Love and relationships ( Philosophy )

As a young philosopher (or stoned musician, you choose) called John Lennon once said, 'Love is all you need.' Maybe I'm just cold-hearted or I just haven't experienced it, but is the answer to all the world's problems really just love?
Don't get me wrong. I didn't suddenly find a grudge to pick with the Beatles when I heard that song or anything. But is that really it? Is that all we are built on?

Personally, I hate this in-built function/need. The feeling or need for validation in another. For a partner. Or is it a construction of social norms rather than instincts? You tell me.

I find, at times, the yearning is like an ache or pain holding you back from other pursuits, making you feel more self-concious and socially inadequate. I guess this is the existential dilemma that we all suffer from because we are social animals. We need to validate our lives, and partnership is quite key in most peoples' eyes.

But that isn't to say that love is the only form of social validation (or at least it shouldn't be).

The point of discussion I am to make is about the purpose of love and yearning for validation. Why can we not disconnect ourselves from this instinct now that it is itself invalid? Its original purpose was to ensure reproduction and sustaining of the human species by keeping partners together. But now the world is overpopulated, is there any point to our lives being still so centred around courtship and marriage and a family? Should it still be the positive convention of an individual's acheivement in life?

An most importantly why should it be that people who say 'I don't want children' or 'I don't believe in marriage' are looked at in a negative light considering this?

Are our notions and views of courtship outdated for the situation?

Or maybe its all simply the fear of being alone... should we be afraid?

Perhaps I'm just rambling about nothing, considering it is 4am right now, but my hope was to see what others thought, and that others may even relate to and agree with some of the things I've been thinking and it's not just me in this realm of contemplation.

(ignore or at least try not to pay too much attention to my rhetorical trailings off in thought if you would reply, adapt or write something of your own thoughts in reflection on what i have please!)

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60 comments Sort by rating

By anonymous• 22 Jul 2007 23:36

Rating: 4/5

People are social animals...... But love has no borders or barometers... its intensity will vary depending upon circumstances and partners involved, Chck my earlier threads....

By CHOMOLONGMA• 22 Jul 2007 21:58

Rating: 2/5

hey

love for me is love

love is love

i dont thnk more than that.

thats why i am always happy.

.Though I dont read U r long posts; Keep it up

U r a great philosopher

Manu

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 17:03

hi mom ....hows life living in qatar ?

By anonymous• 22 Jul 2007 15:49

darude

hate to disagree with you why are the whole world singing love songs when is just a waste of time??

By maxi8008• 22 Jul 2007 15:39

post 4 times = 4 points ;P

lol

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 15:35

We always think were we stand , remember..were one big family here in Qatar living and this is a forum only ...dont be serious guys...just give your best shot's !!!! i salute you guy's !!!

Thanks Qatari !!!!

A fight is not won by one punch or kick. Either learn to endure or hire a bodyguard. Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life. Do not be concerned with escaping safely — lay your life before him -

keep smilling,

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 15:35

We always think were we stand , remember..were one big family here in Qatar living and this is a forum only ...dont be serious guys...just give your best shot's !!!! i salute you guy's !!!

Thanks Qatari !!!!

keep smilling,

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 15:35

We always think were we stand , remember..were one big family here in Qatar living and this is a forum only ...dont be serious guys...just give your best shot's !!!! i salute you guy's !!!

Thanks Qatari !!!!

keep smilling,

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 15:33

We always think were we stand , remember..were one big family here in Qatar living and this is a forum only ...dont be serious guys...just give your best shot's !!!! i salute you guy's !!!

Thanks Qatari !!!!

By maxi8008• 22 Jul 2007 15:32

Your Welcome and Thank to you also for your post ..

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 15:27

hahahaaaa..... escape !!!

By anonymous• 22 Jul 2007 15:25

got to go for a meeting. will come back after 45 minutes.:)

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 15:23

pardon

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 15:20

Thank you for repying to the post content. I'm glad to read your relation to it and sharing your experience of the subject.

i salute you !!!!

By sentibhim• 22 Jul 2007 15:16

If manu explain about it.You will need Hankey.Isn't it Manu ?

"Drink Beer Save Water"

By maxi8008• 22 Jul 2007 15:15

LOL :))

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 15:13

can i ask you one simple question ?

what is love to you ? ?

smile,

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 15:11

wanna join in our discussion ?

give me your best philosopy .

smile,

By CHOMOLONGMA• 22 Jul 2007 15:11

I want to drink long,

i want to smile long

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 15:09

i guess it would be the solution to the world if it was like that, everyone loving each other and the world. I took it on the basic level of interpersonal love though. We don't think too much about humanity because our limitation is that we are selfish subjectively-viewing creatures. That is my excuse, hahaha...

smile and hug for you...

By anonymous• 22 Jul 2007 15:05

Manu but you want to drink long :)

By maxi8008• 22 Jul 2007 15:05

Rating: 5/5

Biology of love

Biological models of sex tend to view love as a mammalian drive,[citation needed] much like hunger or thirst. Helen Fisher, a leading expert in the topic of love, divides the experience of love into three partly-overlapping stages: lust, attraction, and attachment. Lust exposes people to others, romantic attraction encourages people to focus their energy on mating, and attachment involves tolerating the spouse long enough to rear a child into infancy.

Lust is the initial passionate sexual desire that promotes mating, and involves the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and estrogen. These effects rarely last more than a few weeks or months. Attraction is the more individualized and romantic desire for a specific candidate for mating, which develops out of lust as commitment to an individual mate forms. Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that as people fall in love, the brain consistently releases a certain set of chemicals, including pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, which act similar to amphetamines, stimulating the brain's pleasure center and leading to side-effects such as an increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and an intense feeling of excitement. Research has indicated that this stage generally lasts from one and a half to three years.[7]

Since the lust and attraction stages are both considered temporary, a third stage is needed to account for long-term relationships. Attachment is the bonding which promotes relationships that last for many years, and even decades. Attachment is generally based on commitments such as marriage and children, or on mutual friendship based on things like shared interests. It has been linked to higher levels of the chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin than short-term relationships have.[7]

In 2005, Italian scientists at Pavia University found that a protein molecule known as the nerve growth factor (NGF) has high levels when people first fall in love, but these levels return to as they were after one year. Specifically, four neurotrophin levels, i.e. NGF, BDNF, NT-3, and NT-4, of 58 subjects who had recently fallen in love were compared with levels in a control group who were either single or already engaged in a long-term relationship. The results showed that NGF levels were significantly higher in the subjects in love than as compared to either of the control groups.[8]

Psychology of love

Psychology depicts love as a cognitive and social phenomenon. Psychologist Robert Sternberg formulated a triangular theory of love and argued that love has three different components: Intimacy, Commitment, and Passion. Intimacy is a form by which two people can share secrets and various details of their personal lives. Intimacy is usually shown in friendships and romantic love affairs. Commitment, on the other hand, is the expectation that the relationship is going to last forever. The last and most common form of love is sexual attraction and passion. Passionate love is shown in infatuation as well as romantic love. This led researchers such as Yela[citation needed] to further refine the model by separating Passion into two independents components: Erotic Passion and Romantic Passion.

Following developments in electrical theories, such as Coulomb's law, which showed that positive and negative charges attract, analogs in human life were developed, such as "opposites attract". Over the last century, research on the nature of human mating, such as in evolutionary psychology, agree that pairs unite or attract to each other owing to a combination of opposites attract, e.g. people with dissimilar immune systems tend to attract, and likes attract, such as similarities of personality, character, views, etc.[9] In recent years, various human bonding theories have been developed described in terms of attachments, ties, bonds, and or affinities.

Some Western authorities disaggregate into two main components, the altruistic and the narcissistic. This view is represented in the works of Scott Peck, whose works in the field of applied psychology explored the definitions of love and evil. Peck maintains that love is a combination of the"'concern for the spiritual growth of another", and simple narcissism.[10] In combination, love is an activity, not simply a feeling.

So what do u think ;P

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 15:05

i salute you my friend .

smile,

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 15:03

dont worry were only to discuss this in a form of Philosophy .

smile...my friend !!!

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 14:57

180 Proof is on the money. The word 'love' in English is notoriuosly vague. The meaning of the word as Lennon uses it is more in line with the Trascendental Meditation technique he was practicing - the love for all humanity, and the sense that one is following one's dharma, (duty, truth, etc). The Bhagavad Gita's idea of putting aside one's grievances and getting on with the battle (understood as a metaphorical battle). Love in this sense becomes the opposite of craving and need - it is a state of living in which one simply is - perhaps not dissimilar to the psychedelic experience, in which Lennon was thoroughly steeped.

give me your best philosopy guys !!!

smile,

By JBH• 22 Jul 2007 14:55

Rating: 3/5

It is like a hunger "once you find it".

I fell in love very early and celebrate our 20th anniversary next week.

I just love her.

No explaination will do, or is it needed.

If you haven't found anyone yet then you just haven't found anyone yet.

It means nothing.

But when you do, you will know about it.

It is beyond our control I think.

Call me Maninibat!

By CHOMOLONGMA• 22 Jul 2007 14:51

I dunno.

If i start thinking about all these I ll be a philosopher.

I dont want to be that.

I dont like to think long, write long or read long.

lets rock buddy

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 14:50

Haha, so you can relate to the yearning, of a member of the opposite sex to become a part of your life, being like a thought weighing down your other life pursuits and clouding your vision and perception?

I am not sure if I am glad to see it affects other people, but it shouldn't be surprising I guess. It's nice to be anti-love once in a while and free from that constraint. I want to be free soon of the want for love. Does it suck overall (to have loved and lost is better than to never have loved at all)?

SMILE,

By maxi8008• 22 Jul 2007 14:49

Sure i got what you mean but i felt i need to add a scientific Deff. about love, i agree with you that in one point of our lifes we will stop and think .. Why im a lone ? where is my second part ?

for me Love is great thing can ever happened to anyone specially if ends with marriage

By sentibhim• 22 Jul 2007 14:49

I agree with JBH.Love is not for use and throw.Having sexual relation and leave it ? this not a love,only a physical attraction.

"Drink Beer Save Water"

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 14:46

That a relationship is an experiment to see if we love them, yes? Afterwhich we feel love should be sealed with a rubber stamp on a legal document and a big church wedding? So we seek relationships to try and find love and marriage... Where do the children come into it... doesn't love and marriage usually entail children? That is the original ideal of most marriages right? Of course, in a modern age, it is now to a lesser extent, with spiritual bondings instead of bindings before God. But still, I think a religious ideal of love marriage and children exists in society, no doubt about it. I would have to agree with you that a less permanent bond is probably more suitable and flexible to our modern day society .

smile,

By JBH• 22 Jul 2007 14:45

Social influence.

If someone maries or gets in a relationship to "fit it" has to be a little, well weak or mis-guided.

If you do that you will end up having sexual relations with someone you are not spiritually ready for.

And that is just wrong in my oppinion.

Call me Maninibat!

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 14:41

An most importantly why should it be that people who say 'I don't want children' or 'I don't believe in marriage' are looked at in a negative light considering this?

Are our notions and views of courtship outdated for the situation?

Or maybe its all simply the fear of being alone... should we be afraid?

smile,

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 14:39

Thank you for repying to the post content. I'm glad to read your relation to it and sharing your experience of the subject.

I didn't word the sentence you diagree with well enough. I did not exclusively mean love is the need to validate yourself in a person. Now that I ponder it, I don't know. I don't think I've been in love.

But what I meant instead was that the instinctual feeling of wanting to find a partner is like an in-built yearning that you feel must be fulfilled. Say you're single and you hang out with friends who are in a relationship/a couple. Doesn't the thought of when you will next have a bf/gf come up if you kind of step back a bit or if the topic comes up in conversation about you being single/the opposite sex? That's what I mean. It's like the joke you see in sitcoms where a guy stops his girlfriend getting ideas about marriage by changing the subject. I guess that is the social norms thing, that we aspire/yearn for it because we see others in society acting in that way. This is what I was considering in thought, how much of it now is instinct and how much is social influence?

smile,

By maxi8008• 22 Jul 2007 14:27

do u Want More ;P

By JBH• 22 Jul 2007 14:26

We are not as far removed from those "ancint" times as you think.

All of this around us may only be temporary.

A turn in the weather or some other catastrophy could send us all into a scenario not unlike those primeval times of old.

I think we flatter our selves when we talk of how developed we are.

Naked apes, with a few gadgets is closer to the truth in my mind.

Call me Maninibat!

By sentibhim• 22 Jul 2007 14:26

If i love some one, "i will try until i die".Love is not a joke.It must be forever.And also no needed to legal document validate relation.

"Drink Beer Save Water"

By maxi8008• 22 Jul 2007 14:26

Rating: 5/5

General Definition

Love is a constellation of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection or profound oneness.[1] The meaning of love varies relative to context. Romantic love is seen as an ineffable feeling of intense attraction shared in passionate or intimate attraction and intimate interpersonal and sexual relationships.[2] Though often linked to personal relations, love is often given a wider connection, a love of humanity, of nature, with life itself, or a oneness with the universe, a universal love or karma. Love can also be construed as Platonic love,[3] religious love,[4] familial love, and, more casually, great affection for anything considered strongly pleasurable, desirable, or preferred, to include activities and foods.[5][2] This diverse range of meanings in the singular word love is often contrasted with the plurality of Greek words for love, reflecting the concept's depth, versatility, and complexity.

Philosophical views

People, throughout history, have often considered phenomena such as "love at first sight" or "instant friendships" to be the result of an uncontrollable force of attraction or affinity.[11] One of the first to theorize in this direction was the Greek philosopher Empedocles, who in the 4th century BC argued for the existence of two forces, love (philia) and strife (neikos), which were used to account for the causes of motion in the universe. These two forces were said to intermingle with the classical elements, i.e., earth, water, air, and fire, in such a manner that love served as the binding power linking the various parts of existence harmoniously together.

Later, Plato interpreted Empedocles' two agents as attraction and repulsion, stating that their operation is conceived in an alternate sequence.[12] From these arguments, Plato originated the concept of "likes attract", e.g., earth is attracted to earth, water to water, and fire to fire. In modern terms this is often phrased in terms of "birds of a feather flock together".

Bertrand Russell describes love as a condition of "absolute value", as opposed to relative value. Thomas Jay Oord defines love as acting intentionally, in sympathetic response to others (including God), to promote overall well-being. Oord means for his definition to be adequate for religion, philosophy, and the sciences. Robert A. Heinlein, one of the most prolific science fiction writers of the 20th century, defined love in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land as the point of emotional connection which leads to the happiness of another being essential to one's own well being. This definition ignores the ideas of religion and science and instead focuses on the meaning of love as it relates to the individual.

Also, an ancient proverb states that love is a high form of tolerance. This view is one that many philosophers and scholars have researched, and is widely accepted.

By CHOMOLONGMA• 22 Jul 2007 14:22

Please.I ll be waitin.

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 14:20

To me love and marriage is a hard thing to combine. Marriage is intended to be permanent and love isn't always forever. I rather just live with someone I love instead of marry them. I don't need a legal document to validate a relationship.

how abou you ? ?

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 14:18

i explain to you in short method....if you want ? ?

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 14:12

Love is an extremely vague term. But it has to be. Millions of people experience romantic love in different interpretations.

I do agree with you a hundred percent on one thing. I HATE feeling romantic love. To me it is a total useless emotion that only restricts and torments me. For all the reasons in that article and more I think love is instinct. It's basically your mind tricking you into procreation. But their are social norms that affect how we love. An example of this is that society glorifies love. In America we are encouraged to love and marry. I think in a way it pushed this urgency in many folk to rush in to relationships just to have that sense of uniformity and stablity that is advertised to us. I think this is why lots of people tend to have unhappy unions.

smile,

By sentibhim• 22 Jul 2007 14:10

Now a days love is being as a fashion so i am frightened.I Prefer to u all don't fall in Love.

"Drink Beer Save Water"

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 14:09

(ignore or at least try not to pay too much attention to my rhetorical trailings off in thought if you would reply, adapt or write something of your own thoughts in reflection on what i have please!)

By JBH• 22 Jul 2007 14:05

Rating: 5/5

If you don't feel the need for love with a partner, fine.

But you must open up your heart to a much higher love for all things.

But before that, you must learn to love yourself, truly and deeply.

If you can not love yourself, then you are not a whole person, yet.

"All life is a manifestation of the spirit, the manifestation of love. And the Art of Peace is the purest form of that principle. A warrior is charged with bringing a halt to all contention and strife. Universal love functions in many forms; each manifestation should be allowed free expression. The Art of Peace is true democracy." The Art of Peace, Morihei Ueshiba

Call me Maninibat!

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 14:02

smile,

By Cnidaria• 22 Jul 2007 13:58

Soz, as manubtl said your post was way to long for me to read, i skimmed and saw senti post which amused me. Males cant read long things in general - 10 second attention span and all that

I am in Love and i am in a realtionship (marriage). What is there to discuss, i do am i am told, excpet when the cat is away.....

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 13:56

Rating: 3/5

Love is one of those wishy-washy words people tend to define any way they like. However, I prefer this one: To Love is to be Happy With.

Anyway, love is a very broad term.

You are right ( you dont believe in love ) me too .... in that love has become something of an obligation. It is, however, inevitable, this scorn of loveless people, in a society, in a world where the majority of people find themselves too simple-minded to enjoy the amusements of the spirit over those of the body...

i hope love for you will exist ...

smile,

By CHOMOLONGMA• 22 Jul 2007 13:53

u have written so long.

so no discussions.

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 13:50

Me too .... wer in the same stand .

By sentibhim• 22 Jul 2007 13:50

Sinned you call me ? Can you tell my no through PM .

"Drink Beer Save Water"

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 13:49

how are you man ? ?

do u want to discuss this topic ( love and relationship ) ? ?

smile,

By DaRuDe• 22 Jul 2007 13:48

Sorry

i dont believe in love

justa waste of time

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 13:47

i call you before i leave , but ur phone is not ringing !!!! its ok.

try now to philosopy me in this topic ( Love AND Relationship )

smile,

By Cnidaria• 22 Jul 2007 13:45

"Save the planet!" - it the only place that makes beer.......

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 13:44

show me how you will philosopy me in this topic ( Love and Relationship )

By sentibhim• 22 Jul 2007 13:40

Right

"Drink Beer Save Water"

By DaRuDe• 22 Jul 2007 13:38

Town :D

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 13:36

By Sinned• 22 Jul 2007 11:18

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Love and relationships ( Philosophy )

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