying to "scientifically" define it like trying to scientifically explain anger, or sadness, or happiness. These emotions existed before words existed. You can create words to evoke them, but you cannot define them. They can only be felt.
Unless, of course, there is a scientific explanation for why people feel certain things, or what causes certain feelings to arise. If there is a mechanism that produces the emotion you call love (or any other emotion), then it can be defined as the experience resulting from that mechanism.
For instance, it's our belief that emotions are just a quirk of having a complex biological pattern recognition and comparison system.
Your failing is you attempt to define love. You can understand what love is. You cannot define it.
Of course you can define love. All words can be defined, else they would just be noises. Whether or not your definition will match with someone else's definition is another matter, but if you are talking about love then you have at the very least assigned an implicit definition to the term.
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"When you really know somebody, you can't hate them...or maybe it's just that you can't really know them until you stop hating them."
Once again, I can perceive other people as things other than objects. That's not love. That's "the ability to treat things as not objects", or the ability to distinguish animate from inanimate.
Which is, as I've already said twice, an abstract recognition and nothing to do with what I am talking about. In your intellect you may realize that the lady across the street is a human being, but that may or may not mean anything to you in terms of your actions, feelings, will, etc.
Maybe you're trying to get at the ability to put oneself in the position of another in one's mind? But that's not love either. It's empathy. Empathy is not love.
It's not about identifying with someone else's mind so much as really seeing - and again, not just acknowledging abstractly - that they have their own mind, and to respect and care about that. You don't need to be able to understand how another person feels in order to have empathy, at least not in the most basic sense (theory of mind).
Empathy is key to love. I never said that this is all that love was, I said it was part of it.
Besides, someone narcissistic is not incapable of love. Hardly.
Are you aware of what narcissistic personality disorder entails?
By definition, someone who is narcissistic does not care about people. Other people are like extensions of the self, like tools. And a narcissistic person still knows, in a purely intellectual way, that others are "real" people. But that's a formality. Narcissism, by definition, entails not caring at all about others, even recognizing their humanity - they exist only to serve or gratify you.
Now, you might say "that must be wrong, because I'm sure a narcissistic person can care about someone." People may have different levels of severity, or may begin to change their personality patterns. But in the extreme, assuming severe narcissism as understood, someone narcissistic does not care about others, and cannot love them.
Because that's all you CAN say about it. Love is an emotion. Trying to "scientifically" define it like trying to scientifically explain anger, or sadness, or happiness. These emotions existed before words existed. You can create words to evoke them, but you cannot define them. They can only be felt.
No, you can define them. Otherwise we have no clue what we are talking about. You seem to be saying that no description can completely explain or encompass a feeling, which is very different from saying that those feelings can't be defined.
If you know that sadness and love both mean feelings, how do you know that you are talking about different kinds of feelings if you can't define either of them? Why not just have one word, then, "feeling," to indicate any or all of them?
This isn't a dilemma between "scientific" analysis and experiential wisdom. I am not "dissecting" the concept of love, I'm just talking about what it means. When you say "love is an emotion," you are defining love, even though you aren't going into much detail. If one said, "love is a feeling of goodwill and caring," that would be further defining it. You can't say that I'm trying to define love and you aren't - you're just using less detail.
What do you mean just an emotion? You seem to think that emotions aren't complex.
It doesn't matter how complex or simple an emotion can be, that's not all love is. Love is too grand a concept to be reduced to only the personal feeling aspect. Especially since you seem to be using emotion to mean an affective state, such as glad or angry. One might say that will, action, perception of reality, feeling, state of mind, and motivations are integrally part of one's emotions, and then say that love, being part of all of these, is something emotional. I could agree with that, but that doesn't appear to be what you are saying. And it doesn't mean that love is only a feeling. It'd be like saying "caring" is a feeling. I can feel like I care for someone, but unless I act on it, in some way I'm not really talking about the accepted meaning of being caring.
Similarly, I might have loving feelings for someone. But if I do not care to aid them when they have need, if I do not value their well-being, if I do not respect their will and their needs, then it doesn't matter how I feel about them internally, I'm not really being loving.
Your failing is you attempt to define love. You can understand what love is. You cannot define it.
I don't agree with your terms. Love can be, and has been, defined. Are you saying that one can understand what love is, but can never talk about it? If we can discuss what love is and what it means in agreed upon terms, then that means defining it.
I never claimed that you could thoroughly explain every layer of what love is as if it were a machine to be taken apart. I don't believe love to be logically explicable, at least not completely. But I can still use language to define what I mean when I say "love."
The source of your contention seems to be that the part of my description I posted here, and Ben's description, are too cerebral and "scientific" sounding. I respect that, but while it may be so that intentially using "big words" muddies things up (as Blinking Spirit originally said), that's a very different claim than that it's an error to even try to describe love.
In the other thread, I defined love as assigning import or value to another in the same way you'd assign import or value to yourself (or at least as far as you're able). But this is necessarily a bare-bones description. It doesn't cover all the different kinds of love there are and their unique qualities, it doesn't touch on all that love is, and it doesn't completely explain love. It isn't supposed to.
Quote from erimir »
I think, and hopefully I'm not reading this wrong, since I have only read a little so far in class, that Jean-Paul Sartre would say you can only know if someone loves another person based on their actions.
I agree.
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All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the light that you see. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
But the rainbow is an image of hope for many reasons, as it is a brilliant sight coming out of oftimes dismal weather.
Main Entry: 1lovePronunciation: \ˈləv\ Function: noun Etymology: Middle English, from Old English lufu; akin to Old High German luba love, Old English lēof dear, Latin lubēre, libēre to please Date: before 12th century 1: A burning thing. <It makes a fiery ring.>
Forgive the horrid pun, but gotta love it IBA. Way to totally ruin the mood in here.
As for what love is, and Highroller and Mamelon's debate, I'd like to state that i personally believe that love is something intangible, and thus, cannot be truly defined nor understood by humans.
Sure, we be affected by it. We can feel it, and be infatuated with it, but can we understand it? I don't think so.
If you truly believe you understand and can quantify love, then state that definition here for us to debate around. I don't think it can be done, though others clearly disagree. Let's see those definitions then.
"Love is the experience of a disambiguating harmonic resonance."
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Everyone knows the meaning of love? Seriously? I missed the boat I guess.
What about "disambiguating harmonic resonance" is baffling opaque? Doesn't it obviously mean a harmonic resonance which causes disambiguation? While it might be a very dense statement thick with unstated assertions, I don't know that it's necessarily opaque... heavily murky perhaps... but opaque?
Oh, and everyone knows the meaning of love? Can someone share please??
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If you did this, tell me and I'll credit you!
Love is subject-object nondualism.
So there.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
Gaymers | Magic Coffeehouse | Little Jar of Mamelon | Natural 20
Harmonic Resonance - in this case, between two people, minds, or hearts.
Thus, the statement is saying that love is a resonance between two people which makes life clearer, easier to understand. I think that's easy enough to see.
If love is subject-object nondualism, wouldn't that mean that only enlightened persons could love?
And isn't interpersonal transparency relative? Is love not being able to distinguish between oneself and another?
"Enlightenment" is a description of an end-state. Love is like an aspect of what "enlightentment" is before it can be described as an end-state. It has been said that love is the road to awareness, and awareness the road to love. For instance, empathy is considered to be a transcendence of the boundary between subject (self) and object (others people and stuff). In an essential sense, to empathize is to impute subjectivity to something you usually have treated as an object. The idea is that people generally experience themselves as subjects and view their world (inlcuding other people) as objects relative to them. This is usually what I am talking about when I talk about people needing to see others as being real (such as with theory of mind).
As for transparency, I was referring to this. I tried to loosely define love (that is, loving someone) as imputing import and value to another as you might value yourself. I didn't mean transparency to mean total assimilation or absorption, but a closeness between the two points - whether that in action means understanding, compassion, insight, etc.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
Gaymers | Magic Coffeehouse | Little Jar of Mamelon | Natural 20
Well, a harmonic resonance is the consonance (the sync'ing up) of two oscillations, necessitating that the frequencies be certain multiples of each other, and that the phase be in alignment.
With poetic license, you can call an 'oscillation' anything you want; same with frequency and phase. Oscillation -> Rhythm. Frequency -> tune/setting/feeling. Phase -> mood, external circumstance
Disambiguation is the resolution of a misunderstanding in terms. I don't think it's as simple as s/he loves me, s/he loves me not. I think it meant the disambiguation of all of life's questions - this person is the really romantic type, who thinks that finding love (which he would call 'true love') is some sort of crucial step that is ultimately enlightening to some understanding of purpose.
I really hate that kind of thinking and I believe it to be one of the worst kinds of cancers on our minds, but that's another rant.
Anyway, what I think the author of that sentence meant, is that the experience of love is like finding a resonance with the oscillation of another person (his/her nuances, details, personality), and it is 'enlightening' in the sense of personal realization - the disambiguation of reality to find personal calm.
Or summat like that. Sound about right?
BlinkingSpirit, I'm surprised you are so dismissive of the poetry. ... I just am. I'd have expected that sort of thing from... and I'll finish this sentence another time.
Awesome avatar provided by Krashbot @ [Epic Graphics].
(a) You think I'm being dismissive?
(b) You think that's poetry?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
This wouldn't be a new idea. Buddhism and Christianity both maintain that "loving-kindness" is the only emotion that does not arise out of delusion, suffering, fear, or desire.
Rant on! I'm interested.
Getting warmer.
ROFL! Would you concede to call it prose?
If enlightenment doesn't describe an end-state you reach, then I would say that truly loving is to be enlightened.
Depending on how we define "enlightened."
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
Gaymers | Magic Coffeehouse | Little Jar of Mamelon | Natural 20
But based on how people use the word, and how I understand it, love is... I would say most likely, a great feeling of pleasure brought about by the object of love, especially one that the person feels can only be brought about by the loved person/thing. With romantic love, it would probably be accompanied by sexual feelings and a desire to stay with that person for a long time, in a close relationship (and possibly raising a family). Familiarity is probably a part of it as well, which is why we would find it strange to say you loved someone who was merely an acquaintance, even if you had some of those other feelings.
I don't really think of love as being a special category of feeling apart from other sorts of feelings of liking people. Probably my description will be seen as too reductionist or science-y or something. Oh well.
New Age poppycockphilosophical thought that postulates that we beings (and every other damned thing) emanate a "harmonic resonance." This harmonic resonance is "love," and when things come together their harmonic resonances interact, blending and somehow raising the vibrations of both.I don't know if this is what the author of the quote is talking about, but said quote makes about as much sense as New Age "thought." (And I've been exposed to entirely too much of that.)
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E=mc^2. This revelation has truly incredible implications, though the only one directly relevant to the question at hand is that matter does not turn into energy or visa versa but rather, that they are equivalent states of being. Energy is by definition in motion and it moves at a fairly regular rate that is the speed of light (c). As a uniform fluid substance of infinite granularity and density in motion it has developed somewhat turbulent behavior. I suggest that matter is a stable turbulent system (like the Great Red Spot on Jupiter).
To cut to the chase (perhaps at the expense of comprehensibility) I believe that beauty is a relationship between one complex and dynamic energy structure and itself or another. Why only two? Because structures within such fluid systems are essentially just abstractions regardless of their stability within the system, a "structure" is any behavior of the system that can be regularly identified (and so, abstracted). Thus, any number of structures can be identified as a single structure so long as the identifying member (in this case "you") can conceive of their relationship. The fact that any set of structures in the system are related is certain since the structures are merely abstractions of an ultimately interdependent system.
So we have generally abstracted ourselves to be structures that "perceive" beauty by relating to other structures. The nature of that perception is geometric in the sense that it is defined (as all such relationships are) by the information exchange between them. This exchange occurs through the intervening fluid medium. The angular relationship, which is to say their relative orientation, composition and structural characteristics generate a meta-structure that encompasses them both. "Beauty" (as well as other emotional responses) is a classification of these meta-structures. To say that we think something is beautiful is to say that we are in a particular geometric relationship to it.
Thinking in terms of energy structures as composite waveforms (as per quantum mechanics), you could say that beauty is a particular type of harmonic resonance that can be generated by interference (interference is when two or more waves collide).
On a side-note I'm in the process of writing a screenplay that's about the resonant meta-structure of violence manifesting in human form (it's an action flick). Pointless Violence III: Death Blood: The Movie.
On the topic of religion, I'd be willing to speculate that an "immaculate conception" is possible as the result of an appropriate structure (The Virgin) being very finely tuned to resonance with a high magnitude waveform. It's conceivable that the relationship between the two structures could cause the latter to "collapse" into a material substructure (The Jesus Fetus). That said, this happening seems to be really, really improbable.
What I haven't mentioned that deserves some is who "we" are to be making abstractions or relating to ourselves at all. I believe that it's not that we are conscious, but rather that we are consciousness. Not that consciousness is energy, but that the behavior of energy is consciousness. Since the behavior of the system is interdependent and undifferentiated, it's not that "we" are conscious, but the whole of reality is conscious and what we typically conceive of as ourselves are abstractions generated by the conscious Universe! If I were to say that I believe in "God" I would have to redefine the word to refer to the undifferentiated conscious Universe. In terms of waveforms, “God” would be the composite waveform of the entire system. This definition makes “God” synonymous with “reality” as God is simply as “all that is.” I’m merely suggesting that reality is self-aware. So when we say, “I think therefore I am,” I contend that it’s none other than the Universe affirming it’s own existence through itself, to itself.
In the sense that I believe that all things are true (though they're not always true in the way that we think they are), I’ve attempted to reinterpret the Bible with this model. At first I thought that by “creating us in His image” we were abstracted to be able to make abstractions of our own. But I’ve seen a great deal of evidence that other animals can do that as well. Perhaps we were abstracted to be able to self-modify our abstractions, perhaps even to “dissolve ourselves” (or “absolve ourselves of our sins (of abstraction)”) “transcending” notions of self thereby “entering the Kingdom of God” of undifferentiated existence. By doing that, we could be said to achieve “everlasting life,” though as we are now, we would be unable to recognize “ourselves.”
Perhaps when Jesus allegedly said that he was “the way, the truth and the light,” he was speaking literally as such an undifferentiated manifestation. As I said earlier, consciousness is not a what, but a how, "the way" of moving. If anything could be said to be “the truth” would it not be the whole of reality? As I said right off, everything is energy or light.
Of all this, the most startling idea to me is that not only might the Universe be self-aware, but self-modifying as well. The implications of that possibility would be staggaring.In this thread, I wrote quite a bit more on the topic, but I'll leave it at this for now.
Love is the experience of removing the ambiguity from harmonic resonance?
You don't know the meaning of that sentence because it means nothing.
What the HELL does THAT mean?
This is humorous in the way that a narcoleptic puppy trying to run a marathon is.
Guys, love is an emotion. You cannot decipher emotions. You cannot use words like "harmonic resonance" to describe them. Love is not a wave. You cannot use physics to describe it. Nor can you use words like "subject-object nondualism". Where did you get that from? It's an emotion. It's not rational by its very nature. It needs to be felt, not thought.
Oh, come now. It's not about deciphering. The terms I used are psychological in nature. It comes from the theory that people, by default, view themselves as real and whole persons (subjects) and all other people as mere elements of their environment (objects). Part of love is seeing others as being independent in their own right. The realization (more than just intellectual realization) that others have their own minds and will and feelings, and that they are different from your own, is referred to as "theory of mind." Theory of mind is the basis of empathy, which is important to be really loving.
To say "love is an emotion" sells it short. Love is more than that. It's a deep dynamic of interaction, not only interpersonally but with your world; it's a whole state of mind.
It's true, you can't rationally break down something as personal as this, but you don't have to in order to talk about it in some detail.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
Gaymers | Magic Coffeehouse | Little Jar of Mamelon | Natural 20
Umm... That theory is bull. I can view people and animals as other living things as "not objects", and I can do it without loving them. Love's quite a bit more than that.
That's like saying, "Calling a spade a spade sells it short". It is what it is.
No, it isn't "bull." Regardless of whether or not you realize, intellectually, that these creatures have their own will and existence, you may or may not really treat them that way. For instance, someone narcissistic can easily understand on an abstract level that other people are "real" people - but that doesn't mean anything to them. They seem others as elaborate walking props, like characters or figures in a dream. They don't treat them as having import.
That's not unusual, just more extreme.
Which is also a grossly uninformative thing to say. If someone asked you what a spade was, would you really just say "it's a spade"? Why would you think that was even close to an explanatory response? Even if love is an emotion, that doesn't say anything about what kind of emotion it is, or what else it is.
Because love is not just an emotion. Saying that is not a crackpot theorism, it's not overly-analytical, and it's not over-elaboration. Saying "love is an emotion" isn't even too simplistic, it's also just incorrect.
We had another thread about defining love here.
There's actually a need, I'd say, for a detailed definition of what love is, considering how great and broad a concept it is, and how integral it is to things like social interaction and morality.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
Gaymers | Magic Coffeehouse | Little Jar of Mamelon | Natural 20
Once again, I can perceive other people as things other than objects. That's not love. That's "the ability to treat things as not objects", or the ability to distinguish animate from inanimate.
Maybe you're trying to get at the ability to put oneself in the position of another in one's mind? But that's not love either. It's empathy. Empathy is not love.
Besides, someone narcissistic is not incapable of love. Hardly.
Because that's all you CAN say about it. Love is an emotion. Trying to "scientifically" define it like trying to scientifically explain anger, or sadness, or happiness. These emotions existed before words existed. You can create words to evoke them, but you cannot define them. They can only be felt.
What do you mean just an emotion? You seem to think that emotions aren't complex.
Your failing is you attempt to define love. You can understand what love is. You cannot define it.
For instance, it's our belief that emotions are just a quirk of having a complex biological pattern recognition and comparison system. Of course you can define love. All words can be defined, else they would just be noises. Whether or not your definition will match with someone else's definition is another matter, but if you are talking about love then you have at the very least assigned an implicit definition to the term.
It's not about identifying with someone else's mind so much as really seeing - and again, not just acknowledging abstractly - that they have their own mind, and to respect and care about that. You don't need to be able to understand how another person feels in order to have empathy, at least not in the most basic sense (theory of mind).
Empathy is key to love. I never said that this is all that love was, I said it was part of it.
Are you aware of what narcissistic personality disorder entails?
By definition, someone who is narcissistic does not care about people. Other people are like extensions of the self, like tools. And a narcissistic person still knows, in a purely intellectual way, that others are "real" people. But that's a formality. Narcissism, by definition, entails not caring at all about others, even recognizing their humanity - they exist only to serve or gratify you.
Now, you might say "that must be wrong, because I'm sure a narcissistic person can care about someone." People may have different levels of severity, or may begin to change their personality patterns. But in the extreme, assuming severe narcissism as understood, someone narcissistic does not care about others, and cannot love them.
No, you can define them. Otherwise we have no clue what we are talking about. You seem to be saying that no description can completely explain or encompass a feeling, which is very different from saying that those feelings can't be defined.
If you know that sadness and love both mean feelings, how do you know that you are talking about different kinds of feelings if you can't define either of them? Why not just have one word, then, "feeling," to indicate any or all of them?
This isn't a dilemma between "scientific" analysis and experiential wisdom. I am not "dissecting" the concept of love, I'm just talking about what it means. When you say "love is an emotion," you are defining love, even though you aren't going into much detail. If one said, "love is a feeling of goodwill and caring," that would be further defining it. You can't say that I'm trying to define love and you aren't - you're just using less detail.
It doesn't matter how complex or simple an emotion can be, that's not all love is. Love is too grand a concept to be reduced to only the personal feeling aspect. Especially since you seem to be using emotion to mean an affective state, such as glad or angry. One might say that will, action, perception of reality, feeling, state of mind, and motivations are integrally part of one's emotions, and then say that love, being part of all of these, is something emotional. I could agree with that, but that doesn't appear to be what you are saying. And it doesn't mean that love is only a feeling. It'd be like saying "caring" is a feeling. I can feel like I care for someone, but unless I act on it, in some way I'm not really talking about the accepted meaning of being caring.
Similarly, I might have loving feelings for someone. But if I do not care to aid them when they have need, if I do not value their well-being, if I do not respect their will and their needs, then it doesn't matter how I feel about them internally, I'm not really being loving.
I don't agree with your terms. Love can be, and has been, defined. Are you saying that one can understand what love is, but can never talk about it? If we can discuss what love is and what it means in agreed upon terms, then that means defining it.
I never claimed that you could thoroughly explain every layer of what love is as if it were a machine to be taken apart. I don't believe love to be logically explicable, at least not completely. But I can still use language to define what I mean when I say "love."
The source of your contention seems to be that the part of my description I posted here, and Ben's description, are too cerebral and "scientific" sounding. I respect that, but while it may be so that intentially using "big words" muddies things up (as Blinking Spirit originally said), that's a very different claim than that it's an error to even try to describe love.
In the other thread, I defined love as assigning import or value to another in the same way you'd assign import or value to yourself (or at least as far as you're able). But this is necessarily a bare-bones description. It doesn't cover all the different kinds of love there are and their unique qualities, it doesn't touch on all that love is, and it doesn't completely explain love. It isn't supposed to.
I agree.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
Gaymers | Magic Coffeehouse | Little Jar of Mamelon | Natural 20
Bamf.
As for what love is, and Highroller and Mamelon's debate, I'd like to state that i personally believe that love is something intangible, and thus, cannot be truly defined nor understood by humans.
Sure, we be affected by it. We can feel it, and be infatuated with it, but can we understand it? I don't think so.
If you truly believe you understand and can quantify love, then state that definition here for us to debate around. I don't think it can be done, though others clearly disagree. Let's see those definitions then.
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