Philosophy Discussion Forums

#89 Persecrates

Before to be able to characterize a concept as (il)logical, we must make sure that this concept refers to an actual phenomenon: That this phenomenon exists and that we are capable of identifying its nature.
So, please, define love.

Say`s only you, you can google it. There are plenty of definitons of love on the web to suit your [il]logical pallette.

I'm not big on trusting people. So, what makes you think that I believe what anyone has to say?

If you haven`t experienced it you can`t claim to know it. Who said you have to trust anyone? Off point into the random ramblings of Persecrates not understanding what love means. I don`t trust what you are saying right now, I am still reading it.

Second, how the fact that people are stupid enough to 'love' someone without knowing why is relevant in trying to identify/hypothesize the exsitence of a different cognitive process than Logic?

You are using a non sequitur, and trying to build a strawman,

1] its entirely because of and through their reasoning and the logic they say they don`t know why,

2]by using the cognitive process of their deeper feelings perhaps?

3] [your point 3 is irrelevant] I don`t think its up to you to speak on what they believe and know. You can only speak for what you believe and know.

Also, people don't love someone, they love the image they have of/put on someone

That isn`t love per se` that is what is known as a crush and idealism and just because you object to it, doesn`t mean its objectionable or stupid. Human inner drives and desires can be just as logical as their reasoning skills and sometimes more so.

What does it have to do with the cognitive process and method know as Logic?

As much as your linear reasoning love has to do with it. [touche`]

But you (implicitely) use a too broad definition of Logic... Or one not broad enough actually.

Yes you do

Logic is simply a mechanism and a method (both) relying on causation/causality.
As soon as you can identify a cause and/or reason for a phenomenon, Logic applies. It's a logical phenomenon.

That's what Logic IS. Nothing more.

Persecrates YOU trying to teach me what Logic is? YOU? umm the person who boldly declared GRAVITY doesn`t exist that YOU? Logic is reasoning skill. There are many avenues to arrive at logic.

I said

there is a lot happens in life that defy`s logic.
Persecrates said
Nope. Nothing does

Can you show me nothing does? or is this just your rhetorical opinion?

Persecrates as you don`t trust other people and what they say, I suggest you google or research in your own time what SPONTANEITY means and is..okay. Let me just say, it doesn`t come under your definition of logic.

Persecrates sudden impulse can be reasoned after the fact it can`t be reasoned before the fact, that is why its called sudden impulse it isn`t a logical reasoned decision consciously or unconsciously, thats just you wearing your psychoanalysis hat.

#90 Chaotic
The link you put takes me to site full of documentaries where is the one you said to watch?

The documentary I'm speaking of is near the bottom and titled, "Dangerous Knowledge", if you click on the link you will be taken to another sight where you will have to type the name of the movie into the search bar and then be able to watch it. Sorry for the inconvenience, it won't allow me to post a direct link to the doc for some reason....

when I scroll the the link Dangerous Knowledge Is the name of the movie on that link called Dangerous Knowledge?

It will take you to a site where you have to type them name of the doc to get to it. Just type dangerous knowledge into the search bar after you get to the site with the giraffe.

Hmm... Sensitive about your beliefs now...
Sorry to have troubled you and your beliefs/illusions...

Persecrates wrote:Before to be able to characterize a concept as (il)logical, we must make sure that this concept refers to an actual phenomenon: That this phenomenon exists and that we are capable of identifying its nature.
So, please, define love.

Eveready wrote:Say`s only you, you can google it. There are plenty of definitons of love on the web to suit your [il]logical pallette.

Are you unable of choosing one definition that suits you and this discussion?
Are you afraid that I prove love (as a distinct emotion) doesn't exist?
Still, you don't have ONE coherent definition of 'love' to offer but you believe in it and assert it's not a logical concept.

It's like if I asked you what 'Agvju' is and you answered me I don't know but I believe it to exist and to be illogical by nature.

Great argumentation, here.

Persecrates wrote:I'm not big on trusting people. So, what makes you think that I believe what anyone has to say?

Eveready wrote:If you haven`t experienced it you can`t claim to know it.

I've experienced many emotions but I don't know if I experienced Love... I'm still waiting for your defnition of it. All the definitions there are out there don't satisfy me because they are not logical because they are not describing any real 'phenomenon'.

I was hoping that you could have a valid definition of it and enlight me...
I Guess I overestimated your capacity to understand what you're saying... Is it too much to ask from you to know the meaning/nature of the words you use?

That's a lot of assumptions attributed to a concept you can't even define...

Who said you have to trust anyone? Off point into the random ramblings of Persecrates not understanding what love means.

Again, if you do, please enlighten us all...
It's not like it's a question (what love is?) asked by countless of philosophers since the dawn of civilisation but still unanswered...
Please share your wisdom and groud breaking knowledge/insight of/on Mankind's most praised/desired yet undefinable emotion...

I don`t trust what you are saying right now, I am still reading it.

Same here.

Persecrates" wrote:Second, how the fact that people are stupid enough to 'love' someone without knowing why is relevant in trying to identify/hypothesize the exsitence of a different cognitive process than Logic?

[quote"Eveready"]You are using a non sequitur[/quote]

Actually you're the one making an irrelevant statement without basis to try to prove that love exist and is illogical. And that somehow this has something to do with the Logic method as cognitive method (obtention of meaningful information/knowledge.

So, you don't realize it but I point out your non sequitur...

[quote"Eveready"]and trying to build a strawman[/quote]

Again you're the onr doing it by claiming that some people can love someone else for no reason. YOUR example.

Don't blame for your incoherence.

1] [quote"Eveready"] its entirely because of and through their reasoning and the logic they say they don`t know why they love someone[/quote] I added 'they love someone' for a better understanding.

If I was petty I would put this quote as signature...

[quote"Eveready"]by using the cognitive process of their deeper feelings perhaps?[/quote]

Does this sentence even mean something??

[quote"Eveready"]I don`t think its up to you to speak on what they believe and know. You can only speak for what you believe and know.[/quote]

There is no belief here, but a simple fact.
Any emotion/thought has a (or several) pscychological reasons and physiological/biological causes.

Now if you care to demonstrate us otherwise, please do so.

Also, on the 'stupidity' I assert people are affected by when loving someone (they don't know and WILL change):

How can you expect to perfectly know someone?
If you don't perfectly know someone, then you don't know someone... Or you 'know' only the parts/aspects that you believe to have identify in someone.
Therefore the things you don't know about someone could make you change ENTIRELY your opinion of someone.

Therefore you don't only percieve an image, a subjective/incomplete/faillible representation of someone but it can change at any moment.

So, tell me, how can you love someone, not the subjective mis(representation), the image you have of someone??

Is that a logical enough argumentation/demonstration for you?

What's stupid is for people to claim to love someone they don't even know...

[quote"Eveready"]Human inner drives and desires can be just as logical as their reasoning skills and sometimes more so.[/quote]

Again, I would like you to substantiate this claim please.
Give examples and, if you can, an argumentation.
Because for now you're making claim after claim. Your belief maybe important to you, but I, as any rational person on a philosophical forum, would rather see some arguments here... Not just a meaningless rant.

Still, trying to answer:
If their propensity/capacity to intellectual reasoning is very low... Yes.
But if they can reason, even just a little, it will always be better than to rely on primitive emotions.

Persecrates wrote:What does it have to do with the cognitive process and method know as Logic?

Eveready wrote:As much as your linear reasoning love has to do with it. [touche`]

Persecrates YOU trying to teach me what Logic is? YOU? umm the person who boldly declared GRAVITY doesn`t exist that YOU? Logic is reasoning skill. There are many avenues to arrive at logic.

Still not making the difference between an idea, a concept, a theory and a phenomenon I see...
Did you check in yet?

[quote"Eveready"]there is a lot happens in life that defy`s logic.[/quote]
[/quote="Persecrates"]Nope. Nothing does[/quote]
[quote"Eveready"]Can you show me nothing does? or is this just your rhetorical opinion?[/quote]

I'm still wating for a demonstration/argumentation proving your first claim. Or by default, I'll satisfy myself with an example defined and explained (i.e. the nature of the phenomenon/concept which Logic cannot be applied to and why is it so... In an argumented manner.)
The burdden of proof's on you.

I took all the (meaningful) examples you gave and demonstrated to you (and any reader) that they were logical or at least we were able to make meaningful logical demonstrations/argumentations about their nature, existence and soundness.

Persi, I would say Love exists - in Objective and Subjective forms.

There is the objective process of the increase of the hormone serotonin in the blood stream, which happens due to the command of the Vegetative Nervous System on the basis of some complex biological considerations.

And there is the subjective interpretation of these elevated concentrations as a strong attraction to someone/something which appeared to be the source, triggering the reaction of Nervous System. This source in the interpretation appears as an "object of love" and can be virtually anything - a man, a woman, a child, an animal, a picture etc, anything which triggered the release of serotonin. Say in the case of Narcissus serotonin was released by viewing his own reflection in water...

The mechanisms of how the release of serotonin occurs are not studied well enough for us to be able to predict such release, so we mainly deal with the consequences, not the reasons - when someone announces they are "in love". And no matter how many the definitions one may find, they are all containing the word "attraction", and all treat "love" as irrational" due to the absence of the exact rational explanation for its causes.

Mar,
I mostly agree with you, Love = Attraction.
Attraction has psychological reasons and biological causes.

But I think that when people speak about Love, they give to the concept a nature/attributes that it doesn't have. That's all.
When you hear than only Love can save us from ourselves, that's, (beside being utterly stupid) because people/philosophers give an abstract deeper nature to the concept and, therefore, the emotion 'Love'.

These kind of predications would have no sense if everyone ageed that Love only means attraction/desire.

If Eveready defines Love simple by attraction, why then speak of Love and not attraction?

Also, I think that Love IS an illogical concept but a based on a locical (having reasons and causes) phenomenon: 'attraction'. The phenomenon may not seem logical by nature, but the analysis of the reasons and causes we can make of it proves otherwise.
Emotional is not synonym with illogical.

Everything that can be identified/explained through a causal chain is logical.
My view, again, is that Everything that exists is logical.
The concepts we use and the interpretations (ideas, beliefs, theories) we make (on what is Reality, what is true/sound) are often not, though.
They often assume the existence of objectively non-existent phenomena. Therefore the concepts attached to these supposed 'phenomena', are illogical. Which is another word for false/unsound.

I agree. Love is certainly logical by itself, as the biological mechanisms of generating this "attraction" work on the firm deterministic principles (say, "calculating" which genes would be beneficial if combined in the siblings), but as soon as all these reasons are taken into account automatically, by the instincts, the role of the Mind in generating love is practically nil - therefore we call it "irrational" or "illogical", just to show that it was not a result of any rational logical thinking.

When they say smth like "love can save us", this is not logical too, as "love" is used as an irrational argument, same as "god" argument which has no logical connections with reality. Basically, as "love" remains rationally unexplained, this is the explanation of one unknown factor (save from what?) with another unknown factor, a complete Uncertainty arises as a result as when zero is divided by Infinity.

ChaoticMindSays, re post #86

Do you think that keeping useful illusions up will help us to comprehend things "beyond our comprehension", or might they hinder us?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Persecrates, re post #87

Superiority is an illusion. What is it that makes a thing superior? There are many ways to call a thing superior, but that is only speaking from a single or a few perspective(s) at a time, one is simply ignores other facts to make the statement true from that one or a few perspectives. If you prefer, objectively there is no superiority. As ChaoticMindSays(Finally I can use his name with some utility) if I may modify: "Superiority [can be] a useful illusion" however.

Oh, but now I think you meant direct perception... hahaha...Direct perception is an extension of ones five senses being felt through another thing. There is a much much greater depth to the five senses however. Felling an idea, smelling a color, hearing a smell; just a few brief possibilities. 'Most' importantly, truly living with another thing in its own shoes at the same time. It isn't something you have to think about, or use logic for; any more than you have to think when you feel the keyboard. If I may it's a bit like tanric sex; applied to a great many more things, with far more depth.

wanabe,

I believe that something deemed to be a useful illusion will help our progress to an extent and then, after it's usefulness runs out, will be something humanity needs to discard.

@ Marabod, presecrates, and eveready. I think you are all wrong about love; it is not something that can be completely disqualified from the scope of logic, but nor is it only the chemical attractions taking place among people. It is deeper than the latter and more tangible than the former.
A person may be chemically attracted to two people and may love one but not the other. Most, of course, will say that this is because of the difference in levels of chemical attraction between the two people, but I disagree. I think love is something built through experience shared with said loved person.
Take, for example, that someone can find another person to be utterly non-attractive and still love them.

ChaoticMindSays,
When/how will these useful illusions become unuseful (how will we know that we can extract nothing more form them)?

Do you think a step by step approach(from the: "and then after its") for finding things beyond our comprehension is best?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ChaoticMindSays wrote:I think love is something built through experience shared with said loved person.

Agreed... I have, in the past defined love as: respect, trust, vulnerability(the 'darker' side). When those 3 things exist, independent from each other, in that order, in any relationship there is love. These things are gained by experience, not by chemicals; though chemicals help.

When/how will these useful illusions become unuseful (how will we know that we can extract nothing more form them)?

Do you think a step by step approach(from the: "and then after its") for finding things beyond our comprehension is best?

When these illusions become "unuseful" we will transcend them and they will be seen for what they are by the majority population.
Take, for example, the illusion if the world being flat. It was useful for a time but when our scientific growth required a new paradigm the illusion was dropped.

A paradigm shift, in my opinion, is the shedding of illusions such a these, and the crystallization of new ones, in pursuit of growth.

ChaoticMindSays,
So you think that popular opinion is the deciding factor?

wanabe wrote:Do you think that keeping useful illusions up will help us to comprehend things "beyond our comprehension", or might they hinder us?

Going back to the original question now...

When is one 'right' in being the first of the majority?

ChaoticMindSays wrote:I believe that something deemed to be a useful illusion will help our progress to an extent and then, after it's usefulness runs out, will be something humanity needs to discard.

Can you explain this "extent"?

Persecrates

I, as any rational person on a philosophical forum, would rather see some arguments here... Not just a meaningless rant

LIKEWISE!

Chaotic I didn`t say love is illogical I said it can be unreasoned or defy logic. That Persecrates can`t read or fully comprehend what I said but chooses to rant is their perogative, I won`t be drawn into hissing against the rain here.
Faith and reason are not enemies. Love defying logic are not enemies, in practice and in fact the exact opposite is true! One is absolutely necessary for the other to exist. All reasoning ultimately traces back to faith in something that you cannot prove.

wanabe

ChaoticMindSays,
So you think that popular opinion is the deciding factor?

wanabe wrote:
Do you think that keeping useful illusions up will help us to comprehend things "beyond our comprehension", or might they hinder us?
Going back to the original question now...

When is one 'right' in being the first of the majority?

ChaoticMindSays wrote:
I believe that something deemed to be a useful illusion will help our progress to an extent and then, after it's usefulness runs out, will be something humanity needs to discard.
Can you explain this "extent"?

No it is not the 'popular opinion', it is the usefulness of the idea. If the idea continues to serve it's purpose then it is retained, if it can no longer fulfill said purpose it is cast aside. I referred to the majority population in that most people don't recognize the illusion until it has already been cast aside.

The original question is a tricky one. If we cast aside the illusions prematurely it would cause a dramatic change of perspective, which could either be for the 'good' or the 'bad', but if the illusions are retained until they loose their 'usefulness' then a gradual incline into what we do not comprehend is available. This is something we see daily, the illusions serve the purpose of allowing us to reform our ideas; they are tools.

When is one 'right' in being the first of the majority?

I don't understand the question.

The 'extent' is it's function in the current paradigm. It runs it's course and either is discarded or becomes unnecessary baggage.

P.S.
Do you know why eveready was banned?