What is Love?

[AmericanKestrel]

When we love, what do we love? Is the love in the object or is it in the subject?
Advaita, non-dualism, sees the Self, which I will call by its Sanskrit term Atma, as the source of love. (I find Self causes some confusion and disrupts the focus somewhat, so we will stick with the Sanskrit word Atma as it has only one meaning - the eternal existence that transcends time and space.)
Atma is the source of awareness and its nature is existence, knowness, and joyful contentment. The world as we see and experience, a creation and projection of our mind, on the other hand is unreal, a source of suffering and misery, and impermanent. Our immersion in this world veils us from our true self, distances us from the eternal Atma, which is pure existence.
Why is love so special? Because the nature of Atma is attraction and love. When we love our house, we love it for our own sake, it gives us pleasure. When we love our dog, it is for the sake of the Atma, because it is love. We love our friend, our spouse, our child, all for our own sake, to please the love that is our true essence. In effect, love is not in the object that draws us, it resides within us.
When we love we are closest to our Atma.
Thoughts?

[Leontiskos]

Aristotle:

"Let ‘loving’ be wishing for someone the things that he deems good, for the sake of that person and not oneself, and the accomplishment of these things to the best of one’s ability." (Rhetoric, 1380b36-81a1)

"A [lover] is one who loves and is loved in return." (Rhetoric, 1381a1-2)

-"Aristotle on Love and Friendship," cf. Nicomachean Ethics VIII; ST II.II.23.1

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What's key is that you 1) Love someone for the sake of themselves, and not for your own sake, and 2) The love is reciprocated in some way; it is a sharing in some common reality.

When we love our house, we love it for our own sake, it gives us pleasure.

You cannot love inanimate things:

"The motives of love being thus threefold, the love of inanimate things is not called friendship. For there is no return of affection here, nor any wish for the good of the object: it would be absurd to wish well to wine, for instance; at the most, we wish that it may keep well, in order that we may have it. But it is commonly said that we must wish our friend’s good for his own sake. One who thus wishes the good of another is called a well-wisher, when the wish is not reciprocated; when the well-wishing is mutual, it is called friendship."

-Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VIII, 2

We love our friend, our spouse, our child, all for our own sake...

Loving another for our own sake is not true friendship or love:

"Now that we have distinguished these several kinds of friendship, we may say that bad men will be friends for the sake of pleasure or profit, resembling one another in this respect, while good men, when they are friends, love each other for what they are, i.e. as good men. These, then, we say, are friends simply; the others are friends accidentally and so far as they resemble these."

-Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VIII, 4

Advaita, non-dualism, sees the Self, which I will call by its Sanskrit term Atma, as the source of love.

I don't think Advaita has a metaphysical basis for love. This is because love requires more than one person. In Christianity you have love in God in the Trinity, and you also have love between God and man because man retains his individuality for all eternity. In Hindu thought all individual identities are eventually dissolved into God, at which point any love that previously existed must cease since there are no longer multiple individuals who can love one another. In systems like Advaita love is therefore a temporary stepping stone to the ultimate, loveless state.

[Leontiskos]

Lots of Aristotle. Good for the soul and for the forum.

Why is love so special?

"After the foregoing, a discussion of friendship will naturally follow, as it is a sort of virtue, or at least implies virtue, and is, moreover, most necessary to our life. For no one would care to live without friends, though he had all other good things. Indeed, it is when a man is rich, and has got power and authority, that he seems most of all to stand in need of friends; for what is the use of all this prosperity if he have no opportunity for benevolence, which is most frequently and most commendably displayed towards friends? or how could his position be maintained and preserved without friends? for the greater it is, the more is it exposed to danger. In poverty and all other misfortunes, again, we regard our friends as our only refuge. We need friends when we are young to keep us from error, when we get old to tend upon us and to carry out those plans which we have not strength to execute ourselves, and in the prime of life to help us in noble deeds—“two together” [as Homer says]; for thus we are more efficient both in thought and in action."

-Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VIII, 1

[JackDaydream]

@American Kestrel

Love has many meanings ranging from the eros of physical attraction to the agape of compassion and concern. These are expressed in various ways in life ranging from love in popular culture and love songs, to the compassionate mind. Love is associated with the heart; the second chakra, or energy centre. People are more than cerebral beings, as heads with bodies attached. The heart is the pump of the body and energetically as the seat of emotions. It may be possible to die of emotional wounding, trauma or even a broken heart, because love, or lack of it, may be central to human identity and perception of the world.

[Pattern-chaser]

When we love, what do we love? Is the love in the object or is it in the subject?

Love is the connection between the subject and the object, surely?

[AmericanKestrel]

When we love, what do we love? Is the love in the object or is it in the subject?

Love is the connection between the subject and the object, surely?

Love is in our mind, where feelings reside. The object of love is always material, be it a person, place, or thing. How real can a connection between a mind that is immaterial and a thing that is external to it be?
Love is also possession. We want to posses what we love. But that is an impossibility, subject to many conditions. Even if we think we posses it, it is subject to change. We cannot literally consume it. Even if we have legal title to it as the owner, it is conditioned upon man made laws, which will only be valid as long as everyone else agrees to it. So our possession of what we love is conditional upon time and other people's agreement.
I think ultimately love is an inscrutable thing, perhaps it is only in our imagination.

[heracleitos]

Love is a biological emotion that certainly contributes to our survival. I guess that all emotions somehow do. Why else would these emotions even exist in the first place?

I think that the biologically most important form of love is the love between mother and child.

Other forms of love also contribute to fostering potentially useful interpersonal ties, but are less critical for survival. In those cases, if the love is not somehow useful, then it may actually amount to indulging in a frivolous pastime.

[LuckyR]

Love is a biological emotion that certainly contributes to our survival. I guess that all emotions somehow do. Why else would these emotions even exist in the first place?

I think that the biologically most important form of love is the love between mother and child.

Other forms of love also contribute to fostering potentially useful interpersonal ties, but are less critical for survival. In those cases, if the love is not somehow useful, then it may actually amount to indulging in a frivolous pastime.

Actually if there was no romantic love, there wouldn't be a child.

[NathanIsDivine]

Love is a biological emotion that certainly contributes to our survival. I guess that all emotions somehow do. Why else would these emotions even exist in the first place?

I think that the biologically most important form of love is the love between mother and child.

Other forms of love also contribute to fostering potentially useful interpersonal ties, but are less critical for survival. In those cases, if the love is not somehow useful, then it may actually amount to indulging in a frivolous pastime.

Maybe love is just a longing to be whole? When we love a person, if anything terrible were to happen to that person, we would be hurt on an emotional level. That person is a part of our identity because when that person dies, a part of our identity and well-being dies.

[Samana Johann]

When we love, what do we love? Is the love in the object or is it in the subject?
Advaita, non-dualism, sees the Self, which I will call by its Sanskrit term Atma, as the source of love. (I find Self causes some confusion and disrupts the focus somewhat, so we will stick with the Sanskrit word Atma as it has only one meaning - the eternal existence that transcends time and space.)
Atma is the source of awareness and its nature is existence, knowness, and joyful contentment. The world as we see and experience, a creation and projection of our mind, on the other hand is unreal, a source of suffering and misery, and impermanent. Our immersion in this world veils us from our true self, distances us from the eternal Atma, which is pure existence.
Why is love so special? Because the nature of Atma is attraction and love. When we love our house, we love it for our own sake, it gives us pleasure. When we love our dog, it is for the sake of the Atma, because it is love. We love our friend, our spouse, our child, all for our own sake, to please the love that is our true essence. In effect, love is not in the object that draws us, it resides within us.
When we love we are closest to our Atma.
Thoughts?

Beings love, crave for, signs, sound, smell, taste, bodily touch and ideas. How selfish, or, good householder, ever really investigated what after, after all?

[Ecurb]

The Greeks defined four loves:

Storge (affection): This includes the love of parents for children and children for parents. It is powerful, but the least human, in that it is shared by many other species.

Philia: friendship. This used to be mainly same-sex friendships, because men and women had different educations and interests. Now it is often mandatory to say one's lover is also one's "best friend".

Eros: (romantic love) Those who equate it with sex are incorrect. Eros can occur without sex, and sex without eros. In a way, eros is like religion. It differs from culture to culture. It is created and influenced by myth and literature. The Indian in an arranged marriage sees the relationship between sex and eros differently from the Westerner who has imbibed our myths of love. There's a passage in 1984 where the awful hero demands reassurance before bedding the heroine. (Quoting from memory) He asks, "Do you like doing this? I don't mean me -- I mean the act itself."

Like our friend heracleitos, those inviting sexual desire without eros desire "the act itself". Eros wants the beloved.

Agape: (Charity) This is the love God has for humans, and saints have for God and for their brothers. It is selfless and giving.

[heracleitos]

The Greeks defined four loves:

Eros: (romantic love)

Like our friend heracleitos, those inviting sexual desire without eros desire "the act itself". Eros wants the beloved.

Concerning "romantic love", the following definition:

Romance or romantic love is a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards another person, and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions.

The main problem with this behaviour is that it is self-defeating.

Imagine that you like a girl. Romantic love suggests that you should indulge in oneitis and on that basis start simping for her.

oneitis. Often confused with love, this is the feeling that a particular woman is actually special. This is just an illusion; she is the same as the other three or so billion. "Go **** ten other women" is the most commonly prescribed treatment for this "disease" (hence the "itis"), as it tends to show quite quickly how very alike people are. In other words, get over yourself and your obsession with that girl, because it's just an illusion. And when you get rejected, don't be depressed. Because there's really not much to worry about.

The truth is that you do not necessarily like her, but merely "someone like her".

Hence, instead of indulging in ridiculous forms of delusional simping, you may want to design an effective protocol that will produce interactions with a sufficiently large sample of "someones like her", and therefore turn the entire approach into a numbers game.

Not only you are statistically much more likely to succeed, but it also satisfies the guideline that women only want men that other women also want. Hence, the closer you are to pulling in one of the designated targets, the more likely it is that you will also succeed in pulling in some of the other targets, as you are effectively and successfully exploiting their competition anxiety.

To cut a long story short, and as the urban dictionary points out above, "romantic love" is best treated as a disease, i.e. as a form of delusional misbehavior that is highly counterproductive.

[Ecurb]

To cut a long story short, and as the urban dictionary points out above, "romantic love" is best treated as a disease, i.e. as a form of delusional misbehavior that is highly counterproductive.

As I said before, eros resembles religion. It is learned and culturally constituted. Some members here would probably say that religion is best treated as a disease or delusion. Both are the products of hopes and wishes. Are both "counterproductive"? Hmm....

[heracleitos]

To cut a long story short, and as the urban dictionary points out above, "romantic love" is best treated as a disease, i.e. as a form of delusional misbehavior that is highly counterproductive.

As I said before, eros resembles religion. It is learned and culturally constituted. Some members here would probably say that religion is best treated as a disease or delusion. Both are the products of hopes and wishes. Are both "counterproductive"? Hmm....

Romantic love, i.e. delusional simping, is counterproductive because it pretty much guarantees that the girl will friend-zone or even outright reject you, which is obviously the opposite of what you want.

As a matter of fact, the girl is even right. It is not because you badly want something that you apparently cannot get that she should give it to you. Seriously, what's in it for her?

On the other hand, God will not reject you if you pray to Him.

On the contrary, the Almighty will lavishly shower you with his blessings. He always does for me, and I am utmost grateful for the enormous privileges that he keeps conferring to me.

Furthermore, I am absolutely not objective in this matter.

As I happily wallow in the exorbitant benefits that are attached to my honorable position, I confess to being just an utmost humble servant of our beloved Master, Lord of both worlds, and creator of this universe.

[Paul91]

I think real love is revealed and manifested in the recognition of a mutual connection between at least two conscious agents in a close relationship. A close relationship is one where ego barriers are dissolved. If love can occur spontaneously between a wild animal and a human, for instance, then surely it has no evolutionary basis.