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From: bigthink
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  • The feeling of love is our involuntary, natural response to virtue (usually in that of another, but also in ourselves). This is why people who are not in fact virtuous do not comprehend what love is... unless perhaps until someone else defines it to them. This is also why so many relationships are mediocre, uninspiring to both parties, etc. - because so often one or both people involved lack virtue, and we recognize this instinctively... because virtue is real, and because it matters...

  • I knew what the number 1 comment would be before I clicked on the video

  • baby don' hurt me, don't hurt me, no more...

  • The background music is arousing in a way...

  • I KNEW THE MOST RATED COMMENT WILL BE WITH THE SONGS WORDS :D:D:

  • was expecting to see chomsky bob his head. thoroughly disappointed...

  • I came only to leave the comment

    baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me. no more.

  • Hahaha Eliot Spitzer might have the biggest balls ever. What a beauty.

  • Chomsky don't hurt me, don't hurt me. No more.

  • Spitzer... FUCKING CLASSIC

  • Love is an illusion...

    An evolved psychosomatic trait and instinct...

    Nothing more, nothing less...

    And it can be transcended by human beings because an intrinsic part of being human is the ability to transcend instinct with rationality...

  • @Hammersley1967

    Nothing more? It's also a release of chemicals. Like dopamine, just to name one. And certain parts of the brain become active.

    It's a real phenomena that really does change how a person feels in general.

    Personally I think it's overrated because of how people get after being with someone for a while, but there's no illusion about it.

  • @JesterAzazel

    "It's also a release of chemicals. Like dopamine, just to name one."

    As I said, it's "an evolved psychosomatic trait and instinct".

    "Psychosomatic" means "mind-body".

    Your elaboration in regard to neurotransmitter response fits in quite nicely with the psychosomatic model.

    We may discover that "falling in love" (and out of love) has an evolutionary purpose as it promotes "serial monogamy", which creates a balance between social stability and ideal gene selection.

  • BABY DON'T...awww shucks you beat me to it! 

  • @pravkdey

    Me too! I didn't even watch the video, I just came to say that.

  • I totally knew what the top comment was going to be just from reading the title.

  • I think Chompsky's reaction to the question is profound. You can see the deep emotion he feels.

  • HAHA Eliot Spitzer? Yes, when i want to know about love the first person i ask the guy that notoriously hires prostitutes.

  • Chomsky and Fry are intelligent people. The rest in this video are not as intelligent. No. Yes.

  • I would call the emotion of love "an extreme bias," a drug that often causes obsessiveness, hence the term "unconditional love." Out of my personal experience, I think the effect of the (emotion) hormones involved with love easily dominates over other sensations. That is why two quarreling people can be immediately stopped by an attractive person and why you are less sensitive to pain when you are under that emotion.

    Love is a long-lasting, tiring, alertness-increasing, first priority emotion.

  • @al5mnd9trnksdr745bi what are you talking about?

  • "love is the response to our highest values" -ayn rand

    I think that sums it up for me nicely

  • Love is the desire to fulfill the needs/wants of a subject unconditionally.

    Quite bland when you think about it

  • @Loader2k you have a twisted outlook on the issue. I presume to think you don't fully grasp the concept (admittedly neither do I. please be not offended). to believe love is simply applied to some sort of relationship between biological beings, and that to fulfill said relationship is to give the other what he/she wants, is to deny the possibility of love entirely, for both parties involved. when experiencing love as bland, chances are it's dissipated or was absent to begin with.

  • baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me. no more.

  • @ColorfulHyena How did I know this would be a top comment?

  • @ColorfulHyena I came here to see this comment at the top. I was not disappointed

  • @ColorfulHyena as soon as i saw the title of this video this was what i thought straight away :P

  • @ColorfulHyena how did I know that was going to be the top comment...

  • Baby don't hurt me.

  • @faefae21 I was stupid to think someone else wouldn't have said this already

  • People should try to write a song about it.

  • In my experience, the better my relationship with myself, the less urge i have to be in a relationship and the happier i am.

  • god is love

  • What is love? Baby don't hurt me. Don't hurt me, no more.

  • It's not a thing it's a feeling that can last forever or a short time.

  • Spitzer on love....HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.....Bullshit.

    Rule #1 on love: Don't cheat on your spouse!

  • yeah Eliot Spitzer knows what love is.... yeah

  • @BoshRat I would submit to you that if you are not willing to die, and that has many connotations, then you have not made the DECISION to love. When you make that decision, but it is not followed by some action on your part then your decision is meaningless, and you have failed to bring about the principle of love. Love is NOT a feeling it is a decision. Love is not something that just happens, it's something you do.

  • love is chemicals in the brain that make you react to others in nature's way of promoting procreation to further the human race

  • @KuKlutsKat That my friend is not Love it's infatuation. You are right infatuation is a chemical reaction in the body and it is about procreation. That reaction has been mislabeled as love by this entire world. Love is not something you feel, it's something you do. If someone says love does not exist, they can only be referring to their own lives. Love does not come about as a result of some physical interaction, it is manifested only through application by ppl.

  • @bastardoftheparty1 Not necessarily as infatuation can be toward things that aren't human. Such as objects, animals and numerous other things. While love's chemicals tend to attract to your fellow human (hetero or homosexual). However your definition seems to be in the direction of caring. Someone can care for something or someone so much it could be considered love, but not to that point of where you'd want to procreate with them.

  • @KuKlutsKat You keep referring to a mechanism that facilitates sex for the purpose of procreation as though it is love. It is not. Love is a principle, sex is an act the two aren't connected. The principle of love is independent of sex. But like most ppl your going to continue to confuse the two.

  • @bastardoftheparty1 No love sis a chemical in the brain

  • @KuKlutsKat How could a principle be a chemical in the brain? I realize understanding principles requires a level of maturity, and life experiences that apparently you have yet to obtain so we'll end this little diatribe and you can have the final "no it isn't" comment. Peace & Love, I mean peace & chemicals.

  • @bastardoftheparty1 cause it's that simple. dawkins, hitchens other scientists say something along the lines too. Cause christians believe love is the existence of god. when it's just chemicals. Their word is a lot

  • lmao @ Spitzer.

  • How is it that so many left leaning people have such high praise for the power of love but never have anything insightful or philosophical to say about love itself?

  • @TheLeon4321 Okay, Ppl will tell you there are many types of Love, but that is BS. There is only one principle called love and it has nothing to do with sex. The same love you show to your spouse or lover is the same love you extend to an offspring. The nature of any relationship dictates the type of interaction between the two. What is appropriate in one relationship may not be in another, but none of this changes what love is. Love does not seek reciprocation. It is completely selfless

  • @TheLeon4321 How's that for philosophical?

  • @TheLeon4321 didn't you ever read any John Lennon lyrics?

  • @TheLeon4321 because love is love .. is love.

  • @TheLeon4321 "Left leaning?" Where'd ya get THAT? Nevertheless, I'd say that ANYONE who lauds love, but hasn't anything insightful and/or philosophical to say about it simply isn't arrogant enough to THINK they do.

  • @chackers

    Left leaning like most people featured on this so called "big think" series. To laud anything without backing it up is the most arrogant and selfish thing someone can do. That's pretty much a naked assertion of authority. Most leftists carry with them a Manichean ethic of kindly, loving leftists versus right-wing conservatives who always have to 'define' things and just can't "let things be, man."

  • Comment removed

  • @TheLeon4321 what are you talking about? If you watch the complete version of Chomsky's segment, he goes on to talk about his late wife and how a group of poor, ill treated Colombians planted a forest for her.

    Also, if you read anything by Arundhati Roy or Zinn, you will find some of the most insightful commentary on love. I mean, the reason why these people do what they do is because of a strong love for others which people who are not left leaning may not possess.

  • @TheLeon4321 Insightful and philosophical or religious?

  • @TheLeon4321 You make it sound like it's easy to say something philosophically sound about a concept as complex, undefinable, and culturally charged as love. Love as a concept is beyond the analysis of philosophy.

  • @TheLeon4321

    Uhm, very few people have anything insightful or philosophical to say about ANYTHING, regardless of what side of the political spectrum they lean towards.

  • @TheLeon4321 Isn't that the beauty of love? I could give you theories about love, what it is, what it can do, how love holds people together, but in the end it's so nebulous and free flowing that to try and contain love in a box does injustice to its nature.

  • CONT. love is built on what is at base an amoral, dumb, animal will to fuck. And lust has little to do with ethics or how good you are but instead attraction is based on the traits that a person demonstrates. Looks mostly in women, esp at first and w/ men females are drawn to 'alpha-male' characteristics

  • Noam chomsky summarised my life in one statement..well done, I guess you dont need to read so many books to know that

  • LOL about Elliot Spitzer talking about love...LOL.

  • @Jeffersonwazright Actually it is funny. But also funny is the bastard pigs he used to prosecute on Wall Street. Wall Street alone employees ..well it is known there is a prostitution industry that services Wall Street. Fuckin' hypocrites. Nobody's going after those fucks. Spitzer is a victim of a political hit, plain and simple.

  • @S2Cents I think Elliots issue shows us that men don't "fall in love", they fall in lust and then develop a nesting mentality for their mate. We either start to feel a mutual survival instinct with our mate or we end the relationship. Elliot probably still felt a survival instinct with his wife but just wanted some different ass- which most of us men feel. That being said I don't think women "fall in love" either.

  • @Jeffersonwazright your post is one of the most right-on, concisely put statements on love I've ever seen regarding the truth about people and love.

  • @S2Cents I can't help but hear sarcasim in your tone- maybe, maybe not...either way. Two thumbs up! Thank you if you were being honest, and if you were joking, well, that is what I observe.

  • @Jeffersonwazright (chuckle) You probably hear it because my post is so positive. But I responded that way because I've had very similar intuitions about this topic. And consider "romantic love". Think of Romeo and Juliet -btw they were in their early teens, which is the age when this form or kind of love is most dramatic and famously written about. Teenagers are hormonally insane ,basically 'in heat' all the time. Like love of that kind is a social construct, poetic embellishment of what is...

  • @S2Cents Ahha! You are on a similar page. :) Yes, great point about teenagers. Their desire to mate is unmatched- to the point where they are a wee bit crazy. It is pretty interesting when you think about it; we are all biologically programed to be in a sort of sexual slavery.

  • Romantic loves die after certain period when people MATE and seek for PROTECTION instead of looking for a friend of life. In other words, love dies when there were no love at the begining: just admiration, sexual attraction or something of that kind.

  • I certainly raised an eyebrow when Spitzer spoke.

  • Love is mutual respect.

  • LOL @ Spitzer talking about being bored after 25 years of marriage..."Love is a hotel room and a high profile prostitute"

  • We know what love is, dont pretend its some philosophy behind it. Its simply a chemical reaction in the body.

  • @gulbirk finally some comment that i can agree on

  • Head Bob. Head Bob. Head bob. Head Bob. Head Bob. Head Bob....

  • Everyone should want Romantic Love.

  • romantic love is the best sort, in my opinion. it lasts for a very long time- more than just a few years. the only difference between romantic love and passionate love is that the former does not have nervousness, uncertainty and anxiety that the latter has.

    passionate love is different, though. it has these feelings of nervousness, anxiety and uncertainty. plus, it doesn't usually last long (i.e. for more than a decade). this sort of love reminds me of the story of Romeo and Juliet.

  • Don't hurt me. Don't hurt me. No more.

  • Love cannot be defined, it arrives on its own and it does the same when it leaves, you have no control or say over it.

  • Spitzer on the meaning of love, HAHAHAA priceless.

  • Love is a four legged furry dog.

  • Love is a biochemical addiction instigated by our brains to increase our chances of creating offspring and raising the offspring well enough for them to themselves reproduce.

  • @JeanLouie1106

    Ace comment mate. 

  • @JeanLouie1106 love is far more simple to create than most people realise. When we fall in love we do not do it while we are with the person it is something that happens when we are apart. We will do something like, picture the person in our mind and fantasise about them, perhaps repeating their name in our head as we picture them and if your really geeky we may even sing their name in front of a mirror before we come to the belief that we love them. We do it to ourselves, no magic involved.

  • @frostyuk2007 And what's the reason they keep popping into your head? Upon the first meeting your brain deduces from the way they look, act, think and smell that this could be a great match and attaches to the thought of them a cascade of feel good emotions via biochemistry (just like cocaine and heroine) that alters your psyche so that you will want to stick with that person and raise offspring together.

  • @JeanLouie1106 Technically, it's our unconscious mind that controls our emotional states.

    Have you ever held a baby in your arms, perhaps old enough to smile or giggle, picture the baby in your mind for a moment, remember what it sounded like, do you remember how you felt that day?

    If you have ever held a baby in your arms you've probably got a big smile on your face right now and are reading this in astonishment of how good you feel. That was me giving your unconscious a quick nudge of love.

  • @frostyuk2007 What you call our unconscious mind is the predefined set of protocols and reactions that our homo sapien brains carry out. Actually, that you was putting the thoughts of a adorable baby into my head, promoting the normal response of positive emotion. Lets say for instance that a person was born with no positive feedback loop for affection, if you said to that person what you said to me that person would give you a blank stare.

  • @JeanLouie1106 If a person has a memory and they are capable of feeling love then they have already experienced love to understand what it means. If someone has experienced love you can elicit that emotion within them and anchor it to there everyday life with very simple cognitive psychology. By the way the line about the baby saved a young girls life who told me she couldnt go on feeling this way threatening to kill herself, so I showed her how she could feel. Today she is alive and very happy.

  • @frostyuk2007 Good news about the girl, I'm wondering how mentally unstable she must have been, however what's the point you're trying to make? That in normal humans the idea or emotion of love can be suggested and can develop on its own in the subconscious? We only feel the idea and emotion of what we've called love because our brains are hardwired to do so because in our path of natural selection it was beneficial to do so.

  • @JeanLouie1106 Actually yes, that is what I saying. Your right about the evolution of love and the reason it exists, my point is that when we understand the mental process that occurs we can replicate it and take control of or if your that way inclined, manipulate others with that information. Governments, TV, Newspapers manipulate and controlling the emotions of the population for decades. Try this, picture the memory of the baby again and double the size of the image. What happens?

  • Stephen Fry and Chomsky seemed the most convincing to me. lol @ Elliot Spitzer's inclusion, although maybe his, um, experiences make him eminently qualified to comment on this....

  • love is pain and suffering, its false hope in the face of nothingness.

  • after 25 years you wanna sleep with some young ho, cuz your wife is all worn out :p

  • hfdnghfd hmgdf mjhgfx j,yrumjcbhrg

  • Spitzer soils this

  • Love is the bond between a man and his hooker...just ask that first guy... eh

  • Love is a good pain .

  • do you really think it could be understood through words?

  • In the back of my mind, I know that love is scientifically explainable.

    Although it feels great if I pretend that it is a mysterious thing.

  • romantic love is about chemistry

    filial love is about biology (instinctive rather)

    platonic love is to do with intelligence

    there is love which is duty bound

    the caring nurse is that one.

    there is fan love

    about adoration

    to be human itself is to be able to love

    in any one of the above capacities!

  • Very appealing; Not. Have you not noticed the self promotional content of this video?

    Loves something you should have grown out of by the time your teenage years have ended.

    Its like crying because Lassie has fallen down the well again. GROW THE FUCK UP!!!

  • And "hate" that's another one! Without love there would be no hater and vice versa. End of, no more!

    Proudly without emotion for 14 years. And life long without a God or Goddess or pixie fairy! In fact I'm only using humour as a tool to feed the motor that drives you 100%: self interest, so you might just not be able to continue living the flawed existence this species has been for over 100,0000 years!!!

  • deengineering

    u MUST be a man lol

    u sound liek a grumpy old man.....RUUUUUN ppl

  • I think love is not what we think it is. Those in relationships often put emphasis on physical contact (sex, kissing, embracing). I think the purpose of a relationship is more to find a bearable (!!!) person to mutually feed the addiction of the sensation of touch. Take a mother's touch on a baby. Babies who come into pleasurable contact with other human beings grow faster and are much more healthy than babies who aren't touched. So, humanity has a physical and psychological dependence on touch.

  • Call a fucking masseur loser!!!

    Monkey needs a fucking hug and delousing!!!

  • Whatever you say, fellow water balloon.

  • love is patient, love is kind; It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude,it is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails. ~I Corinthians 13:4-8

  • i really love pornography, chili dogs, and my wife.

  • Baby don't hurt me.. don't hurt me... no mo

  • @ArgoSG That is the exact thing I was thinking when I saw the title for this video, and I only clicked on it so I could make the very same comment, but you have beat me to it... :(

  • @ArgoSG I know I could trust on a fellow youtuber to write this post before me!!

  • @ArgoSG When I saw this video, I was gonna post thing too, :P

  • @ArgoSG I was coming to say that, but it's seems that wasn't necessary.

    It's good to see the Internet is in good hands.

  • @ArgoSG i was singing this as soon as i saw the title... :3

  • Chomsky isn't a scientist?

  • This asshole smuggled prostitutes into his office. Shut the fuck up.

  • Love? Non-mysterious set of neurological phenomena. Whoa whoa whoa, oh-whoa, whoa ohh ooh ♫

  • So, no scientists in this series at all? Shameful :(

  • I was half ready to be rickrolled

  • Lmfao

  • Makes me sad Noam Chomsky's wife died

  • BABY DON'T HURT ME!

    DON'T HURT ME

    No Mooooooooooore...

  • Damn, you beat me to it!

  • Spitzer?!!! ROFL!!

  • Love is everything good.

    Fear is everything bad and Fox news.

  • @CosmosPrivateer

    Fear is good, protects us from danger and doing stupid things.

  • @CosmosPrivateer Fear ist NOT the opposite of love, its hate. Acutally fear is a part of love, at least in the beginning. And love is not everything good. I wouldn't say that my printer is a manifestation of love just because its a good one.

    Love is nothing more or less than a chemical reaction in your brain leading you into relationships that are good for producing healty offspring. Everthing else that we accredit to it is a product of that chemical circus in our brains :)

  • @Samurailord No, I am sorry but you are totally incorrect. Love does not have an opposite. You seem to have a newtonian, mechanized view on what love is. Love might be just a hormone or a biochemical response to you, but love (unconditional love) is not a chemical response to an attachment and/or a clinging to something or someone outside of yourself. Also love and fear do not and can not mix. If you fear something, how can you love it at the same time?

  • @Samurailord The OPPOSITE of love is indifference.

  • @GoblinXXX Then what is hate ? Love/Hate at first sight......... Hollywood fantasy?

    Indifference is akin to divided attention.......people are loosing the ability to be in the moment.

    Emotions are far more complex. Our struggle to share our Feelings is when we are most vulnerable.

  • @9avedon Real HATE requires an emotional investment. You have to care about something to hate it:  You spend time thinking about it. Often hate stems from disappointed expectations-- It's like a twisted kind of "love". Indifference is literally not caring, not giving something a second thought.

  • @CosmosPrivateer

    You sound like Whoopi Goldberg as depicted in a South Park episode: "I hate Republicans... Republicans are stupid... I hate Republicans... Republicans are stupid..."

  • @qtutoringhelps That's right, Republicunts are stupid.

  • @CosmosPrivateer Amen brother!!

  • @CosmosPrivateer Hey don't leave out CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc.

  • @S2Cents

    Agreed

  • What is Love? First, lets ask Elliot Spitzer

  • Hold on hold on hold on... was that Eliot Spitzer??? Talking about LOVE???

    lmfao!

    ::face palm::

  • Love is like rage, it is intense and all consuming, but in time it fades.

  • I do not believe love fades. My former boy scout master has been with his wife since 8th grade. He is now 80..

  • It is difficult to distinguish love from affection from any perspective other than that of the individual concerned. I am sure that if you asked him whether the feelings he has for his wife are the same now as they were back then he would say no. My statement doesn't mean that people can't stay together forever, but true passionate love, burning like fire and filling every inch of your being, that cannot last forever.

  • Passion dies, but "true love" in the sense of familial ties, spending your lives together, etc, grows as that passion dies.

    If you do it right, that is. :P its rare as hell.

  • I agree, but I think that in my understanding true love refers to that passion you mention. The love that develops therein is something different. It may be a truer love than the first type, but when I say true love I refer to the passionate feelings which people experience at the start of their relationship.

  • well, i'd say the dominant version of love is that "passionate" romantic type spoken of, but the one that keeps society together is the one shared between families, communities, culture, and even between the species itself, the latter kind.

    Cheers.

  • Actually, still not true. At a dinner, he stated he was still perfectly in love with his wife and vice versa. Also, my grandparents have been married since they were 20. My grandpa died when he was 76 and my grandma was completely heartbroken. I almost cried when my grandma fell down in tears at his funeral, when they were carrying the coffin away..

  • You can be completely heartbroken, you can fall down at tears at funerals, you can say you love somebody, but the actually physiological and psychological state that is true love is a transient one. I broke down in tears at a friend's funeral, I was not in love with him but I was very sad at the tragedy that was his death. Affection more than explains everything you mention. I obviously don't know the specifics, but the true burning love in their relationship was probably dead years ago.

  • Fuck you Chomsky aka Toohey.

  • VERY surprised at what Noam said haha. Didn't think the guy knew love existed.

  • @austiiiiiin why? because he speaks in a monotone? I think he does his political work out of love for mankind, and studying linguistics would get anyone to love and adore the human mind (my girlfriend is a linguist).

  • I was being more comedic then serious. I read one of his books and he's all about the facts. I thought he would have some scientific explanation to why people feel like they are "In Love" with others. That's all. No harm intended, people..

  • Yep, I knew what cha meant!

  • True Love is finding someone which is your "key". A unique key that that can open only you, and unleash your soul. Others almost open it, but only one can. And, when you find that key, which is incredibly hard, you'll die for it it need be.

  • Love is lust in a sense. I think we get comfortable with a person over time when we are able to tolerate them in our lives.

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