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On July 02 2013 10:21 Thereisnosaurus wrote:Let's pick a biased sample of people who have shown a tendency to commit to a relationship to demonstrate that, when exposed to a hormone that would make them sexually receptive, they will drop all their social conditioning and dive upon the nearest cute girl. Oh, huh, it didn't happen... Guess this hormone must mind control people into committed relationships into an opposite effect to its normal one by itself. Have not psychologists heard of occam's razor? does it not make more sense that this hormone would trigger effects that in a person without commitments would make them receptive, but in a person with commitments would make them more wary? Was this accounted for? Twenty bucks on no... You have to be stupidly careful about trusting studies like these. They're mostly scientific wish fulfillment, not strong evidence for what the researchers are suggesting they might explain.
Maybe you should look at the study. I saw no such problems in it. It more seems like you are projecting issues into it that are not there.
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Many of the smartest and greatest people in history was uninterested in love. I fully believe there is something there.
Love is a biological way for humans to reproduce and take care of their family. It's still impossible for most of us to resist, even if we know this fact. Its firmly rooted into our brains.
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On July 02 2013 10:29 MountainDewJunkie wrote:
Where the hell do these topics keep coming from?
my theory is that every quarter a new generation of TL (probably the entire internet, but TL is my sample) enters philosophy 101 and wants to talk up and show off their newfound wisdom. this is followed by them making a thread about something they talked about in class.
TL;DR: Dunning–Kruger effect
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You believe there's something so inherently flawed to all "arbitrary human constructs" that we must attempt to abandon them for the sake of abandoning them?
I don't find the "arbitrarity" of a construct to be some sort of fundamental error. I can't imagine what sort of world you imagine living in where we abandon all "arbitrary human constructs." Perhaps it would be a better plan for you to lay out your arbitrary viewpoint on the arbitrary specifics of the arbitrary concept of love and then we can arbitrarily determine whether we'll arbitrarily abandon it or not. I think that's usually how the world functions. Of course though it only functions that way arbitrarily so who am I to arbitrarily tell you to follow societies arbitrarily chosen means of persuasion? Perhaps your arbitrarily chosen method is arbitrarily better.
Have a nice day (this is merely an arbitrarily chosen closing).
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Well with all this hostility we've probably made OP feel like shit. Congratulations!
In response to the OP all I have to say is that there isn't really a greater purpose or anything at all to accomplish as a race in this universe and all we can do is have fun with what we have in our infinitesimally short and meaningless lives. Love, religion, science, ect. none of it is a distraction from any true purpose because there isn't one. These things are all we'll ever have and will only matter as much as we want them to.
On the other side of the coin, we can make them mean everything to us and pursue them for our whole lives. When it works out it is a truly beautiful thing and the people that are successful in their pursuit are the ones that live life to the fullest and are the ones that are truly happy. A select few get to be remembered for their lives and accomplishments for as long as humanity considers them relevant. When it comes down to it that's the single greatest thing anyone can ever do and the closest we'll ever come to having a true goal in life.
TLDR
+ Show Spoiler +like it or not having fun is the meaning of existence 
EDIT: This guy is pretty much right despite his annoying, excessive, and sarcastic use of the word arbitrary.
You believe there's something so inherently flawed to all "arbitrary human constructs" that we must attempt to abandon them for the sake of abandoning them?
I don't find the "arbitrarity" of a construct to be some sort of fundamental error. I can't imagine what sort of world you imagine living in where we abandon all "arbitrary human constructs." Perhaps it would be a better plan for you to lay out your arbitrary viewpoint on the arbitrary specifics of the arbitrary concept of love and then we can arbitrarily determine whether we'll arbitrarily abandon it or not. I think that's usually how the world functions. Of course though it only functions that way arbitrarily so who am I to arbitrarily tell you to follow societies arbitrarily chosen means of persuasion? Perhaps your arbitrarily chosen method is arbitrarily better.
Have a nice day (this is merely an arbitrarily chosen closing).
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i think we have annoyingly steered off of the subject of religion. God is love. Ever heard of the expression?
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"Trust, companionship, friendship, communication" are mere socially reinforced arbitrary constructs as well. So are our notions of good and evil, right and wrong. To even assert that one outcome is preferable to another (as this thread does) is to fall back upon on the arbitrarily constructed notion of good. Hopefully the irony is apparent.
Any human invention, whether an abstract idea such as god/love or a social convention like LTRs, should definitely be examined from time to time to see whether it still serves a useful function. However, before haphazardly tossing aside thousand year old traditions we should probably require a better argument than "love = monogamy = bad bro, cause yknow like, it just IS."
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On July 02 2013 14:10 Zahir wrote:
"Trust, companionship, friendship, communication" are mere socially reinforced arbitrary constructs as well. So are our notions of good and evil, right and wrong. To even assert that one outcome is preferable to another (as this thread does) is to fall back upon on the arbitrarily constructed notion of good. Hopefully the irony is apparent.
Any human invention, whether an abstract idea such as god/love or a social convention like LTRs, should definitely be examined from time to time to see whether it still serves a useful function. However, before haphazardly tossing aside thousand year old traditions we should probably require a better argument than "love = monogamy = bad bro, cause yknow like, it just IS."
Good and evil are pretty close to arbitrary constructs--although evolution suggests it came about in order to create a collective/societal mindset, but lets pretend scientists are stupid for the same of your argument.
Good/Evil being right or wrong could possibly be an arbitrary construct; being that a moral relativist sees all things as merely a sliding scale of comparative qualitative value judgements.
But why would you say that Love/God is an abstract idea?
People feel attachments to each other. These attachments are linked to chemical and hormonal processes in the human body--all of them measurable to a degree.
Religion might hinge on faulty evidence--but people believe the works are recordings of empirical data. It's only "abstract" to people who don't accept the writings as good evidence. But whether one thinks the testimonies of the bible are accurate or inaccurate, it's still a construct that is accepted or rejected based on evidence.
Be that as in may--I don't think the OP actually wanted to discuss "Arbitrary Constructs" as much as he wanted to discuss "science" vs "non-science" while assuming that emotions = non-science.
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Fair enough, but I still don't think there's a way to make arguments about whether we "should" do away with the notion of love, without making a very unscientific leap in judgement. There's no such thing as a scientific way of life, or a relationship that falls in line with scientific beliefs, or whatever. TED philosophy series hogwash aside.
I dunno man, it feels obvious to me that science and morality have nothing to do with one another. Two completely separate fields. Yet every so often we get one of these threads where the OP is all "Hey guys i woke up with this great idea, lets take all of philosophy, culture and tradition and replace it with science = automatic utopia!!!!!!!" I guess because being 'in favor' of science is popular on the internet...
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I guess he takes it on faith that knowledge is destined to free us all from the boogeyman of social constructs. Like we're destined to keep on becoming more intelligent and reject false ideas along the way. That none of them can stand in the face of this inevitable progress! The same people that believe in something supernatural, that have emotions, that have ambitions ... they're part of this collective intelligence. As much as you have conviction in the outdating of everything you call a social construct, I don't think everyone will sign on to your technocracy saying which is a construct and which is valuable.
I do think you have more faith than some professedly religious people I've met. I mean it's not in something invisible from another planet, but you're taking quite a few leaps here.
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On July 02 2013 11:23 Maxd11 wrote:
Well with all this hostility we've probably made OP feel like shit. Congratulations!
Thats what you get for making these quallity threads.
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Religion is not analogous to love. It's analogous to a blow-up doll.
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I do not understand your premise that social constructs are arbitrary. They are the result of thousands of years of evolution. How is that arbitrary?
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Love is not a social construct. Marriage, monogamy and family are social constructs. The feelings of love that you feel when you see a newborn child or a puppy are not learned - they are instinctive. By the same token, a dog's love for its master arises instinctually. A dog is not bound by the rules or constraints of human society. Yet it exhibits similar emotions as a human being, indicating that the act of loving is not a learned one, and has has evolutionary roots.
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our chemistry and electricity understand righteousness. (or, a material based righteousness depending on what side you're on).
righteousness + unknown/inexplicable created faith; add to that reason and you have religion.
faith will always exist, religion will just change it's form with time.
oh, and stop calling it love, it's bonding; love sounds to pompous, as if it has a mind of it's own.
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On a side note, religion has other purposes which are still relevant even to this day aside from the aspect of -"adequately explain natural and social phenomena"-, which was never really the point of religion to begin with anyways, nor should it have been.
Related to what you're asking about though, the "just-world hypothesis" is probably bigger and more widespread than either religion or love.
However, I'd be reluctant to call these human constructs "arbitrary".
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Hold on a second: Are we trying to figure out if love is real or necessary?
This is the best and most insane thread ever.
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On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote:
The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
Love is not an arbitrary human concept or social construct though.
Love does not come from the ratio, it is a feeling and not an idea.
Animals, at least some of the mamals, do have love as well. There are manny anecdotical storys about this.
You can not compare it to religion imo (wich indeed is a construct of the brain), animals do not have religions.
Love and religion come from 2 different parts of the brain, religion comes from the neo cortex and love comes from the limbic system.
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On July 02 2013 17:40 Rassy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote:
The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs? Love is not an arbitrary human concept or social construct though. Love does not come from the ratio, it is a feeling and not an idea. Animals, at least some of the mamals, do have love as well. There are manny anecdotical storys about this. You can not compare it to religion imo (wich indeed is a construct of the brain), animals do not have religions. Love and religion come from 2 different parts of the brain, religion comes from the neo cortex and love comes from the limbic system.
He's probably referring to the abstract concept of "true love" or "one true love", which is in fact an idea that has been popularly portrayed in all sorts of film, television, and literature for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
This sort of love is most likely a human construct just like religion.
I don't really have any clue what you mean when you say "religion comes from X part of the brain and love from Y". That's an extremely vague statement and nonsensical in its current form.
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Shocking abuse of the term "arbitray" imo.
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EPT
