@1CellOfMany,
1CellOfMany;127209 wrote:
So, are the feelings and actions that we call "love" nothing more than sets of behaviors and motivations than are programmed into our neurophysiology due to their efficacy in perpetuating our DNA? If human love is more than this, then what is it?
It's important to be clear-headed about expressing the matter. Of course there must be evolutionary advantages to being a loving person. People don't evolve complex behaviors for no reason, and common sense reveals (many) people to be loving (in a just way) more-or-less. But it doesn't follow that the loving behaviors themselves are efficacious in perpetuating DNA. It's being the sort of person whose nature is to be (justly) loving that perpetuates one's DNA, because other loving people will sense what you are, and as a result you will be loved better, on average. Essentially by definition, the sacrifice that love entails is contrary to one's own selfish needs (to perpetuate one's DNA). But if one is the sort of person whose nature is to be (justly) loving, that can be rewarding (because it will make other justly loving people love one better) and something that one has evolved to possess, and of course if it is one's nature to be loving, that tends to cause one to be loving. People are sensitive enough that mostly people can judge whether someone is a loving person otherwise than merely be counting past loving behaviors: people like Dawkins make a mistake thinking altruism is a matter of game theory. Nor, I'd say, is altruism mostly from a generalized kin selection resulting from the people around you on average being more related to you: love is not racism or nationalism. I say that because justly loving people are sensitive enough to recognize other justly loving people, they can justly love these other justly loving people, and so people have evolved (to various extents) to be justly loving (by nature).
1CellOfMany;127209 wrote:The lyrics of most popular songs suggest that love is mainly the desire to carry out reproductive behavior with the one that we love. Such desires are certainly emphasized by a panoply of hormonal responses. Humans also tend to love their children, and most adults find babies (and the young of many mammalian species) to be "cute" or "adorable".
As for sex, males tend to underestimate the extent to which love has to do with sex. In males, the pleasure from sex tends to be a more selfish pleasure than the pleasure from having one's children well-cared for, inasmuch as the latter pleasure is more something one's (usually beloved) spouse can also partake in, and males often (compared with females) don't care for their children. But in females, it's rather the reverse-being willing to have children with a guy without expecting any caring, time, money, etc., (as she is more likely to do if motivated by sexual pleasure than by the pleasure of having her children well-cared for) in return is very rewarding and loving to him. Sex is probably the most important way females love. There's nothing wrong with love because it can be through sex, because there is nothing wrong with sex. (Actually, I feel there is a sense in which love in males also has much to do directly with sex, because the emotions they have prior and during sex can imo have loving or unloving consequences on how the children will likely turn out, but it would take me too far afield to discuss these biological theories of mine here.)
Actually, there is good reason to view the most important love in a romantic context. As long as the most important love involves behaviors that encourage mutual children with the person beloved, if someone has been duped into (unjustly) loving someone the consequence will be extra-children by someone who was duped. In other words, deceivers may feign loving behavior to get the benefit of being loved unselfishly, but they will only be able to get extra-children from people who were tricked and who therefore are likely to be insensitive. Successful deceivers may have more children as a result of tricking someone into sex or caring, but the children will likely be insensitive. It follows that to the extent love is largely a romantic phenomenon (more precisely, involving willingness to have sex or to care for mutual children), there will be a very useful correlation in people between sensitivity and love. And sensitivity (unlike a loving nature) is easier to judge correctly directly, since reflection gives one the capacity to know oneself more easily than to know others, and one can judge how sensitive others are towards one's own nature as one understands it. It is not illogical or presupposing a belief in magic to think that people can judge a loving nature otherwise than by looking at past behavior (even if such behavior is in games designed for the purpose of testing); at the very least one can judge whether someone has a loving nature indirectly, by judging sensitivity toward one's self. And such an indirect test, to the extent it is used, has as consequence that people will very strongly have evolved to be sensitive as to character, since otherwise one will be rejected as immoral (and sensitivity, being so important in judging goodness will also be valued in its own right by justly loving people).
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