will love ever die?
 

I recently read a piece on the BBC about predictions made by evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics. Among his forecasts was that:

'Social skills, such as communicating and interacting with others, could be lost, along with emotions such as love, sympathy, trust and respect. People would become less able to care for others, or perform in teams.'

Although it's all conjecture, I must admit that I had never considered the possiblity that love might die. Could that ever happen?

:(

I remain unconvinced that love exists in the first place. I'm pretty sure friendship does, and compassion, and I don't think those will die as long as there are people. Or even dogs.

But that movie kind of love...dunno that I've ever seen it off the screen, so perhaps whether it can die is moot.

every time they cover a drivelly bit of "research" by some "theorist" and illustrate it with an idiotic picture, my love of the bbc dies a little

it does. i keep it stored in a klein bottle in my pantry next to the balsamic vinegar.

^that explains why it frequently leaves a sour taste.
:o

Okay, I'm going to stay out of this thread now, lest I sully the atmosphere unnecessarily. :D

And let me say again that I'm as near certain as I can be that compassion is alive and as eternal as consciousness. Maybe more so.

Debunking The Commercial Press and Why Scientists Hate to Talk to the Media

Wish it was exceptional, but the fact they don't even bother to retract the story after it's been widely debunked tells how much of a damn the popular media gives about accurate science reporting.


Would it matter to us if it did?

^good heavens, you're worse than I am! :D

who cares about love ??

let's just make out..

Now that I can understand.
:D

what's love got to do got to do with it? what's love but a sweet old fashioned notion? what's love got to do got to do with it? who needs a heart when a heard can be broken?

also, i'm your private dancer.

love will never die because there aren't enough drugs to kill it!
and I am glad of that.

^Yo, Anna!! :)



1. Without having read the article (more or less scientific findings sold to the press about matters like human's love, sex, happiness, spirituality tend to be even more proving the scientist's opinion by findings than usually the case ;)) or it's debunking (ya well, predicting future evolution of humans when one considers the timescale on which this took place in the past...):

Nope, unless the way humans tick and the things humans need change(s) fundamentally (and this hasn't really since the first Homo sapiens sapiens hung out there in Africa ca. 100,000 years ago), that is that they stop being social animals (even in the cyberspace people tend to gather in tribes around some campfire like Zefrank.com for example) and the whole reproduction and raising of small humans becomes artificial and automated (i.e. no longer conducted by some sort of family - family used very loosely, that is not how conservatives define it ;) - or groups of grownups, elder children).



2. Love

What irritates me a bit, just like when I asked for romantic events in the q-thread, is that most of you associate immediately the boy-meets-girl thing, particularly in it's more or less idealized and/or distorted representation in Hollywood, advertisement, media (well and even before the modern age literature, poems, songs did that - minnesingers, Song of Solomon, etc.). For lack of a better term I call that 'romantic love' and - I quote my granny now - that's basically sex, sexual attraction, sexual desire and that gradually wears off between one and the same two people over the years (though it doesn't necessarily vanish, it's great to sometimes see my grandparents - married since 52 years - flirting like teenagers or smooching - when I enter a room too quietly that is). But there's so many other manifestations of love: between (grand)parents and (grand)children, between siblings, between close friends, ... Dunno, if you agree with me but I'd say that the essence of love is:

giving (everything), without expecting (anything) (though in cases of mutual love you of course get something back, but unconditional which is one of the best features of love, so sentences like "If you love me, then (do this and that)." are not sign of true love - I quote again my granny, ya she's my guru :D - but a kind of blackmail)

and

sharing, sometimes even living through together, another person's feelings - good or bad (but not just saying "Oh, I feel so glad/sorry for you" like we often do even with loose friends/aquaintances).

Don't think love will vanish, see above, it's part of our way of living as humans - even if it causes grief at times if unfullfilled/one-sided, dies off towards somebody, drifts into bondage, self-torture and so on.

good points stephi, but we are living in a world unlike anything that has existed before and are therefore questioning things we have never questioned.

the article isn't really the point. it was just the place where i first encountered the concept that love could ever die. Since then I have had a number of discussions with people who had a very pessimistic view.

pearly, you obviously love your nipper deeply and unconditionally.

;)

^Yes, so much so that it is beyond any ordinary definition of love as I think of it. It's beyond any kind of concept. I can't imagine anyone ever seriously believing that kind of interrelatedness could die. There are plenty of studies showing that babies, human or other primate, do not develop normally without adequate parental love and interaction even when their nutritional needs are met -- think of the children who have attachment disorder from living in overfilled orphanages, or the little monkeys in the wire mama/cloth mama studies.

There's simply no way for people to continue as a species without that experience of bonding and shared consciousness.

But as for romantic love, I don't know. It does not exist in some human societies the way we Westerners think of it (though legal marriage is a near cultural universal, it doesn't always include love or even like), and I think historians believe the idea is less that a thousand years old even among us. I'm not sure that it exists in our modern Western society either, though the dream of it does. If it's relatively recent as an idea, and if it is not a human universal, then yes, I think in theory it would be possible for it to die as an idea.