colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) (09/24/86)
> > > Actually, my favorite definition was written by Robert Heinlein. > > > Paraphrased: Love is the condition when the happiness of another > > > person is essential to your own. > > > > And I thought Spinoza's definition was wide of the mark! This one > > looks as if a robot had thought it up. > > > > "Work faster or I'll kill you." > > "I guess that means I love you." > > How is it that that means the worker loves the threatener? It seems that you > are trying to say that the threatener's happiness is essential to the worker's > happiness. ... The worker's happiness may be necessary but > not sufficient for the threatener's happiness. ... > In such a case, the threatener would be unhappy > and the worker would be happy (assuming the case of a simple-minded worker > who requires nothing but life for happiness). It seems that we have a > counterexample. > One could hypothesize about a threatener who existed only to make this worker > work. In such circumstances, the worker might love the threatener, going on > Heinlein's definition of love. But such a case is absurd. Absurd? As a reader of science fiction, can't you entertain the prospect of robot slave-drivers? |-) I don't think you understood my point about "a robot had thought it up." Heinlein's definition (like Jan's quote from Spinoza) is an _external_ description. It's based on observing how other people appear to be affected by their loving, instead of on direct experience of one's own loving. It really tells nothing about the experience of love. A parallel is the definition of man as "a featherless biped." With suitable limitations, it's accurate; but because it says nothing about the nature of man, it's vulnerable. (The ancient counterexample for this one is "a plucked chicken.") Anyway, Heinlein's understanding is unsound. It's a blatant error to define love as a "condition." An emotion is the opposite of a state or condition; it's a changing, a movement in the soul. A static emotion is a self-contradiction. "... He loved Big Brother." G. Orwell, _1984_ -- Col. G. L. Sicherman UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel CS: colonel@buffalo-cs BI: colonel@sunybcs, csdsiche@sunyabvc
janw@inmet.UUCP (10/01/86)
[colonel@sunybcs.UUCP ] >I don't think you understood my point about "a robot had thought it up." >Heinlein's definition (like Jan's quote from Spinoza) is an _external_ >description. It's based on observing how other people appear to be >affected by their loving, instead of on direct experience of one's own >loving. No, no, Spinoza's definition isn't. It deals exclusively with the feelings of the *loving*, not the loved, and in fact covers naturally one's love for a picture or for one's home. Heinlein's does not. Jan Wasilewsky