Is it something that has evolved with humans and intellect? Does it have a root in the animal kingdom?
For example, my hypothesis is that all human emotion comes from something much more primal. Think of a squirrel who gathers nuts for the winter. In a way, the most successful is the one which gathers and hoards the most. This reminds me of greed. Or how about animals which go on a feeding frenzy prior to hibernation? Eating much more than they normally would. Almost sounds like gluttony. Or, a species needing to propagate, i.e. males having multiple females to impregnate. Almost sounds like lust. And other males not able to have the many females may instigate a fight to gain control. Envy?
love is the one to one entanglement of subjectivities - a shared consciousness that transgresses the boundaries of the individual as traditionally defined.
In most human cultures sexual partnership has been a practical thing like collecting nuts, and as we know from other relationships, such as family, love is the identification that grows with a shared fate. I agree, if that is what you say, that ‘true love’ is intellectual; one of the benefits of a mind that is able to experience on top of serving the instincts.
Assuming that love is indeed a mental thing, this type of experience can separate the lover from the needs of his survival. As suggested in old stories about ‘destined love’, it can lead to all sorts of fatal and desperate enterprises. At the same time it exalts the people in the stories above mere needs, broadening the horizon by giving the mind wings of unconditional reassurance. This is quite dangerous I would say, so romantic love is certainly not simply a process of preparing for the future, at least not when future means survival and procreation. Ideally I would say it makes possible the development of ideas which are not rooted in necessity, but in pure will (“free” will, will freed from need).
From this could follow -in an attempt to practicality - that to find such a true love, the will has to be working independently somewhat. You can’t fall in love when the mind is asleep. To stay awake, the mind has to solve problems. An active culture will produce more romances than a submissive one.
if one says that evolution leads to belief in higher power then one must say that existence leads to belief in higher power- if existence leads to belief in higher power then one must say that existence is belief in higher power- for if existence leads to belief in higher power it means that belief in higher power was there from the beginning which means existence itself is belief in higher power. love is the same as existence therefore love equals belief in higher power
Many of us love family, country and god and yet hate spics, nigers, chinks, beaners, crackers, etc. We confuse survival mode as love. These are senses of security. We love becuase we feel safe.
Nobody can never really really know you. Only you can ever really know you. If someone says that they know you - they don’t. They can not know you. But they can have an image of you. That image is as close as they can get to know you. And if they say they love you -That means that they are in love with an image that they’ve create.
Either we love everything and everbody all the time and everywheres or we live in fear.
I have long believed that what is called ‘romantic love’ is not a form of love at all, but more of a kind of mating instinct, albeit a very complicated one since we are talking about humans.
Maybe I don’t understand what you are getting at. A requirement of evolution is existence. A living organism can’t evolve if if does exist. Evolution is not existence. Evolution and survival of the fittest are related but not necessarily the same thing. Love, like other human emotions, is an evolved result of something more primal. Because it is difficult to understand, it is often looked at as divine and that has often been the case to explain things we do not yet understand.
i added “not” to the last statement (because i think thats what you meant) this is my point- you speak of evolution as if it is a result of the species- that it takes place after a species- but in order for a species to come about in the first place it needed to evolve- evoluton does not come after a species- it is not a result…existence itself must exist- existing means movement- in this world when we have movement we have evolution- so as i said evolution is the same as existence…in fact everything in existence is existence because there is no escape from existence unless you do not exist therefore existence is circular which means there is no escape…if you show me something i will say that it is existence and that it came from existence if you describe the process of evolution you are describing the process of existence
