"love at first sight"....

[Helm]

You're suggesting that a human being, at any given moment in time, could be in one of 3 states, emotional, reactionary, or logical?

Excuse my bad english. Not my first language, and that doesn't help the situation. To answer, I believe that man is at all three at all times. A man feels foremost, then a man relates that feeling with the outside world, and lastly a man applies reason on both the feeling and the application of it on the world. A definition of love cannot be complete without an assessment of how said love operates withing a social enviroment. It is there where I have my objections. I do not argue wether a man feels the feeling, that's silly. I disagree on how man relates and rationalises the feeling. I think love to be a manifestation of mating instinct foremost, lust, so to speak, but amplified by the social urge man has. As Aristotle said, man is a communal animal, a political animal a logical animal, and finally, an ethical animal (Plato on Protagoras makes such a case as well). It is there where I base my belief that whereas with just lust man satisfies one instinct, with 'love' he/she stands to satisfy the communal instinct as well, and that automatically make the sensory feedback more poweful(as with any satisfaction of an atavistic tendency) , hence the bigger reactionary value we place on love over lust. It's in the [ethical] rationalisation of this sensory feedback where I strongly dissagree with the common way of thinking. People like to attribute those strong feeling to some mystical value 'true love' holds, which as I've stated twice over, I find socially retarded.

Also, for the state of logic, how can you define that? What are your requirements to confirm the logical state of love given a proper rationalization of the emotion?

Man inherently rationalises, because reason remains his stronger asset for survival. A logical interpretation of emotion is only natural, especially in a logical enviorment such as a community. I have a feeling this doesn't answer your question, though. It is, maybe because I do not fully understand the question.

I *think* you're suggesting that Love should be considered as more than an emotive quality, that is somehow transcends feeling and can be quantified in someway.

Yes.

If that's the case, I'd have to disagree. Because of the nature of thought, we have no way to really quanitfy how someone feels EXCEPT relative to the person in question. We can make relativistic claims, but there is no absolute measurement standard.

I didn't call for any absolute measurement.

However, I did not major in Psychology. If that's your field, please let me know if there is in fact a unit of measurement. I would be very interested in knowing how this kind of procedure could be done.

That is not my field.

I see we may be working with 2 different definitions of "Love". I don't think that Love requires a higher ethical understanding or belief, but I see that your definition of love requires something that transcends human nature.

No such thing. I am saying that 'love' requires besides the instinctual urge to mate, some intellectual stimuli that are found in people with which we can communicate on a satisfactory level. The quenching of two insticts thus, that of the mating and that of communication, produces an amplified result of mixed respect, admiration, adoration, protective tendencies and hormonal outletting, which we have dubbed love. Now, people, in their rationalising, want to believe that this amplified feeling produced surely must have some mystical founding. THAT is what I'm criticising.

I don't know that humans *can* do something that transcends their nature, because then it would become part of their nature by the fact that they *could* do it.

Astute. That is how Gods are also disproved. Not relevant to the discussion, however.

I would like to say, however, that I really like the way you think Helm, and the way you debate. It's very well thought out and thought provoking.

Thanks.