Unconditional Love Is A Myth And The Illusion Of The Self

First of all before starting the post I'd like to say that one thoughtful human helpfully pointed out that my blog posts are too lengthy and dense for the average human, but perfect if my only purpose is to document my thought processes and thinking patterns, and I said that is exactly what I'm trying to do, even though I might modify the blog to make if more accommodating for the general public, currently I'm only concerned with expressing my stream of thoughts and describing my thinking processes in the raw form.

My second purpose is to connect with like-minded people, and that too is more probably if I express my thought processes as they are, because socially psychology has found that birds of a feather do actually flock together, at least in this case, metaphorically speaking.

Coming to this post- this is one of my more important ideas, not as dense and insightful as, say, ideas in my posts 'Logical Reasons' and 'Schopenhauer', which have some of my original ideas which are higher in information density, but this one is my commenting on an essay about a topic that I myself had a bit to say about, and it's by no means unimportant, if you're someone who has been in love or intends to fall in love, which I ironically also consider a waste of time and energy, but it's not about me, it's about people being irrational and causing harm to themselves and others in the process, which results in suffering, which is the primary reason I'm interested in love.

I am more interested in a form of platonic love which I believe every human should try to cultivate, along with virtues such as kindness, compassion and empathy, but this post is more focused around romantic love (though it could be extended to maternal or paternal love too), which is a more common and widespread form of love which is also why people are prone to being irrational by blindly following their feelings and emotions without thinking straight. I have tried to not let my own subjective bias and personal preferences influence my thoughts and comments and cloud my judgments, trying to be as objective as I could be, but I'm a human, probably, and hence not perfect, so I'd like you to point out any flawed arguments you might come across. If you like it, check out my related post 'Falling in Love Rationally'.

Coming to the main topic now- Unconditional Love Is A Myth (Probably). You might have an idea of what I'm going to talk about, and no I'm probably not projecting my own lack of social engagement and social ineptitude while writing these ideas, at least not consciously. My ideas are mainly concerned with the illusion of the self and what it means to love someone, and I did not research and haven't yet dug deeper into the topics I'm going to talk about, same as the rest of my blog post excluding the book reviews, so feel free to correct me about anything.

This is my question for you- who are "you"? Is it your possessions, achievements or even your physical body? If you are reading this, I'm presuming that you're already smart enough to understand how these things don't make you you, but I'll still try to explain briefly: your possessions are something that could be someone else's tomorrow, and you would not say that someone is a part of you just because they now own, say, a personal computer that once belonged to you. Your body is also constantly undergoing changes down to the level of individual cells, rebuilding itself constantly just like the Ship of Theseus.

The previous sentence is important to understand, because the Ship of Theseus is an important analogy to understand the points I'm trying to convey. Just like your body, your brain is constantly undergoing changes at the level of individual molecules, so you also can't say you are your intelligence or your charisma are what make you you. Why do I say that?

Well, for starters, for you to be something you need to be able to observe it yourself, and if you are able to observe it, it is not you, because "you" are already observing it. Second, it needs to be immutable, and we already know how a brain injury or changes in genes could cause differences in intelligence and personality traits, and basically every cognitive ability. So tomorrow you are struck with an injury that makes you, say, less creative or blunt to emotions, would it not be you?

You could evoke some alien in the machine, some external observer that is sitting and controlling the body, but then you need to explain how you, being completely detached from the physical and biological brain, could pull off something like that. It also goes against current scientific evidence, so I'll disregard this side of the argument.

So what if you associate yourself with your charisma and people's skills, and tomorrow due to some mental illness or brain injury you lose it? Look up Phineas Gage if you want to get an idea of what I am talking about. He is someone whose case is taught in every introductory psychology class.

This is also another reason I believe that it is unhealthy to attach your 'self' with not just any object in the world, but any aspect of your brain and mind, because everything is more malleable and transient than you might think, and that's also what I think Buddhist religions try to say when they discuss this topic of self, if I understood it correctly. This is also why it helps to be open-minded and not attach yourself to any ideological dogmatic belief, because that's irrational and goes against the scientific method and open-mindedness. Assuming of course that you do believe in those values and the scientific method.

Now let's take mothers: what most would say are perfect examples of unconditional lovers for their offspring. My point is, the mother might love the child for bring her own child, but- here I'm unsure so take it with a grain of salt, because I'm neither a psychologist nor a mother- they must associate their child with some aspect they display: their child's way of talking, appearance, mental traits, behaviour and mannerisms, because otherwise they would never be able to identify and distinguish them from other children in the first place.

So what if their child happens to lose the traits? Would their love diminish? Well, it's hard to test this empirically, even keeping aside the ethical aspects, because a mother might associate many traits with their child, and it's very unlikely that some illness or incident would take away all those traits at once, and even if it does and the mother loves them less, we have no quantitative, objective and scientific way to measure 'love', and even if we developed such a measure- a big if- then it would have to be accurate to even detect when the mother is acting according to societal norms to pretend that her love has not been affected, in cases when it actually has been affected.

In conducting the experiment itself we would have to use natural experimentation, because we can not just select humans and destroy different aspects of their personality and cognition and ask their moms- you get the point.

Let me know if you have any thoughts or comments.

Update: I just created a new post titled falling in love rationally, in which I explain the points more deeply.

And very recently a person told me about his girlfriend. Just in case you're curious- I know you're not but still shut up and listen- that's a joke please don't get offended- damn I can't even make a proper joke and kill all the fun- oh no I am going off on a tangent once again- coming back to the point.. some people ask me for relationship advice even though I have never been in one myself, and don't even wish to because it seems to me like a huge waste of time and energy and requires too many commitments that might take away from my time to read and research, but this could be my brain coming up with reasons because it knows that I'll never- but yeah I'm still good at, or so I like to think, effective communication and navigating conflict in matters related to being rational and using language correctly with an open mind and logic to try to listen and understand and express your thoughts clearly, something that many people seem to struggle with.

This person's girlfriend had told him that she likes his appearance, smile and other similar characteristics, and the reply I gave is very relevant to the topic of this post:

What if your appearance changes due to some unfortunately incident or your character changes due to some case like Phineas Gage which I hope doesn't but it's hypothetical and what if you are suddenly unable to smile for some reason for the rest of your life what if you were a tree what if you were a beetle or a sublime mass of pure chaos- okay this reminds me of those would you still love me memes that I came across a few months ago.. some of them were funny and also highlight this deep philosophical problem and discussion about the 'self' and 'love'..

Okay I'll stop but my point is- Some characteristics definitely do sound closer to the seemingly unchanging 'self', if such a thing exists, but all of them are superficial at some level or the other, some are just deeper and more permanent than the others, but still transient and ephemeral, just like probably almost everything in the universe; maybe values could be unchanging but we don't know enough to say anything for sure..

if you ever commit to someone you can say what you like about them but never be sure it's going to stay constant forever because everything is transient even things we believe to be permanent- unless you happen to believe in a soul or consciousness separate from the brain like Cartesian dualists-

so you either 1) make it clear and logical and direct what you like and this is what you like them for and if it changes you say something in advance like ''well that would be unfortunate and undesirable but that's the only part of the social contract we're entering in and I'm gonna leave you if any of that happens, no hard feelings..'' or

2) you commit to them whatever happens even if worst case they go insane and get physically disformed and all you'll never leave them till you die, which is hard and which many people say without even thinking too deeply about it and then change their minds.. so I'm not saying any one is better than the other but I'm saying it's bad when people don't even realize this is a problem..

Sorry if my extremely dramatic examples I employed to demonstrate my point applied to real life was uncomfortable.

Now I think I'm starting to realize why I find it so hard to build and maintain friendships, let alone relationships.. Hmmm.. No, I'm just kidding. Half-kidding, anyway, probably.

Edit: A paragraph from one of my other posts that is relevant here:

(To play the devil's advocate myself for a second here and point out how I could be wrong: I realize that I am good at cognitive empathy but lacking in affective empathy, which means I can't feel the emotional affect or feeling of the experience as vividly as others however hard I try because that's how my brain works, though I'm trying my best, but as I said, I can't be certain until I experience an event myself.

So, here I talk about 'distractions' like tv and games and socialization, and until very recently I used to think it's personal preferences and you do you and I'll do what I like, no one is inferior or superior and there is no one correct way to do things, kind of like live and let live, and how a person who derives pleasure from solving mathematical equations is no different from the person who derives that same amount of pleasure playing video games, though one has more negative effects on the mind than others, but they seem to be the same in essence.

But now I have realized all the time wasted in such distractions is taking away time that could be put to use in building a better society, and I expand on this idea in great detail in my post series Schopenhauer on Mars, but combing back to the point about affective empathy, I have never experienced the joy of watching a movie that I like, most of them are boring and I feel like I'd rather ditch my brain and leave it to decompose than let it rot away like that, I used such language to describe how I actually feel about it, no offense to those who do, literally almost everyone on the planet, that is.

And I have similarly never experienced joy socializing. I have tried fitting in, pretending, still nothing works, something is off, I am never quite able to blend in, I'm made to feel even more lonely around people than I am when I'm alone, and likewise I say that love [romantic love, more specifically the hedonic and lust kind, that strikes during adolescence, not the other forms, which I believe every human should cultivate] is a huge distraction, a huge waste of time and just a plan of your selfish genes to propagate your genes, and distracts you from your goals and never leads to fulfilment and takes away precious time that could be used to eradicate suffering, but I have never fallen in love.

I have never felt loved [again, the romantic kind, though my parents do try to love me, but they don't get it, unable to understand] but I have this depiction of love that comes from reading some fictional works back when I used to read fiction and dabbled for a while in YA fiction, that love is what makes you love yourself, when reality is finally better than dreams, that transforms you blah blah and I think it's a waste of time and energy, physical, mental and emotional, but I would never know until I do, and I can't just wait for it to happen before I take my stance on this because I'm already isolated finding it hard to make friends, let alone love, I don't even care about love, so it's improbable that it would ever happen, hence it's all guesswork.)

Update: Person X: "if you make sweeping statements about romantic love (or 'lust', which isn't inherently a bad thing) without having experienced them yourself, people will take very badly to that, and will think/say unkind things. Some of it will be valid."

Me: That makes sense. Thanks for the warning. I'd be surprised if that didn't happen, so that's expected, as long as the people are open-minded enough to listen and try to understand my worldview. I'll still make the necessary edits to clarify my stance on this issue, about me being an ignorant fool who has never been in a relationship and can't even make friends and is just fooling around playing with ideas. That might help.

Relevant Out of context lines from my notepad or somewhere:

So it's like, I am repulsed by the idea of sex, the idea of- also bringing to existence life, which makes me lean towards Antinatalism, but it's not just that, I hate the gross biological wetware so I considered becoming a surgeon once but realized that it makes me feel sick the shiny gleamy gross wetware, internal organs.

But at the same time I feel like I have sexual desires and I'm also lonely so it's like- I also hate social interaction but but feel lonely but dislike humans and too much talking but sometimes overshare but I was the silent kid- so I'm full of contradictions but my point is-

Its like I'm trapped in this biological machine with needs and desires I never asked to have, and now I cant get rid of them. It harms my productivity because I can't focus on my research projects and it has negative effects on my mental health, same with all sexual and social needs and desires, it's like you have these genes and stuff, your brain wants it, but you know you don't, but now you have no way out.. It's like libertarian paternalism once again- you get the genes and stuff, that shape your brain to have these desires, needs, abilities, illnesses or anything that goes against your personal preferences and makes living a fulfilling life harder, at times worse than non-existence; it's the default, even though it should be a choice, except unlike Libertarian Paternalism (see Thaler's Nudge) you cannot opt out, at least not yet, not until I get access to some research facilities.. very soon..

I think I am the only one because all people I talk to- online, physically I've been socially isolated for over three years and four consecutive months now, gap year, going to start so brushing up on my social skills- but I felt this sex thing is just another one of my eccentricities and unconventional opinions and personal preferences, never expected to find someone who feels like that too-

it's also like I'm not interested in relationships and stuff and I'm extremely introverted and I have some ambitious goals so I don't want anyone or anything hold me back and only if I could turn off some switch which made me not feel any social or sexual desires..

great. I usually think I should not be happy if someone can relate and it involves suffering, but this is something like a mild discomfort except that sometimes it's too much of a distraction and- as I said, this is the reason I believe I should try to be more extroverted.

But I still haven't found any solution.

Do you have any coping mechanisms maybe?

Oh there is one very obvious one but you know Now that we're talking about it, if it doesn't make you feel uncomfortable, it's what everyone seems to do if you know what I mean but I find even that disgusting, just like the idea of sex is repulsive, I find that I hate it and even though there is nothing wrong with it, it's natural and healthy and all, no need to feel guilt, I still think it's disgusting and that's just another thing that sets me apart from others who seem to find it normal and even enjoyable.

I like the idea of pure platonic friendship. I've only ever wanted a good friend, a close companion, who values the same qualities or virtues as I do or has similar levels of motivation or curiosity or I don't know- never been interested in how every seems to be attracted to the more superficial stuff that isn't even going to last and provide lasting happiness, similar to how everyone is plugged into their tiny Nozick machines and doesn't realize the distinction between Eudaimonia and Hedonia. Live and let live; I respect their preferences, but once again it gets lonely when it's so difficult to find people who are able to understand, let alone relate, so I use writing. Helps that I enjoy it too.

Never mind that people also tell me I'm good at it, because it's mainly because it's an effective tool for emotional regulation and also enjoyable. Which is the reason most of my posts are so long, dense and unreadable and incomprehensible to the average reader, as I've been told, yet I refuse to make it more readable than I want to. Yes, I could preserve both version and create a more readable version or hints and I was thinking of doing so and other stuff, but no time and mood right now. Even though it might sound like I'm an aromantic asexual or something, I do feel both of those things, just much more complex and complicated, still trying to figure it out.