2006-10-16 07:54:13 · 19 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
Love is a profound feeling of tender affection for or intense attraction to another. It is considered a deep, ineffable feeling shared in passionate or intimate interpersonal relationships. However, in different contexts, the word love has a variety of related but distinct meanings: in addition to romantic love, which is characterized by a mix of emotional and sexual desire, other forms include Platonic love, religious love, familial love, and the more casual application of the term to anyone or anything that one considers strongly pleasurable, enjoyable, or desirable, including activities and foods. This diverse range of meanings in a single word is commonly contrasted with the plurality of Greek words for love, reflecting the word's versatility and complexity.
Although clearly and consistently defining love is a difficult task, and often a subject of much debate, different aspects of the word can be clarified by determining what isn't "love". As a general expression of positive sentiment (a stronger form of like), love is commonly contrasted with hate (or neutral apathy); as a less sexual and more "pure" form of romantic attachment, love is commonly contrasted with lust; and as an interpersonal relationship with romantic overtones, love is commonly contrasted with friendship, though other definitions of the word love may be applied to close friendships in certain contexts.
2006-10-19 04:44:07 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is really tricky because 'love' is used to mean so many different things, and is idealised and distorted by the words used to describe it.
If what you have in mind is some sort of direct experience of love, then it is clearly not a decision. Perhaps it is a decision to apply the word to an unfamiliar experience, so maybe in that sense it is a decision. Maybe people have an unfamiliar and broadly attractive experience in relation to another person, and by process of elimination decide that the experience must be the thing people call 'love'.
However if a decision is something you can choose then love doesn't really fit that description. For instance you might choose to see one film rather than a selection of others at a cinema, and if all the tickets are sold you might then choose a different film or decide to do something else. 'Love' doesn't seem to work that way. People describe the experience almost as though it were an obsession - there isn't the freedom of choice that a decision would imply.
An emotion is something that 'moves' you. It is something that tends towards action, or change of behaviour. Love definitely seems to do all of that.
But it is more than that because of all the social construction placed on top of the word. At its base there is the emotion, and associated feelings. This is named, perhaps only internally, and then we start to elaborate through associations and imagination.
So my best guess is that it is an obsessive state which has evolved to improve survival of offspring and which has been over-elaborated (much like bower-bird nest building).
2006-10-18 09:44:54 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Everything is a decision. You can choose to love or no to love. Anything else is a construct of a lazy mind. Or not, I just may, well as be, a shortcut of sorts to bypass rational thought. Thinking takes up alot of energy. Emotion may be the brains way of conserving energy.
2006-10-16 09:27:03 · answer #3 · answered by lxa478 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Decisions based on emotion always cause problems down the road because we make them with our hearts and don't think them clear out. If we make a decision with much discernment and sound advise and thinking out the matter we will make the right decision for the ones we love whether or not at the time the ones we love think it is fair or not.
2006-10-16 07:58:54 · answer #4 · answered by rltouhe 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I personally dont think love is an emotion, defiantly not a decision as we cant just turn it on and off, but we can try and egnor it. But some how it will always make its self recognised one way or another.
Love is just like god we cant prove what it is.
I belive that true love is from the soul.
2006-10-16 08:14:25 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Love is a feeling not an emotion. Someone said love is a force of nature.
2006-10-16 14:40:22 · answer #6 · answered by Freddy F 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Human consciousness itself is never fixed but continually changing and developing new categories and concepts. These determine how we experience the world, so that knowledge is always the result of a series of conflicting positions - hope this helps.
2006-10-16 08:38:52 · answer #7 · answered by A1bear 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think Love is best thought of as a complex mental state a mixture of desires, beliefs (i.e. the consistency of feelings), and biological reactions to somebody else.
2006-10-18 08:53:57 · answer #8 · answered by Bobby B 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I believe love is an emotion but its also a feeling, love can make you cry and it can make you laugh so that's an emotion, you don't decide on love you feel love and give love.
2006-10-17 01:04:38 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Love is like George Lucas' FORCE (mythology of "Star Wars")!
It has a dark side (jealousy; egoism) and light side (love for others), and it binds universe together!!!
Love is God itself (it is not important how you perceive God)!
We're to primitive to comprehend the ways of God.
Love could be one way to understand the universe.
There's also an opinion that love is a lie that we're telling to girls,
just to get them out of their clothes as fast as it's possible...
I disagree with this opinion...
2006-10-16 08:17:56 · answer #10 · answered by gobervart 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋