[02] || [What is Love?] || [Video/Text]

[littlelifeforms]

Greetings.

[ As is usual for Data, his message is simultaneously sent in both video and text formats. ]

There has been a weeding recently and in one week is an event known as "Saint Valentine's Day", a holiday associated with romantic love. It is an occasion in which lovers express their love for each other in a special manner, most often depending on their culture and past.

But what is love? How would you define that feeling? I have been told about love before, but it is a most... complicated emotion and no explanation I have heard truly conveyed an understanding of the feeling.

Comments

text

[terreifying]

love is the best feeling in the world
it's mankind's miracle
it's what drives us
without love there is no hope
nor are there BABIES

text

[littlelifeforms]

I believe 'love' being the best feeling in the world and mankind's miracle may be a subjective observation. Furthermore, I can feel no emotion, yet I am yet driven by other factors.

Could you explain me in details the correlation between 'love' and hope'? I find this most intriguing.

Also, there can be babies without love. Thanks to the progress in science, there are no need for a man and a woman to have sexual intercourse to have children. A woman alone can have a children.

[Text]

[tohko_amano]

Well, there are several different kinds of love. There's parental love, the love friends have for each other, and then romantic love. I believe the distinction between the love you have for a friend and romantic love is whether or not you would want to spend your whole life with that person or sacrifice your life for theirs.

Does that..make any sense? I'm not good at explaining these things sometimes.

[Text]

[littlelifeforms]

It does make sense, but there are many things I do not understand and one in particular I would like to ask you.

Why are there different kind of love? The replies I have received so far appear to indicate love is a wonderful feeling, that gives birth to many more positive feelings and an improved, healthy life. Should we not love everyone the same way, indifferently of who or what they are?

[Video]

[idolizer]

In my opinion, love is something that can't be explained simply in words. It depends on how people percieve it, but it's mostly related to positive things in life, and it has many shades that can't be listed in whole because it's too wide of a concept. Simply asking what love is about won't get you satisfactory results, I'm afraid.

[ She remembers when he told her that he can't have feelings, so she refrains from even going to ask "did you ever love someone?". ]

[Video]

[littlelifeforms]

[ He nods slowly. ]

I suppose you are right. I was hoping to obtain a better understanding of love, but I may have to accept the possibility that there are feelings and human concepts I will never be able to understand simply through the use of words.

anonymous text;

[obsessing]

Love is the best feeling in the world. It makes you never want to let go of the person you love the most. Ever.

text;

[littlelifeforms]

As I said to another person, qualifying love of the best feeling sounds like a most... subjective observation, more based on feeling than logic. It is however interesting many appear to agree on this view.

Never want to let go the person? So, love would be similar to an heightened and emotional version of friendship?

text

[neverwrong]

Love is a stupid feeling that makes you throw all logic out the window in favor of finding new ways to get close to someone who probably doesn't care all that much about you in the first place. The holiday is a dumb excuse to sell a bunch of pink and red crap, and lets couples pretend like they've done something romantic when they present their lover with some dime-a-dozen stuffed animal and a bouquet of half-wilted flowers.

[Mello savagely takes a bite out of his chocolate bar.]

Plus, all the chocolate is overpriced, and it tastes like shit.

[Someone's a little bit touchy today.]

text; anon

[crouching_sin]

+1

text

[littlelifeforms]

This is a most intriguing definition.

[ He is sincere, truly. ]

I was aware emotions are opposed to logic, but love is the one emotion that is most opposite to logic according to what you say. That would mean love is the ultimate expression of emotion. That is fascinating.

Furthermore, where I come from money does not exist, yet this is a widely celebrated holiday. I am afraid your evaluation of the commercial aspect is... exaggerated, to say the least.

However I am curious, why do you depict the emotion in such a negative light, in contrast with the other replies? Why do you say the loved one does not care much in the first place?

[pinnaculum]

[Hm, this is a difficult question. Sephiroth doesn't think he has experienced love.]

Love is a mechanism used to prolong human attachment after mating and ensure effective parental care of resultant offspring.

Certain chemicals in the brain are also involved. Different chemicals produce different reactions. There are books on the subject in the library.

[littlelifeforms]

I am aware of the chemical aspect, however I find it most intriguing you mentioned the reproductive aspect.

So you believe love is simply a mean to ensure children will have parents? Would this imply people unable to reproduce cannot feel love?

[Text]

[technologic]

Love is a deep and unconditional affection and attachment for another person. It usually involves things such as complete trust for them and enjoying spending time with them.

That's merely one definition of it though. I imagine people have lots of different ways to describe it. But I don't really know much about it myself, since it's not something I've experienced.

[Text]

[littlelifeforms]

Trust and enjoyment? I see. I am discovering a wide array of different emotions and state of minds are tied to love, more so than any other emotion.

However, may I ask why it is something you have never experience? Are you unable to have emotions as well?

[text]

[eighteen_winters]

I think love is when you care about a person more then yourself.

[text]

[littlelifeforms]

But then, would not love be equal to friendship? Friends can care for each other more than they do for themselves.

text;

[prototyper]

love is something that can get you into some really deep trouble
and sometimes you don't want to deal with the person you like
and the butterflies in your stomach keep bothering you when you think about that person

but it's a nice feeling too, i guess.

text;

[littlelifeforms]

May I ask, why is it that love can get us into trouble and why we would not want to deal with the person we like?

Furthermore, I find it hardly believable that an emotion could produce butterflies within our stomachs. Even if it did, the butterflies would not be able to survive in such an environment.

Video

[oathshackledbird]

Perhaps the best way to describe love is as you have already stated. It is complicated and you are not likely to ever get a full explanation of what it is even if you ask people over and over for hundreds of years.

Honestly, I'm not sure you can truly explain love to someone who cannot feel it. Most humans don't really know what it is until they feel it themselves and even then many mistake it for other emotions or other emotions for it. Sometimes, people can even be forced to feel love, though I'm not really sure if it should still be called that in those cases.

[Diarmuid reaches up unconsciously and rubs at the mole under his eye.]

If it's not too rude of me to ask, is there a reason you are so unfamiliar with what love is? You look human enough to me...

[He has meet so many different types of people since coming here, but they all--even Labrys--had been able to feel emotion. If this man can not for whatever reason, Diarmuid can't help but feel extremely sorry for him. Even with all the pain that comes along with having emotion, he would never give up being able to feel it.]

Video

[littlelifeforms]

I believe you may be right. Some emotions may simply not be translated into words.

However, I do not understand how people can be forced into feeling an emotion. Unless you meant imitating that emotion.

[ Data tilts his head. ]

I am an android. I have been created in such a manner that it is an impossibility for me to feel emotions. The closest I will ever be to feel emotions is by trying to understand them through observations and words. This is why I am trying to get a better understanding of love, I will never be able to feel it by myself.

[puppy_lancer]

it depends
there's different types of love for different kinds of people
but it makes you feel special
happy
even when they're hurting you you're happy
as long as you're with them
as long as you're thinking of them you're happy
as long as they can smile, you'll do anything
become anything
love is unconditional
you can give and you can give and you expect nothing back
though sometimes you can make mistakes

[littlelifeforms]

The way you described love is similar to masochism, the reception of pleasure upon being inflicted pain. Is that what love is?

I have to say, out of all the answers I have received, this sounds like the less healthy view on love. A self-destructive feeling.

[Text]

[relinquishing]

Love's pretty complicated to fit under just the definition of an emotion or feeling. At least, from what I've heard.

[There's reasons he hasn't personally dabbled in it, but they certainly aren't important right now.]

[Text]

[littlelifeforms]

This is what I have been told, and what I am currently observing. I have not received twice the same definition, yet a majority appears to agree that it is "the best feeling" in the world. I find this fascinating.

[xanthous]

II haven't heard of iit at all, much le22 iin relatiion to romance.

II 2till don't know much about the other culture2 here, though.

[littlelifeforms]

You have heard of romance, yet you have never heard of love? It appeared to me that these two things were tightly tied together, I find this intriguing.

Furthermore I suspect your keyboard may be suffering from a glitch, which would explain the many incorrect symbols in your reply. I would suggest fixing the problem.

video;

[onemistress]

[she's still getting used to this. Hitting buttons at random. But God help her, she's too clever to not be curious as to the advancements this modern world holds.

But his message out of all the others caught her eye. If only because it seemed so like the questions posed by great philosophers on the nature of man.

Not that love was ever something she was allowed to have, at least not in the manner allowed to other women. Much of that softness, she had learned with a cold finality, would never serve her. She had too many reasons as to why she distanced herself from it. But ah, how she felt it. Or had. It seemed bitter and broken now.]

It can be a grand thing, when it is true. But where love is based in deceit and trickery, in false words and intentions that can never be honest... well it is a bitter thing that begets only more bitterness. In heart and mind.

video;

[littlelifeforms]

[ Data truly wished he would be a great philosophers, but unfortunately he was only an emotionless android denied the right to feel emotions. ]

I see.

It is my understanding from all the answers I have seen so far. that all emotions if they are the product of deception produce undesired effects, sometimes they even generate the opposite emotion. May I ask, are you speak out of personal experience?

video

[hegantha]

I think it's different for everyone, honestly. No matter who you ask, you'll get a different answer. The best way to understand what love is is to fall in love.

But to me, love is when you can trust a person no matter what and not worry about getting hurt. [ Or a bullet in your back. ]

video

[littlelifeforms]

Unfortunately, falling in love is an impossibility for me.

Does that not equate love to friendship again, then?

video;

[thenewnancydrew]

[ She's suddenly really missing her boyfriend. ]

Love is... [ She pauses, then starts again. ] Love is when you know somebody's in the room without having to see them. Because you have this link, a connection, and you know the very moment they enter the room. Love is when you're willing to risk your own life for their's. Love is when someone knows your favorite color is pink, or that you usually part your hair on the left, or that your favorite drink is Sprite and you like your coffee with waaaay too much espresso.

video;

[littlelifeforms]

I do not understand.

How is it possible to know when somebody is in the room without seeing them? All of these seem to indicate love allows for the appearance of psychic abilities, which is very unlikely.

Video

[damn_meatbags]

Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope.

Video

[littlelifeforms]

This is... a most intriguing and unusual definition. However, I do not understand how causing pain could be a display of love.