Seriously, so you want to be in love again...

[Zerpersande]

I've shown why that isn't the case, and never has been.

Others would disagree. Want more, do it for yourself.
What you have is an opinion. Nothing to de-bunk.

Love – what is it good for? A lot, says evolutionary psychology. - UT News

People in all cultures around the world glorify love, particularly romantic love. It is enshrined as the cornerstone of a happy mating relationship, but why?

news.utexas.edu

Evolutionary Theory of Love Concept & Examples | What is the Psychology of Love? - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

Learn about the psychology of love and love evolution. Understand the scientific definition of love and the evolutionary theory of love concept...

study.com

 

[Zerpersande]

Are you confusing something that isn’t a result of evolution with something that IS?

The origin and evolution of love

The evolution of a mother’s bond with her offspring marked a major change in the story of life.

theconversation.com

Are you confusing the sex drive with falling in love?

 

[rruff]

A believer that "everything is evolution" will of course be of the opinion that... falling in love is an evolutionary adaptation... just like everything else.

I've already shown that their "reasons" are baseless. They don't feel it's necessary to have a good argument, because they are preaching to the choir.

 

[rruff]

Are you confusing something that isn’t a result of evolution with something that IS?

Sex is certainly reinforced by evolution, and so is a mother's love for her children. Those are obvious. Falling in love between a man and woman; that's the one that is contrary to human evolution.

 

[Zerpersande]

Sex is certainly reinforced by evolution, and so is a mother's love for her children. Those are obvious. Falling in love between a man and woman; that's the one that is contrary to human evolution.

Myself and every person that wrote those articles are just wrong. Gotcha’. Psychological evolution is a part of ‘standard‘ evolution. You might disagree if you are are of the opinion that Woo-Woo is real, that there is a ‘deeper, separate‘ aspect to life.
Not being a woman I can’t speak to what one’s love for children is like. I can say that I was startled by the intensity of the emotion I felt upon the birth of my daughters. You seem to agree that such is evolutionary in nature. (I’ve heard that human babies are so cute because that prevents the parents from eating them?) Then WHY do you find it such a stretch that male/female (female/female, male/male) love is identical in origin? THAT has to be a special case? Because of YOUR analysis of the situation?

 

[rruff]

Myself and every person that wrote those articles are just wrong. Gotcha’. Psychological evolution is a part of ‘standard‘ evolution. You might disagree if you are are of the opinion that Woo-Woo is real, that there is a ‘deeper, separate‘ aspect to life.
Not being a woman I can’t speak to what one’s love for children is like. I can say that I was startled by the intensity of the emotion I felt upon the birth of my daughters. You seem to agree that such is evolutionary in nature. (I’ve heard that human babies are so cute because that prevents the parents from eating them?) Then WHY do you find it such a stretch that male/female (female/female, male/male) love is identical in origin? THAT has to be a special case? Because of YOUR analysis of the situation?

Yourself and the authors of the articles you've linked don't have a rational logical argument, that I've seen... you just take it for granted like a religious belief.

They may very well be similar in origin, but love of your children is highly reinforced by evolution, while partner-"falling in love" is detrimental. Until recent times and for many millenia, arranged marriages for life were the norm... in communities large and small. People generally weren't falling in love with their spouses, and falling in love with someone who isn't your spouse could get you killed or ostracized. Then there were the frequent rape, kill, pillage, and burn campaigns where successful male warriors would spread their DNA far and wide, monopolizing the women and eliminating their competition. No falling in love happening then either.

You seem to be stuck in the fallacy that the only alternative to "everything is evolution" is "woo-woo". The truth is that we don't know what that "other thing" might be. That's science.

Materialism according to Oxford: "The doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications. The doctrine that consciousness and will are wholly due to material agency."

I guess it is a religion...

 

[Zerpersande]

Materialism according to Oxford: "The doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications. The doctrine that consciousness and will are wholly due to material agency."

I guess it is a religion...

The difference between materialism and a religion? Materialism is based on objective reality and religion is based upon belief without facts/evidence. I would disagree somewhat with the quoted definition (I’m supposing you used copy/paste after checking the actual definition) is that materialism will readily accept a phenomena previously thought to be non material based (Woo-Woo) if evidence is provided. Religious people stick to their beliefs in the face of almost any evidence to the contrary. Dogma. just definitions though, we can’t discuss religion. And ‘true love’ is NOT religion.

Live between a woman and man can easily be demonstrated to be evolutionarily advantageous. As I have said before, that crap wears off and the participants are free to spread their genetic material elsewhere. But while in effect offspring are more likely to be kept (marginally??) in better condition. This strong attraction to a person has an additional evolutionary upside in that when it does wear off, and a parting of ways ensues, rebound sex gets to jump into the game. i guess it could be possible for the rejected party to become so desolate that they forego sex/relationships and simply spend the rest of their life both lamenting and romanticizing true love.

 

[rruff]

The difference between materialism and a religion? Materialism is based on objective reality and religion is based upon belief without facts/evidence.

Materialism is a doctrine, like religion. It isn't proven and is in fact unprovable. Continuing to believe in it when there is evidence to the contrary, isn't objective or scientific. Many things can be explained by consistent relationships of matter and energy and evolution... but many cannot. It would be foolish to shoehorn everything into that box. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Live between a woman and man can easily be demonstrated to be evolutionarily advantageous. As I have said before, that crap wears off and the participants are free to spread their genetic material elsewhere.

That has never been true in history. It isn't even that common now. People don't fall in love, have a baby, then go spread their genetic material elsewhere. People have always predominately lived in tribes and communities with strict codes of behavior, and life-long arranged marriages as the norm. Disparate societies all over the planet figured this out! Thousands of opportunities for evolutionary experimentation, and they hit on the same formula for survival and success with little variation.

But while in effect offspring are more likely to be kept (marginally??) in better condition.

Parents splitting up is devastating to the kids; it also causes chaos in the community. Remember that in most of human history we lived in fairly small tribes. Issues needed to be resolved; you couldn't just leave... since there was nowhere to go. The tribe was much more than your family, it was your identity. Our present day freedom in this regard was not the norm. Keeping order, peace, happiness, etc in the community was vital to survival.

 

[Zerpersande]

Materialism is a doctrine, like religion.

Materialism is rather the approach of science. Prove it. Can you see it? Can you detect it with an instrument? Often it can be predicted but only found at a later date. Is it repeatable? Is there a consensus of peers?

People don't fall in love, have a baby, then go spread their genetic material elsewhere.

This happens extremely frequently. Colloquially called ‘cheating’. Surnames can’t be reliably traced through Y-chromosomes because the baby can be given a name but the chromosome doesn’t lie. Somewhere around 50% of marriages end in divorce. And you can’t honestly say that there aren’t many more that would like to do so but stay for monetary, or other reasons.

Parents splitting up is devastating to the kids; it also causes chaos in the community.

Being ’devastated’ by breakups is the modern consequence of divorce. Let moms try to protect and provide for the baby at the same time and the rate of morbidity will increase.

 

[Zerpersande]

Materialism is a doctrine, like religion.

Just cut to the chase then…
WHERE did you special sort of love ‘come from’?

 

[rruff]

Just cut to the chase then…
WHERE did you special sort of love ‘come from’?

I don't know. Neither does anyone else.

Materialism is rather the approach of science. Prove it. Can you see it? Can you detect it with an instrument? Often it can be predicted but only found at a later date. Is it repeatable? Is there a consensus of peers?

The dogma is the belief that if something doesn't meet all these criteria, then it doesn't exist. That is obviously an extreme and unverifiable position... ie dogma/belief.

Evolution is particularly specious in this regard with the assumption that nothing but random mutations could be responsible for species diversity. Again it's a materialist dogma that doesn't fit the data. Recently we've discovered that gene expression is actually altered by the environment to a large degree, something that would have been obvious much earlier except that it interfered with existing evolutionary dogma.

Similarly, we don't know what consciousness is at all, and assuming that is a phenomena of matter isn't getting us anywhere.

Also, regarding cheating, just try getting away with that when your whole world consists of 100 people who live right next to each other and do everything together!

 

[Zerpersande]

I don't know. Neither does anyone else.

You don’t know, but reject explanations of those that study such phenomena.

O…k…a…y………

Similarly, we don't know what consciousness is at all, and assuming that is a phenomena of matter isn't getting us anywhere.

There are questions as to whether or not, or to what degree, other animals experience such. Note that ‘other animals’ is significant because hunans are just another animal. Some animals appear to experience life-long ‘falling in love’. It’s known as monogamy. Others, such as humans, are not biologically monogamous. Humans are considered to exhibit monogamy from a social standpoint.

Also, regarding cheating, just try getting away with that when your whole world consists of 100 people who live right next to each other and do everything together!

Those small groups had that problem. The ancient goat herders knew that such cases existed. Made rules about it that involved throwing stones at the violators until dead. Very enlightened group of humans. And you would assume that this phenoma of cheating didn’t just suddenly ’happen’ at that point in time. This had been going on for a while. The earliest marriages can be dated to about 4000 years ago, (when the goat herders started their book) so humans got along just fine for a LONG time without marriages. It’s thought that ‘arranged marriages’ existed about 10 times longer than the first recorded one. But these weren’t about ’love’, much less the “special sort‘ you believe in.

Your special version of love, fallingnin love, isn’t something new. No reason to think that. And in modern times the resukting marriage fails and ends in divorce roughly 50% of the time. And just that the dact that I know of, or have known of, a lot of people that were miserable in their marriages and yet did not divorce leads me to think that the percent of divorces, which are failures of ’love falling’, should be higher. 7-year itch, cheating, divorces, all indicate that your phenomena, the one you can’t explain where it come from, is just another manifestation of life trying to continue exist.

 

[Zerpersande]

I don't kno….(where it came from)

BUT YOU KNOW IT CAN’T BE A RESULT OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD WE LIVE IN!

Maybe it’s just something the creator of of our simulation threw in to screw with us?

Regardless, I have developed an interest in slingshots. So I’m finished with you.

 

[rruff]

You don’t know, but reject explanations of those that study such phenomena.

Those aren't "explanations" just parroting of beliefs.

Some animals appear to experience life-long ‘falling in love’. It’s known as monogamy. Others, such as humans, are not biologically monogamous. Humans are considered to exhibit monogamy from a social standpoint.

It's hard to tell what an animal that is vastly different than us is experiencing. They may not feel love similar to us, but rather follow programming with little emotional engagement. Humans have a much freer range of expression than most animals. We aren't really "biological" anything that you can pin down when it comes to behavior. Or maybe the programming ends up having a lot of diversity, depending on circumstance as well as conditioning.

I've been monogamous my whole life... but with several different women... 3 to 6 year relationships, with one 20 year. It isn't because of social conditioning or lack of opportunity. I wouldn't cheat even if I was certain I wouldn't be caught, nor if my partner was ok with it. I will however fall in love with other women while I'm in a relationship, but I won't act on it. IME the chemical rush of falling in love is quite short lived, way less than 7 years... usually less than 1! After that you need to find other reasons to be together and love each other... or not. I don't believe it's necessary for that feeling to fade, but it's very uncommon for it too last.

The earliest marriages can be dated to about 4000 years ago, (when the goat herders started their book) so humans got along just fine for a LONG time without marriages. It’s thought that ‘arranged marriages’ existed about 10 times longer than the first recorded one. But these weren’t about ’love’, much less the “special sort‘ you believe in.

Marriages were mostly likely arranged for as long as they've existed... and way before written history. I'm confused about the "4000 years ago" vs "10 times longer" statements.

Your special version of love, falling in love, isn’t something new. No reason to think that. And in modern times the resulting marriage fails and ends in divorce roughly 50% of the time. And just that the dact that I know of, or have known of, a lot of people that were miserable in their marriages and yet did not divorce leads me to think that the percent of divorces, which are failures of ’love falling’, should be higher.

I never said it was new, rather it's probably been a thing for 100,000 years or more.

You are making a very good case for why falling in love has been rightly seen as a poor prelude to a life long marriage... and why it has been discouraged for many millenia. Cultural systems that are obviously "winning" the contest of evolutionary pressures, have been fighting against this forever! It's really detrimental where evolution is concerned... pointless... like a lot of things in the world that nevertheless exist and persist.

 

[RonDean]

I think a lot of the talk here about sex misses the point. Hey, I've got nothing against sex, but that is not the same thing as companionship, which is what I think this thread was originally asking about. I've had sufficient of both to know that although having both together is nice, it's certainly not required.

Just this week, the Surgeon General came out with a warning about loneliness being bad for our health and our longevity. And. screen time is not the same thing nor does it accomplish everything that actually being together accomplishes. We are all different and maybe some of you are fine with living in a tin box in the desert by yourself and never being lonely. I think I am as self-sufficient as anyone, but I'll also admit that sometimes I get lonely and would like to hear someone else talk and maybe feel a touch from another person. Not so much that I will spend my time with just anyone. But, with the right person? Sure.