Love

I have been thinking about what love is. The English language (or maybe all languages for that matter) is limited in the fact that it has only one word to describe the blanket of emotions/states of mind we call “love”. I am not talking about romantic love. The fact the default association of the word “love” is to romantic love is perhaps a side effect of the romantic movement that started a few hundred years ago. And what a successful movement it has been in changing society, family structure and our lives completely in the process. What we take for granted now when it comes to romantic love was an alien notion just a few hundred years ago. 

I digress. What I want to really talk about is love in a universal sense. The love of things and ideas and experiences. What is it? What happens when we say we love something or someone? Is the love of person fundamentally different from the love of something else - like one’s work, or hobby or a book or art or even a pet?

I think it is not fundamentally different but love of a person is on a completely different scale of complexity than other kinds of love. And the reason for that is that a person is an ever changing creative entity. We only know of one kind of thing like that - and that is people. No other thing is creative in that sense, not even animals. So the love of your pet in that sense is also fundamentally different from the love of a person. And that kind of makes sense. When you love a pet you are loving something non-creative. My definition of creativity is a narrow one (as per Deutsch) - a creative entity can come up with explanations and conjectures. A dog is not creative in that sense. A dog can be “creative” in the sense that it can form associations and learn from experience. But without knowing why and without having an explanation of why. 

Love of oneself is also part of the complexity. That is because one person is not a coherent being but a combination of multiple parts. When we say we love ourselves, it is just one part of us saying it loves all the other parts. And when we say we love something e.g. we love a particular piece of art I think what happens is this - that piece of arts triggers some things in a part of us that relates to that art, and other parts of us creatively interact with this part and in all that creativity the feeling that emerges is "love". 

So in essence, love is when creativity is engaged to the max (or towards the max). The creativity engaged could be between parts of oneself (self-love), could be between oneself and a non-creative entity (art, music, pet) or between oneself and another person. And in any one experience, one or more of these "loves" could be engaged. 

e.g. if one person says he loves the other person what he is saying is that there are parts of him that interact with parts of the other person in creative ways (where progress is made), and the parts of the other person could include non-creative aspects (like the person's appearance). The amalgamation of all these form the overall feeling of love. And that is why it is so complex when you say you love a person.

So if I were to draw this out it would look like this 

For simplicity I have just indicated 3 selves for each person but there are probably many more and they are probably not distinct.

Since the complexity between persons is so much, there is also the potential for a lot of love between persons. Assuming each part is creatively interacting with others, conflicts between ideas being solved using reason (and selecting good explanations) - that is the maximum love experienced. Doesn’t guarantee of course that there will be love - there could be deadlocks in conflicts between 2 parts and creative problem solving is not happening there. In such cases there isn’t much love. Still overall the sum of all these interactions is what makes love between 2 persons. 

Now take the example of love of, say, a painting

In the above, only Self 2 and Self 3 are interested in the painting and receive creative input from it. And then the creative interaction only happens between the 3 selves of Person A. And as long as the creative interaction between the selves results in progress (creative problem solving), the feeling of love is engendered. But if this brings about some conflict between the selves which isn’t solved creatively (by seeking good explanations) then there isn’t much or any love at all. Or there could even be negative feelings.

I am sure it is a lot more complex than this. For e.g. the different selves could be in different parts of our minds Self 1 could be the conscious part, Self 2 could be the subs-conscious part and in such cases the interactions between them are not very obvious. 

But I think the above could at the very least give a framework for what love is. And this also explains why “love” of things usually doesn’t last long - since there is no creative interaction with the thing there isn’t much creative progress that a part of the self can make with the thing. However different selves of one person can still go on creatively interacting with each other (triggered by the interaction with the “thing”), and the “love” in this case can indeed go on for a long time. 

In any case, I think I have to formulate this better, so will revise this post subsequently.

I am not trying to de-romanticize love. There are people who believe that understanding the mechanics of something (with a theory) kind of kills the emotional aspect of it. But I do not think so. I think rather it enhances it.