[user104658]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

It's silly to compare animal "relationships" to humans, we have evolved, you said it yourself. How on Earth do you think you can speak for every person in the world and tell them their relationships are unnatural? lol Some people can't do monogamy others can't do anything else

It is a bad comparison and mostly because this part;

"It wouldn't make sense that humans evolve from other mammals, develop a larger brain to separate them from their predecessors, and then go against all logic that millions of years of evolution taught the animal kingdom."

is actually not really right at all, surely. Humans are animals yes but the evolution of the human brain is at this point so far beyond any other animal life (on earth...) that being quick to compare to the animal kingdom never really gains much. The basics being... the vast majority of animals don't love at all. We like to assign pets human characteristics - we like to pretend that our dogs love us in a human way - they simply don't, and can't, because non-human animals simply aren't capable of the level of abstract thought required for "human love"... therefore they can't really be placed in a debate about the nature of human connection.

Animal instinct is relevant to a discussion about desire, or "lust", but they're completely different things. Other than the fact that (again, going back to it) most people are deeply socially conditioned to confuse the two.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

It is a bad comparison and mostly because this part;

"It wouldn't make sense that humans evolve from other mammals, develop a larger brain to separate them from their predecessors, and then go against all logic that millions of years of evolution taught the animal kingdom."

is actually not really right at all, surely. Humans are animals yes but the evolution of the human brain is at this point so far beyond any other animal life (on earth...) that being quick to compare to the animal kingdom never really gains much. The basics being... the vast majority of animals don't love at all. We like to assign pets human characteristics - we like to pretend that our dogs love us in a human way - they simply don't, and can't, because non-human animals simply aren't capable of the level of abstract thought required for "human love"... therefore they can't really be placed in a debate about the nature of human connection.

Animal instinct is relevant to a discussion about desire, or "lust", but they're completely different things. Other than the fact that (again, going back to it) most people are deeply socially conditioned to confuse the two.

Exactly. I mean it's kind of a basic idea anyway to say humans should be polygamous because .....sex.... etc. A monogamous relationship, a good monogamous relationship should I say is so much more than that. In my idea of what makes a good relationship and what I think makes my own relationship good, it would be impossible for it work with a third or fourth person in the mix

[Withano]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

It is a bad comparison and mostly because this part;

"It wouldn't make sense that humans evolve from other mammals, develop a larger brain to separate them from their predecessors, and then go against all logic that millions of years of evolution taught the animal kingdom."

is actually not really right at all, surely. Humans are animals yes but the evolution of the human brain is at this point so far beyond any other animal life (on earth...) that being quick to compare to the animal kingdom never really gains much. The basics being... the vast majority of animals don't love at all. We like to assign pets human characteristics - we like to pretend that our dogs love us in a human way - they simply don't, and can't, because non-human animals simply aren't capable of the level of abstract thought required for "human love"... therefore they can't really be placed in a debate about the nature of human connection.

Animal instinct is relevant to a discussion about desire, or "lust", but they're completely different things. Other than the fact that (again, going back to it) most people are deeply socially conditioned to confuse the two.

I mean, love can be explained by a chemical reaction in the brain that doesnt exist in other animals. Chocolate can cause the same reaction, and so could a multiple partner if it was socially acceptable to have one, and people very hypothetically lived in an unimaginably different world to what we're in now.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Withano

I mean, love can be explained by a chemical reaction in the brain that doesnt exist in other animals. Chocolate can cause the same reaction, and so could a multiple partner if it was socially acceptable to have one, and people very hypothetically lived in an unimaginably different world to what we're in now.

Penguins love, and flamingos, young men wanting lots of sex with lots of people isn't unheard of so I can understand your view.. Come back after a couple more saturn returns and you'll have changed

[Withano]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

Penguins love, and flamingos, young men wanting lots of sex with lots of people isn't unheard of so I can understand your view.. Come back after a couple more saturn returns and you'll have changed

I think most birds mate for life? Swans do too off the top of my head.. mammals typically do not.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Withano

I think most birds mate for life? Swans do too off the top of my head.. mammals typically do not.

A List of Animals That Mate for Life


Gibbon apes
wolves
termites
coyotes
barn owls
beavers
bald eagles
golden eagles
condors
swans
brolga cranes
French angel fish
sandhill cranes
pigeons
prions
red-tailed hawks
anglerfish
ospreys
prairie voles
black vultures

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Withano

I mean, love can be explained by a chemical reaction in the brain that doesnt exist in other animals.

What you're talking about here is "initial attraction", and exactly what I'm talking about, essentially lust confused with love or more colloquially, "a crush", or infatuation. It's a completely different thing to love... and occurs long before a person actually knows anywhere near enough about the other individual to truly declare love. Again, though, lots of social confusion there, lots of people declaring that they "love" people they barely know enough to say that they even like them on any philosophical level.

Actual love is a very complex and abstract psychology.

[Withano]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Actual love is a very complex and abstract psychology.

Debateably its just phenylethylamine and dopamine reacting to one another, like it does when you eat bar of chocolate, and like it would if you met a third of forth relationship interest. Its a good feeling which other animals dont experience.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Withano

Debateably its just phenylethylamine and dopamine reacting to one another, like it does when you eat bar of chocolate, and like it would if you met a third of forth relationship interest. Its a good feeling which other animals dont experience.

That's lust you're talking about again

[Withano]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

That's lust you're talking about again

No thats the chemical reaction for what we know as love, actually just googled 'norepinephrine' is in the mix too.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Withano

No thats the chemical reaction for what we know as love, actually just googled 'norepinephrine' is in the mix too.

This is the fight or flight hormone? news flash you don't feel like that all the time, this is lust, love doesn't feel like that all the time. You are mistaken, when you google it they may be using the word love but they're talking about lust or initial attraction :

The first attraction causes us to produce more PEA, which results in those dizzying feelings associated with romantic love

http://asdn.net/asdn/chemistry/chemistry_of_love.php

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Withano

No thats the chemical reaction for what we know as love, actually just googled 'norepinephrine' is in the mix too.

It's the chemical reaction for what has become confused as being love (self serving feel-good infatuation) in a wider society that - like I said from my very first post - readily confuses this with the completely different, entirely philosophical concept of actual human love.

It might sound twee, but I suppose you have to have experienced both to understand the difference. 10 years ago there were girls in my past that I would have sworn blue in the face that I had "loved". I now understand that what I felt towards them was the chemical response that you are describing and it is not love... nor, frankly, anything even close to resembling it.

Like Niamh, I do genuinely hope that you'll get to know the difference at some point .