What if self-love can just be explained scientifically?

[Nivsch]

A scientific minded person can say:

"But the reason that self-love is the core answer to one's problems, that all converge to it, it just because this is the number 1 need for us to survive (if we are alone we might be eaten) and we are programmed to it.

The reason that love is what you see after you awakened, it just that you are experienced our brain default status.

Therefore, there is nothing "awakening-ly" here, because this is just how our brain is programmed during evolution. Therefore if we give love to the system, people can evolve much faster to higher consciousness stages because we fullfiled it most basic need".

I dont like this reductionist attitude, but it can be the whole answer even if we dont like it.

What do you think?

Edited December 2, 2019 by Nivsch

[RendHeaven]

I know this isn't your idea or the way that you think, but the hypothetical "scientific" explanation you've given is not clear or coherent.

It's tough to answer since the claim being made is unclear.

[Nivsch]

4 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

I know this isn't your idea or the way that you think, but the hypothetical "scientific" explanation you've given is not clear or coherent.

It's tough to answer since the claim being made is unclear.

I think the scientific explanation IS part of the picture. But how do we know its not the whole picture?

Edited December 2, 2019 by Nivsch

[Superfluo]

@Nivsch

Yeah, but why love is one of the most fundamental needs of human beings and animals? Why don't living creatures thrive, for example, on hate? Or on shame, or on anger? What I'm talking about is the metaphysics of emotions. Why love is so powerful? Where does it come from? Why hate feels so bad and love feels so good? Why evolution made it so? Why there is even love or hate?

[Danioover9000]

There are two ways to measure self-love scientifically; by contemplating what is true science, self, and love, by researching and doing spiritual methods that lead to mystical experiences, and by embodying the realization(s), like this man 

   Of course, don't believe anything I say. Just do the practices and see for yourself.

[Forestluv]

22 minutes ago, Nivsch said:

A scientific minded person can say:

"But the reason that self-love is the core answer to one's problems, that all converge to it, it just because this is the number 1 need for us to survive (if we are alone we might be eaten) and we are programmed to it.

The reason that love is what you see after you awakened, it just that you are experienced our brain default status.

Therefore, there is nothing "awakening-ly" here, because this is just how our brain is programmed during evolution. Therefore if we give love to the system, people can evolve much faster to higher consciousness stages because we fullfiled it most basic need".

I dont like this reductionist attitude, but it can be the whole answer even if we dont like it.

What do you think?

Are you referring to a relative personal self love? Or a transcendent Self Love? . . . In the context of a relative personal self love, the scientific explanation you offer seems reasonable. Perhaps it may have practical value for a person. If it helps someone, super!

Someone else may say that self love is about opening oneself to healing energetics and massage. In a relative context, that also may have value at the personal level. If it helps someone, super!

There are also "trans-personal" states in which the orientation is not to meet self-centered desires, since the self has been transcended. This transcendent love is super as well. It's all Good. 

[Nivsch]

21 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

Are you referring to a relative personal self love? Or a transcendent Self Love? . . . In the context of a relative personal self love, the scientific explanation you offer seems reasonable. Perhaps it may have practical value for a person. If it helps someone, super!

Someone else may say that self love is about opening oneself to healing energetics and massage. In a relative context, that also may have value at the personal level. If it helps someone, super!

But what if the transcendent self love appears in our experience just because we feel now safe enough and the following mission of our brain is to love more and more because this is what helpes our species to survive? 

If you love more - you will want to defend other people from predators.

Again, i dont like this scientific simplification but we have to be careful not to dismiss it even if it contradicts our spiritual beliefs that love is "more" than this.

Edited December 2, 2019 by Nivsch

[Nivsch]

22 minutes ago, Superfluo said:

@Nivsch

Yeah, but why love is one of the most fundamental needs of human beings and animals? Why don't living creatures thrive, for example, on hate? Or on shame, or on anger? What I'm talking about is the metaphysics of emotions. Why love is so powerful? Where does it come from? Why hate feels so bad and love feels so good? Why evolution made it so? Why there is even love or hate?

Evolutuon gave us both because this is more efficient for survive as a species than just one kind of emotions.

[Leo Gura]

Simply no. Love is not that.

It would help if you realized your brain is imaginary. And so is science.

You CANNOT treat science as an absolute. Science itself is obviously incomplete and always growing. Stop blindly believing it. Question it deeply.

[Forestluv]

38 minutes ago, Nivsch said:

But what if the transcendent self love appears in our experience just because we feel now safe enough and the following mission of our brain is to love more and more because this is what helpes our species to survive? 

If you love more - you will want to defend other people from predators.

You are describing a relative manifestation of love. There is nothing wrong with that. It is beautiful and true in a relative context. Yet it is not absolute Love. Absolute Love transcends species survival. Absolute Love Loves human extinction just like it Loves human thriving. It is an Unconditional Love. It is not an emotional type of relative love, yet it includes emotional relative love because Unconditional Love Loves everything Unconditionally. 

It's like you have a map of Paris and are asking "How is Paris not Europe?". . . To realize the answer, one would need to go meta on the Paris map. Yet you keep coming back to the contracted map and saying "Yea, but what about the Eiffel Tower? How is that not Europe?".  . . I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm not saying Paris isn't Europe. I'm saying Paris is within Europe. One would need to let go of the Paris map to see that (yet there is nothing wrong with the Paris map - it has relative value. It is just contracted). 

Similarly, scientific models of the brain and love are within Love. 

[Commodent]

Scientific explanations are way more accurate than the vagueness one is usually served within spiritual circles. One got to realize that most spiritual traditions were developed in times where one quite simply didn't have the necessary means to explain phenomena with high precision. But now we have, so why not cherish that and use it as a tool to develop our spiritual practice?

Self-love CAN indeed be explained scientifically, but really, why would that be a problem? Science really only becomes a problem if you treat it as some sort of authority and let it prevent you from seeing the magic of life.

Edit: From a scientific standpoint, I would say that self-love is likely just affection being developed between certain networks in our brain. A prime example would be the rational left brain developing respect for the emotional right brain, and thus the emotional right brain in turn develop fuzzy, warm feelings for the left brain. So more generally, brain networks which had previously been separate and at odds with each other start molding together in order to create a coherent, integrated self. I've read about it in trauma research and it matches my own experience. But that explanation makes the experience no less magical, though.

Edited December 3, 2019 by Commodent

[Raptorsin7]

Science is always growing. It's pretty naive to say science will NEVER be able to address self love and the true self. But right now it's limited and you should recognize it's limits.

[d0ornokey]

Explaining things scientifically is nice but whatever science gives you - you need to verify yourself as well as be open to growing & questioning that definition 

[Nivsch]

53 minutes ago, Commodent said:

Scientific explanations are way more accurate than the vagueness one is usually served within spiritual circles. One got to realize that most spiritual traditions were developed in times where one quite simply didn't have the necessary means to explain phenomena with high precision. But now we have, so why not cherish that and use it as a tool to develop our spiritual practice?

Self-love CAN indeed be explained scientifically, but really, why would that be a problem? Science really only becomes a problem if you treat it as some sort of authority and let it prevent you from seeing the magic of life.

Edit: From a scientific standpoint, I would say that self-love is likely just affection being developed between certain networks in our brain. A prime example would be the rational left brain developing respect for the emotional right brain, and thus the emotional right brain in turn develop fuzzy, warm feelings for the left brain. So more generally, brain networks which had previously been separate and at odds with each other start molding together in order to create a coherent, integrated self. I've read about it in trauma research and it matches my own experience. But that explanation makes the experience no less magical, though.

It less magical because if science see the whole picture of self love than it is sad to us because it harms our spiritual view. At least about love. I personally want Leo to be right, and precisely because of that i try to challenge what he says from scientific pov to see that science's pov is limited but cant see it yet.

How can we know that all what you guys think (including Leo) about love is not just the brain tricks us? We cant know.

Edited December 3, 2019 by Nivsch

[Nivsch]

23 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You CANNOT treat science as an absolute. Science itself is obviously incomplete and always growing. Stop blindly believing it. Question it deeply.

Agree. I will try.

 

8 minutes ago, d0ornokey said:

Explaining things scientifically is nice but whatever science gives you - you need to verify yourself as well as be open to growing & questioning that definition 

Agree too.

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, Nivsch said:

We cant know.

Stop saying that. You don't know what you can't know.

[Commodent]

7 minutes ago, Nivsch said:

It less magical because if science see the whole picture of self love than it is sad to us because it harms our spiritual view. At least about love. I personally want Leo to be right, and precisely because of that i try to challenge what he says from scientific pov to see that science's pov is limited but cant see it yet.

How can we know that all what you guys think (including Leo) about love is not just the brain tricks us? We cant know.

We have a pretty accurate picture of the structure of a leaf or a tree, but does that make the tree any less beautiful? Only if you think it does.

Because the scientific model is really just that, a model. Even if there was an objective reality, what would that reality exist within? Because really, what allows such magic to exist? How is it even possible that something can spring out of nothing? Has it always existed and might reality be infinite? There is so much mystery to life, and it reaches way beyond just the scientific model, or the understanding of us mere humans. I would advice you to contemplate these mysteries deeply, instead of ruminating over minor little details. Not to "figure it out", but to let the mystery of life sink in. Keep resting at the borders of science. I think it might help you.

[Lento]

Geez! It doesn't matter what you like or dislike. Do you want the truth? Set your biases and dogmas aside.

[Danioover9000]

   This thread is interesting, but I think it's starting to decline in value. Better lock this thread than risk OP and others wasting time and energy only intellectualizing an advanced topic like self-love.

[Nivsch]

2 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

   This thread is interesting, but I think it's starting to decline in value. Better lock this thread than risk OP and others wasting time and energy only intellectualizing an advanced topic like self-love.

So lock the whole forum.