i just saw donnie darko… aside from the fact that it was so wrist slitingly depressing, it has very large philosophical cojones.
the movie that that sadistic gym “teacher” had her class watch was interesting. i’d like to know what you all feel about the concept of people’s actions being only affected by either fear or love. i personaly agree with what donnie said in retort to the teacher when she asked him to map the situation on the FEAR<---->LOVE line. i think there are hundreds of other factors. the guy in the movie got carried away with the whole tony robins gig.
I had always thought fear is a negative form of love. The thought of putting it in an equation came when reading deep sandwich’s post in the form of the fear-love line. My initial believe before the post had always been:
x= -y (where x=love and y=fear)
Then I saw this is fatally flawed because if x= -y this means, x+y=0 which would imply we do not exist. So I considered the fear-love line:
x+y=1
This is also flawed because it does not explain some things such as genocides, where the fear generated by a small number of leadership results in a massive population turning into murderers.
So i figured when “love” or “fear” approach zero, an inversely proportional relationship is more expressive of this scenario.
x=1/y or y=1/x
Though they approach zero mathematically, they will never become zero in the case of a regular person. When “fear” becomes zero the person is so conscious of his existence that reality is an expression of his mind and not others (explaining the lack of fear created by external factors). Similarly i think when “love” becomes zero fear shuts down the person’s conscious existence (something like schizophrenia).
You do know that St John says in one of his letters: “Love and fear are opposites, and perfect love drives out all fear.”
(A supporting argument – from authority.)
So you say that schitzophrenia comes from intense fear – or intense non-love? An interesting idea. I wonder if Adlarian (i think he’s a psychologist) could link intensely negative emotional states with loss of production of dopamine…
I said “something like that” so it may or may not. Even the latest scientific theories cannot give a thorough explanation on many mental problems.
What i would like to you to answer my_real_name is what caused the intensely negative emotional state to arise in the first place? The chemical imbalance is more a product of the state rather than the initiator. This is where we come to fear or love.
Problem is Adlarian tends to take a one sided view of Alfred Adler believing everything is driven by desire for power and inferiority complex. In the process he discounts Freud, Jung and other major thinkers in this area to support just one perspective.
So you feel that love is merely a reaction to that which is negative and not a pure state in and of itself? And what do you mean by “new”? I see love as Divine, everpresent, Universal, beyond time or our bodies. It always has been and always will be. It is what drives our spirit to connect with one another.
That’s a good idea and I did consider it when writing the equation. But I also realize it is harder to explain a concept when there are too many variables involved. Let’s hold other factors constant to ease the analysis.
I believe anxiety - call it fear - is the first emotion for any living creature.
All other emotions come from it or come as a response to it.
New because I perceive it as a logical assumption that basic life was solitary.
One creature, one being, one entity, striving to continue being.
Procreation was achieved through separation, through division – as in cell division.
Eventually survival forces cooperation, it forces weaker creature to join and to mingle with their own or those that share their weakness, at first to gain an advantage through confusing the predator, then by cooperating and achieving power through numbers.
Love then became a sophistication, an evolution of the attraction force – as an opposition to the repulsion force or the force of inclusion and exclusion - and a necessity because more complicated beings required more weaning and more time to grow before they became autonomous.
The necessity of unities creates biochemical reactions in the brain – perceived by the conscious mind as love - which facilitated cohabitation and cooperation and identification.
Of course you do.
Then why do you not think of hatred in a similar manner?
Beyond time?
Okaaaaaay, here we are entering into mythological concepts of theism and unsupportable hopes, based on anxiety and fear.
And survival sans love = lonely, unfulfilled, shallow, vacant, angry and barren not only in spirit but in body. You speak of life as that of a dog, not of a spiritual being. You can be an atheist and still be spiritual so I am not speaking of a theistic approach, just a loving, human one. You lack that in your extremely articulate and cogent post.
Actually, I find dogs to be more spiritual than most. And you didn’t pounce, really… tho’ I enjoy a good pouncing from time to time from the head of the class. Good for the spirit, you know.
