Why did love evolve in human beings, (an obvious question to answer perhaps?)?
- Thread starter grahamg
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Nathan
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- High Desert- Calif.
Agreed, somehow love is ingrained in the human psyche so that we don't murder our mate and eat the babies.
grahamg
Old codger
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You make very good points, though in a sense help to make my point too, that many of us, (I'd say a great many of us), only choose to have children with someone we believe we loved, and hopefully loved us at the time. Those who dont, (or else just are "choosing not to be careful"), are a different matter, but I agree of evolutionary significance too.
grahamg
Old codger
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- South of Manchester, UK
Rather stark choices you keep presenting, (couldn't it all be summed up by saying something deep in our psyche helped make us instinctively choose the partners we did, who at least at the time made us feel something special and worth pursuing?).
JaniceM
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- still lost between two shores..
JaniceM
Well-known Member
- Location
- still lost between two shores..
I'll admit I don't know the answer.. but this ^ does make sense.
grahamg
Old codger
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- South of Manchester, UK
They say too that there are very strong evolutionary reasons why human beings look outside their 'pack', (/family), and thereby avoid the deleterious effects of inbreeding etc.
JaniceM
Well-known Member
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- still lost between two shores..
Except in some parts of the South, and the Royals..
(I do apologize if that offended anyone..)
Lewkat
Senior Member
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- New Jersey, USA
I have yet to hear a definitive definition of "love."
JaniceM
Well-known Member
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- still lost between two shores..
Lewkat
Senior Member
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- New Jersey, USA
Nathan
SF VIP
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- High Desert- Calif.
Stark perhaps, but essentially true. Love doesn't make rational decisions, but it does bring meaning and worth from beyond the observable realm.
Gaer
"Angel whisperer"
- Location
- New Mexico U.S.A.
You are all speaking of propagation, not of love.
Look inward to find unending, eternal love.
Or, look to the heavens to experience love,
joyousness and blissfulness beyond comprehension.
Look inward to find unending, eternal love.
Or, look to the heavens to experience love,
joyousness and blissfulness beyond comprehension.
Warrigal
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- Sydney, Australia
I think Graham is talking about the Eros form of love, not love as Agape.
Both would have some impact on evolution over time.
Both would have some impact on evolution over time.
grahamg
Old codger
- Location
- South of Manchester, UK
And it didnt always work out for the royals I believe, (Queen Victoria carrying the recessive gene for haemaphilia I beleve being one example, leading to all kinds of trouble).
grahamg
Old codger
- Location
- South of Manchester, UK
Not sure which kind of love I was thinking of really, (I've now got to check out the meanings of the two types you've listed I hope you realise!
).Here is something else to bear in mind now:
grahamg
Old codger
- Location
- South of Manchester, UK
I agree, though wouldn't it be great if there was something in this world where we never do get such a definition, and this may be it?
Warrigal
SF VIP
- Location
- Sydney, Australia
Graham, in English we tend to use just one noun - 'love' - but the Greeks have seven different words meaning different kinds of love.Not sure which kind of love I was thinking of really, (I've now got to check out the meanings of the two types you've listed I hope you realise!
Here is something else to bear in mind now:
View attachment 263524
The 7 Greek words for different types of love
- 1. Eros: romantic, passionate love Eros is passion, lust, pleasure. ...
- 2. Philia: intimate, authentic friendship Philia is characterized by intimacy, knowing, and soul-to-soul bonds. ...
- 3. Erotoropia or ludus: playful, flirtatious love ...
- 4. Storge: unconditional, familial love ...
- 5. Philautia: compassionate self-love ...
- 6. Pragma: committed, companionate love ...
- 7. Agápe: empathetic, universal love ...
7 Greek Words for Love: Which Have You Experienced? | Well+Good (wellandgood.com)
grahamg
Old codger
- Location
- South of Manchester, UK
Perhaps, if you can interpret this, I am thinking of the kind of love folks take a very long time to recover from if things go wrong.
I mean something like a friend of mine whose husband had cheated behind her back for over half their marriage, then left her for this other woman, and two or three years later she would still tell him she loved him if he rang to arrange to pick up their child, (even I wasn't that smitten!
).Aren't cats arrogant? They certainly treat humans with contempt.Is being arrogant a unique human characteristic then, is a question worth pondering(?).
Warrigal
SF VIP
- Location
- Sydney, Australia
Can't help you with that one. She sounds a tad deluded to me.Perhaps, if you can interpret this, I am thinking of the kind of love folks take a very long time to recover from if things go wrong.
I mean something like a friend of mine whose husband had cheated behind her back for over half their marriage, then left her for this other woman, and two or three years later she would still tell him she loved him if he rang to arrange to pick up their child, (even I wasn't that smitten!
My reaction would have been anger. White hot anger, but that fades fairly quickly.
grahamg
Old codger
- Location
- South of Manchester, UK
I think it would be fair to say her love for her husband long after he'd gone did probably border on insanity, but that's only a layman's view, and generally she's a happy and positive person, (maybe a bit soft!
).Changing the subject I've just checked out what the Dalia Lama has to say about types of love between men and women and found some comments, but will have to come back to you when I've understood them a little better.
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grahamg
Old codger
- Location
- South of Manchester, UK
I listened to a BBC radio show called "Crowd Science" where members of the public write in with questions, and then experts are asked to try to come up with some answers.
Last night the question sent in by a French lady called "Ondine" was "Why did human beings develop the feeling of jealousy during evolution"?
There is a link with this question and the one I've asked on this thread obviously, as both involve aspects of relationships.
It occurred to me this question could be worth considering alongside this discussion. I cant remember all the input covered in the show, though a Swedish study at the Karolinska Institute involved about a thousand people responding to a survey suggested out of them about 25% recognised their feeling jealous at times, and it interfering in some way in their lives.
People from countries where polygamous marriages are permitted were interviewed and had a different take on things, and the basic argument in that those who feel exclusive relationships are fundamental were most prone to feeling jealous, (if that isn't too obvious?).
Last night the question sent in by a French lady called "Ondine" was "Why did human beings develop the feeling of jealousy during evolution"?
There is a link with this question and the one I've asked on this thread obviously, as both involve aspects of relationships.
It occurred to me this question could be worth considering alongside this discussion. I cant remember all the input covered in the show, though a Swedish study at the Karolinska Institute involved about a thousand people responding to a survey suggested out of them about 25% recognised their feeling jealous at times, and it interfering in some way in their lives.
People from countries where polygamous marriages are permitted were interviewed and had a different take on things, and the basic argument in that those who feel exclusive relationships are fundamental were most prone to feeling jealous, (if that isn't too obvious?).
grahamg
Old codger
- Location
- South of Manchester, UK
I'll slot this post in here, (though it relates to a BBC radio show concerning parenting, or "intensive parenting" as it is apparently called nowadays in many western societies):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001h422
More from the same man here:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/jun/03/socialsciences.highereducation
Quote:
"...., as far as we were concerned, children must be free to find themselves, to make their own choices. And if this meant they dropped out and ended up as gardeners or itinerant hippies, then so be it. The only ambition I could ever remember entertaining for him had been the vague hope that in one way or another he might continue the revolt against routine, ritual and conformity. How he did that, though, was entirely up to him. 'I suppose you know better,' I said. 'You presumably know exactly what your own children are for?'
I was expecting a polemic but what I got was caution and uncertainty. He explained that, like many other people, he'd had his children more from an act of contrived carelessness than from a deeply considered decision. But having been to six primary schools and said hello and goodbye to a series of parental partners, he was determined to provide his two boys with one home, one family and one school. That, at least, was the aim but too often it felt like an unending assault course.
'The other day,' he told me, 'I had dinner with the parents of older children. I shared some of my problems with them - the exhaustions, the difficulty of balancing work and home, the impossibility of fighting the tide of computer games and gangsta rap. They were far from comforting. "You think that's bad," said one of them. "Wait until you've got surly teenagers".'
This father-son dialogue prompted us to ask others why they had become parents. The first response was often indignant. How could one even ask such a question? There were some things in life that could not be reduced to utilitarian calculation. Parenthood was intrinsically good. The value of having children surely transcended shifts in political and religious beliefs. Whatever our views, we are all capable, as Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West put it in their defence of parenthood, The War Against Parents, of being 'caught up in the miracle of birth', of being 'inspired... by the power of a small child to evoke our most sublime and selfless feelings'.
But the miracle of birth and the power of the small child to evoke such feelings need to be supplemented by more tangible, reasons for having children. This was where the problems arose. The (middle-class) parents we spoke to could not cite economic security in old age as a reason for having children but seemed equally unhappy to fall back on instinct or cultural norms. This left one alternative - they must have had children because they wanted to. They had exercised a rational choice."
(Break)
"Nobody has better captured the relationship between these disappearing forms of inheritance and the reluctance to have bring children than the French writer Michel Houellebecq in his novel Atomised : 'Children once existed solely to inherit a man's genes, his moral code and name. This was taken for granted among the aristocracy, but merchants, craftsmen and peasants also bought into the idea; it became the norm. That's all gone now. There's nothing for my son to inherit. I have no craft to teach him. By the time he grows up, the rules I lived by will be meaningless; the world will be completely different. If a man accepts this, then his life is reduced to nothing more than the sum of his own experience; past and future generations mean nothing to him. That's how we live now. For a man to bring a child into the world now is meaningless.'
We can continue to talk of children as our heirs in a more minimalist sense. They slowly understand the world through our eyes, through the stories we tell them, the examples we set. But the relative reluctance of our interviewees to talk about such initiatory pleasures suggests a growing sense that our children are not ours in the manner in which we were our parents' children.
The prospect of slowly introducing our offspring to the excitement and mystery of life has been usurped by outside forces."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001h422
More from the same man here:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/jun/03/socialsciences.highereducation
Quote:
"...., as far as we were concerned, children must be free to find themselves, to make their own choices. And if this meant they dropped out and ended up as gardeners or itinerant hippies, then so be it. The only ambition I could ever remember entertaining for him had been the vague hope that in one way or another he might continue the revolt against routine, ritual and conformity. How he did that, though, was entirely up to him. 'I suppose you know better,' I said. 'You presumably know exactly what your own children are for?'
I was expecting a polemic but what I got was caution and uncertainty. He explained that, like many other people, he'd had his children more from an act of contrived carelessness than from a deeply considered decision. But having been to six primary schools and said hello and goodbye to a series of parental partners, he was determined to provide his two boys with one home, one family and one school. That, at least, was the aim but too often it felt like an unending assault course.
'The other day,' he told me, 'I had dinner with the parents of older children. I shared some of my problems with them - the exhaustions, the difficulty of balancing work and home, the impossibility of fighting the tide of computer games and gangsta rap. They were far from comforting. "You think that's bad," said one of them. "Wait until you've got surly teenagers".'
This father-son dialogue prompted us to ask others why they had become parents. The first response was often indignant. How could one even ask such a question? There were some things in life that could not be reduced to utilitarian calculation. Parenthood was intrinsically good. The value of having children surely transcended shifts in political and religious beliefs. Whatever our views, we are all capable, as Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West put it in their defence of parenthood, The War Against Parents, of being 'caught up in the miracle of birth', of being 'inspired... by the power of a small child to evoke our most sublime and selfless feelings'.
But the miracle of birth and the power of the small child to evoke such feelings need to be supplemented by more tangible, reasons for having children. This was where the problems arose. The (middle-class) parents we spoke to could not cite economic security in old age as a reason for having children but seemed equally unhappy to fall back on instinct or cultural norms. This left one alternative - they must have had children because they wanted to. They had exercised a rational choice."
(Break)
"Nobody has better captured the relationship between these disappearing forms of inheritance and the reluctance to have bring children than the French writer Michel Houellebecq in his novel Atomised : 'Children once existed solely to inherit a man's genes, his moral code and name. This was taken for granted among the aristocracy, but merchants, craftsmen and peasants also bought into the idea; it became the norm. That's all gone now. There's nothing for my son to inherit. I have no craft to teach him. By the time he grows up, the rules I lived by will be meaningless; the world will be completely different. If a man accepts this, then his life is reduced to nothing more than the sum of his own experience; past and future generations mean nothing to him. That's how we live now. For a man to bring a child into the world now is meaningless.'
We can continue to talk of children as our heirs in a more minimalist sense. They slowly understand the world through our eyes, through the stories we tell them, the examples we set. But the relative reluctance of our interviewees to talk about such initiatory pleasures suggests a growing sense that our children are not ours in the manner in which we were our parents' children.
The prospect of slowly introducing our offspring to the excitement and mystery of life has been usurped by outside forces."
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