From: Martin Striz (mstriz@gmail.com)
Date: Sun Jul 24 2005 - 05:23:20 MDT
On 7/23/05, Phil Goetz <philgoetz@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Martin Striz <mstriz@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Love is a literary invention of the Renaissance.
>
> That's an appealing claim, but I don't believe it.
> We have stories about lovers going back a very long way,
> back to the first myth, the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The romanticized conception of love was popularized during the
Renaissance, perhaps a little earlier. My point was more about how
this romanticized version has become an umbrella term that obfuscates
distinct emotions and leads to a lot of confusion and ambivalence in
interpersonal relationships. Especially since the emotion most often
mistaken for love is infatuation.
> Also, you don't mean the Renaissance - you mean the 12th
> century, at the start of the "middle ages". What
> happened was more of a social legitimization of romantic
> love.
I would trace it almost specifically to Dante.
> > love at different times is at least three separate
> > emotions:
> > infatuation (phenethylamine), bonding (oxytocin) and lust
> > (testosterone). The way you "love" your mother (bonding)
> > is different
> > from the way you "love" your girlfriend (infuation,
> > probably lust),
>
> The oxytocin system in the woman that is activated by
> a baby suckling at the breast, is the same system that
> is activated by having sex. So these things are less
> separable for women than for men.
It starts earlier than that. Oxytocin initiates uterine contractions,
and the elevated levels in the blood stream correspond to elevated
levels in the brain, which promote maternal bonding to the infant at
birth. The same hormone is used by birds to imprint.
It's true that women have a higher density of oxytocin receptors, and
are thus more sensitive to it.
> > Emotional stability is achieved in the early 20s
> > following a drop in
> > hormone levels.
>
> Also, the complete maturation of myelin in the frontal
> lobes.
Yep.
> > > I would conclude that the Friendliness of a strongly
> > transhuman mind would
> > > benifit from the love of a good transwoman
>
> I would take that further - we might all be safer if
> only females were allowed to transcend.
Bringing this thread back on topic, I would suggest that a transhuman
mind should not be burdened (nay crippled) by designs that we evolved
in response to natural selection pressures. The question of whether a
transhuman mind should have something like emotions (since they are
generally adaptive for humans), and which ones, is a very interesting
one. It should at least be able to identity and promote the emotions
that we value, but if my thesis is correct, humans are sadly confused
about that themselves. :) That goes back to *extrapolated* collective
voliton.
Martin
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