How can this important subject be approached using skepticism?
Like belief in god, many people believe that it exists (at least for a time).
Some people continue to believe in it even there is evidence to the contrary (at least in their personal experience) or no evidence at all.
Others want to believe in it, but cannot.
Whilst a further group one believed in it, but are now rather resolute that it never existed.
And then there are a sad bunch who have never believed in it at all.
So, can a skeptic believe in the existence of love?
Brownie points for the best answer deploying conventional skeptical analysis...
Best wishes, David
Last edited by Jack of Kent; 23rd July 2008 at 08:35 PM.
Google Bonding and/or attachment- loads of stuff there from a developmental psychology perspective (and a horribly and tragically recurring theme in social-workers' court reports).
Apart from that...love is probably best left to advertisers, poets and counsellors at STD clinics...
"Expect the Inquisition..."
I'm afraid this is a no brainer. All one has to do is consider the selfless acts of parenting, the irrational 'love' of nation or god, to see that collating data on the existence of love is easy.
The problems come with precise definitions
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. Voltaire
Biology, ideology, or fanaticism can explain each one of these respectively (or perhaps all of them!).Originally Posted by Pebble
I'm afraid this is a no brainer. All one has to do is consider the selfless acts of parenting, the irrational 'love' of nation or god, to see that collating data on the existence of love is easy.
The problems come with precise definitions
But adopting your argument, collating evidence of the "irrational" belief in god is easy; doesn't mean he exists. Surely, ditto love?
A fascinating question - thank you for posing it, David.
Looking at the question from a skeptical/rationalist perspective, and as you mention in your above post, much of what we commonly refer to as 'love' can be readily explained in Darwinist and/or sociological terms.
My dictionary offers the definition "warm affection, benevolence, sexual passion". Clearly the first and third are immediately explicable in terms of the propagation of the species, and the protection of one's partner and offspring. Perhaps the real test lies more in the second definition - 'benevolence' and particularly, I would suggest, in the area of altruism. Perhaps we could define altruism as 'love for one's fellow wo/man'.
This might be where we test the proposition best. There are Darwinist arguments in favour of altruism - it increases one's status within a social group, it leads to reciprocation etc. Perhaps we need something of a test case here - an example of altruistic behaviour which does not offer any possible advantage whatsoever to the person displaying that 'love', that person's family or so on. Would that, I wonder, be an empirical demonstration of 'love'?
These are just initial thoughts - I'm sure that this will be a fascinating discussion, and I look forward to seeing how it develops.
Easy peasy. As long as we don't try to explain it away.So, can a skeptic believe in the existence of love?
See above.Brownie points for the best answer deploying conventional skeptical analysis...
The style as we like is the humdrum.
To me, love is an abstract thing, asking to prove or disprove it is kind of missing the point of what it is, being an abstract concept its nature is relative, it only really exists to the people who believe in it.
A bit like god as you say.
Last edited by VoodooJoe; 24th July 2008 at 12:20 AM.
Love is a chemical biological imperative, to ensure procreation and the extended protection of items/people/land.
However, you wont see this on a valentines day card
De omnibus dubitandum
Much like “god”, in order to determine its existence or otherwise, love must first be coherently defined.
I believe that it is possible to do this with love, I have yet to see a coherent definition of “god”.
Perhaps the question you should be asking is “what is love?” , but only if you are an early 90’s eurodance act.
No. Collating the evidence for the irrational belief in god doesn't demonstrate the existence of god, but it does demonstrate the existence of a *belief* in god.
In the case of love, there is no difference between the belief and the fact. If you sincerely believe you are in love, then you are.
That's a good point.
However, if (say) Mercutio was a "Love Skeptic", then Romeo's belief that he was in love would not be enough to convince Mercutio that love existed.
So, even if you sincerely believe you are in love, is there any reason for anyone else to believe it exists?
Best wishes, David
I think the first problem is that 'love' is such a nebulous term. Before you can really attempt to analyse it, you have to define your terms.
The speed of light, expressed in FFF Units, is 1.8 mega-furlongs per micro-fortnight, or approximately 1.8 terafurlongs per fortnight.
Gravity makes the heart grow heavier.
Any use of this product, in any manner whatsoever, will increase the amount of disorder in the universe. Although no liability is implied herein, the consumer is warned that this process will lead to the heat death of the universe.
There are a couple of factors here.
Some claims require more evidence to demonstrate them than others. If you told me you had a dog, I'd likely accept that at face value. I know dogs exist, I know people keep them as pets. It's not unreasonable to think you could have a dog.
If you told me you had a unicorn, on the other hand, I'm likely not to accept that claim at face value. We don't know unicorns exist, there are no reliable, recorded instances of them being kept as pets. I'd want to see your unicorn before I believed you owned one.
Unlike the existence of god, belief in the existence of love doesn't require the acceptence of any supernatural claim. No laws of physics are violated, no magic is invoked. I don't think anyone is arguing that 'love' is anything more than a natural process. So just like the evidence bar for a pet dog is lower than that for a pet unicorn - so the evidence bar for love is much lower than it would be for a god.
Secondly, although we cannot see love we can see its effects. A man buys a woman flowers, a mother cares for a child, people will share their belongings with one particular person over all other people they know and care about. People become depressed when a loved one is absent or taken from them.
Even physical effects - like alterations in brain response when that person is present, changes in pulse rate, someone becoming visibly more cheerful when someone they love is present, etc.
It is possible that these outward effects are caused by something else - the person could be deliberately faking it, for example. But generally speaking, when someone is visibly displays the outward signs of love, I don't see any reason to refuse to accept their claim that they are in love.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc.
The reductionist point of view may be that love is nothing more than a temporary madness caused by some chemical trickery in the brain.
Surely we agree that people fall into love and love one another and so the label must attach to something, but the love of poetry and magic is replaced by a mechanistic description. It is this romantic view of love that the love skeptic denies.
The question is whether he (or she) is right to do so.
This is one of my favourite paintings.
Or at least it it's a representation of it. An image of the original was broken down into 362 rows of 512 individual dots. For each dot a.k.a picture element a.k.a pixel, a number is stored representing the intensities of red, green and blue lights needed to recreate the original colour. This string of numbers is compressed for easier storage and transmission, then recreated for the purposes of display.
What does this string of numbers tell us about the painting. Certainly enough to create a reasonable facsimile and more detailed facsimiles are possible by applying the same method using more dots and more precise numbers in each pixel to represent a more subtle indication of colour.
Similarly the actual painting itself could be reproduced by a competent artist reproducing Turner's brush strokes applying the oil paints to the canvas. But does this ability tell us everything there is to know about the painting.
What does it tell us of the masterful composition that draws the eye deeper within the maelstrom? What does it tell us about Turner's ability to capture the weight and motion of the water or the light coming from beneath the surface. Can it assign a number to the beauty of the painting?
Whilst reductionism can be useful for certain purposes it shouldn't claim to fully describe all aspects.
The level to which reductionism is usefully applied to love is even less. We cannot for example recreate the experience of Victoria's Love for Albert. I cannot fully describe to you the experience of my first love in any way that would allow you create anything approaching an accurate facsimile . That such reductionism can tell us something about love, the areas of the brain that are active or the chemicals in play, is admirable and worthy but to suggest that this tells us everything about love, that love is nothing more than this, is remarkably short sighted.
Hi Mike
Just a further thought on your proposition.
Does it really follow? Surely one can be in love without realising it consciously?
Best wishes, David
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