“Oh yeah? Well explain love then!”
01May. 09
Ever heard this before? It usually arrives late in the argument, as a desperate last ditch attempt to escape the demolition job that science does to supernatural beliefs. There are two main mistakes this challenge makes – one, that if science can’t explain one thing, it can’t explain anything, which is obviously rubbish because no sane person seriously claims that science explains nothing. And two, that the subject of love is one that science has always steered clear of, as if scientists looked at it and said, “Whoa, that’s just too damn mysterious for me! Let’s just stick to Bunsen burners and monkey torture.”
Well firstly, hypothetical opponent, I don’t need to explain love to you in order to argue that the supernatural is make-believe. All I need to do is say that whatever its causes are, they are natural (sans super) and that the burden is on you to demonstrate otherwise, since you brought it up, whoever you are. Secondly, the big news is that the internet exists, and if you are really interested in an explanation, a simple Google search will provide you with more than enough information on the subject. As usual I’m happy to defer to the ‘ “Love" experts’ for the comprehensive guide, as it saves space here for me to ramble pointlessly (stick to your strengths).
But as usual, the true believer doesn’t really want an explanation. They revel in the mystery, and in this instance I kind of understand that mentality. You know when you watch a horror movie, and the monster is finally revealed at the end, and it’s really lame and totally not scary? I think they kind of see it like that. As outrageously incurious as that perspective is, it’s kind of human and forgivable in a way. But what bothers me is that in this case, the answer is so obscenely easy to attain, yet still ignored by the very person asking the question. This is not how debate is supposed to work.
Anyway, the real point is that understanding that love is caused by a series of chemical reactions that-evolved-in-our-brains-because-they-provided-a-survival-advantage-to-our-ancestors (gasp) does not detract, in any way, from its beauty and elegance. Knowing that a rainbow is caused by light refraction doesn’t make it less pretty, in fact the opposite is probably true, because it means you don’t waste time and energy searching for gold-containing pots, and end up collapsing in exhaustion, cursing and ranting about cowardly rainbows that just won’t stay in one place and just give me my gold already. What a wasted childhood Spring that was. And as for love, it’s a fascinating topic, involving chemistry, biology, psychology…what else could you possibly want, damn it? I mean, aside from actually experiencing it of course, but don’t get greedy.
So what do I think of love? Well there’s more than one definition for ‘love’. There’s the love a parent has for their child. The love one may have for their friends. Some love music, or sport, or fine cigars, or video games. There’s the love a priest has for his alter boys. And then of course there’s romantic love, which is something I’ve heard of. This last one is presumably the magic one, because it has such immense power over us, for example it motivated Eowyn or whatever her name is to sacrifice eternal elf-life in order to marry that hunky Aragorn – none of which actually happened, I’m like 90% sure that story was fiction.
What are your thoughts? Leave a comment, and then I’ll read it.
PS: I’ve been lazy, but I will put in an effort to start posting regularly again. Go team!
May 2nd, 2009 at 12:47 am
If Theists or other supernatural believers seriously think they have a monopoly on love, they’re sadly mistaken. Philosophers were speculating about the nature of love long, long before most of today’s major religions and continue to do so (I attended a Philosophy seminar about it last year, in fact, which was totally devoid of God.)
These speculations aside, Science continues to work on such matters (including my own beloved discipline; Psychology). I still delight in my relationship with my partner, somehow!
Great article, Fuller! I love this sort of stuff.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:01 pm
You know this came up last night. I was outed by another friend to a Christian mate of mine and they asked me if it was true, that i no longer believed in God and such. Just as you say, near the end of the conversation my friend started telling my that he cant explain or understand my love for my daughter, and the same applied to him and God. I respectfully pointed out two things. First is that my daughter is here, i can see her and touch her and from observing her i can see she loves me back. Secondly i gave him a quick description of why love is so important to our species survival.
The most common arguments you will get from theists is ‘unweaving the rainbow’, arguments from ignorance and the god of the gaps (last night it was a goody — scientists dont know why cats purr). If you make sure you have some decent responses to these then you will to your fellow skeptics proud.
All the best
Dan (from Humanist Society)
December 21st, 2009 at 11:45 am
I think the real mystery is that if you take a look at that little dog and imagine it tied by the side of the road, in all probability you’re not going to beat it to death, or rape and eat it, or leave it to die, though some other people might. You’d probably rescue it, but why?
And if you think it is the “right” think to do to be kind instead of cruel, why do you think it is right? What makes one action preferable to another and can it be considered to be objective? If not, what are the subjective advantages of putting yourself out to help another, particularly in a case like this where the creature you’d be helping is no real use to you as anything other than a dependent?
Could you give me the humanist angle please? Thank you :)
December 21st, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Because I am aware of its capacity to feel fear and pain, for one. I understand that those feelings must be comparable to my own experience of fear and pain, and because I do not wish it on myself, I’m able to empathise with it. It’s not rocket science.
Another contributing factor may be that I’m ‘tricked’ by it’s cuteness, my susceptibility to such being a byproduct of evolutionary history, which is why I would feel more empathetic towards that puppy than a snake or scorpion. But that’s secondary — my ability to empathise is more than sufficient an explanation why I would want to help it.
Altruism (helping or empathising with other creatures even if there is no obvious benefit to yourself) as a product of evolution is a well understood phenomenon, observed not just in humans but a wide range of other animals. It’s a good thing we have it, too — society wouldn’t function well at all without it.
There doesn’t always need to be a direct correlation between an instinctive impulse and an evolutionary advantage — many behaviours are byproducts of impulses that provided help elsewhere. The ‘lust’ to be good, generally speaking, is a good rule of thumb that would have helped our ancestors survival chances in many instances, but not all. So the rule of thumb persists today even if it means that not every behaviour is purely rational, evolution-wise.
It’s a very interesting topic, and one that is not helped at all by the introduction of supernatural concepts as explanations — if that’s what you were implying..
December 21st, 2009 at 1:46 pm
I wasn’t implying anything — I just wanted to hear a purely material explanation. I think your empathy explanation is good, and doesn’t need justifying anyway. “Doing unto others…” was expressed by Confucius, Hillel, Jesus… so it evidently transcends specific cultures.
I totally agree that altruism is not unique to the human animal and that society wouldn’t function well without it. The greek philosopher Zeno commented on our selfish drive being counterbalanced by our sociability, Judaism says we have a good urge and a bad urge (and sometimes both an animal soul and a divine soul), Yiguan Daoism says we are half demonic and half divine (Daoists tend to seek either a balance, or a return to a more animal state, while Yiguans prefer to cultivate what they see as divine — more akin to selflessness).
Sikhism says we can choose between manmukh and gurmukh — equating being gurmukh (“G_d-centred”) with being orientated towards the greatest good. Whilst some faiths evidently place a bias on community / pack / nationhood and emphasise others-centredness as preferable to self-centredness, I think Sikhism takes quite a rational view by seeing the self-preservation aspect as absolutely necessary for our species survival, so the ego is not seen as “evil” as it is in other belief systems, but rather as necessary for survival, but at the same time antagonistic to group solidarity. I think they’re right. Grey squirrels deprived of the ability to compete with each other over mates vent their destructive tendencies on trees by stripping their bark and killing them. It shows how programmed some of those competitive instincts can be, I think, and how that might point to how seemingly needless violence and vandalism might emerge in humans.
By referring to religious systems incidentally, I am not implying that supernatural explanations are necessary, only that this interesting topic has evidently been challenging us to come up with explanations for a long time. I don’t think people have always seen their explanations as supernatural at the time because they had a different understanding of how the world worked.