That’s not “love”. It’s a biological need to be subservient to another being.
If I fed your dog better food the dog would “love” me more than you.
Came here to post just that.
I agree completely.
This is simply not true. There is zero evidence to suggest a dog will switch loyalties to the next person who feeds it better. I have had dogs my whole life and known lots of other people with dogs and I have never seen that be the case.
I suppose you can reduce anything in the brain to mere programming if you want. What you perceive as free will is really just programmatic responses to stimuli. Essentially all living things are fancy robots. Is that what you are suggesting?
No, because our knowledge and skills in programming robots is nowhere near the advanced system programming nature has been able to do for the past 4 billion years of life on this planet.
To think that an animal “loves” is a clear indication of human narcissism and ego-centric gratification of controlling an animal for a human’s emotional needs.
That much is a fact and it is well established. The best one can do is acknowledge they are choosing to impose their need of emotional gratification onto the behavior of an animal. Anthropomorphism of pets and its causes are both well established.
I didn’t say we could build such a robot but that, in theory, such a robot is build-able and would be indistinguishable from a living person.
It is?
Well then a cite shouldn’t be a problem for you to find. I’d like to see it.
I agree with Whack-a-Mole that a dogs love is about as close to unconditional as it gets…and that their love for us is real, and not just human projection or ‘narcissism and ego-centric gratification’ of control or whatever. We have bred them to be loyal and loving, but they were also practically designed to be our companions as well, and there is certainly a give and take aspect to our mutual relationship. Dogs have gotten as much positive out of the relationship throughout our mutual history as we have.
No idea how you are going to find a cite to back up your assertions, Naxos…I’d just punt on that one and move on.
That said, I don’t think that even a dogs love for it’s human family or individual is completely unconditional…I suppose if you tried hard enough or were willing to hurt it enough even deep seated love could be shaken eventually and the dog could be brought to turn on it’s human companions. But it’s about as close as anything…and not in the same horrible way it would be for one human towards another.
-XT
Yes, it is.
Four years of undergraduate study in any legitimate US college or university. Check out your nearest academic library.
The trolls with an academic degree that claim anything opposite to what I said just want to sell a book or have financial incentives to exploit the ignorant for their benefit.
Do your own work.
You made a claim. You find the cites to support it.
I have no responsibility to educate anyone. You can look after your own education.
Ascribing human emotions to animals is a clear cut indication of ego-centric narcissistic behavior and the science of psychology has a term for it.
You are correct you are under no obligation but for the purposes of the SDMB and GD in particular you have tacitly admitted you got nothing and your assertion is baseless. You made a claim that something is a “fact and it is well established.” If it is then finding support for your assertion should be easy. In Great Debates if someone calls you on an assertion and asks for a cite you need to back it up. If you can’t then you effectively concede the point.
This website has no authority on any claims.
Whoever claims Statement A, is obliged to provide support for it, the responsibility is not on the ones that refute or deny it.
The claim of animals having and/or experiencing the human equivalent of emotions is a bold claim that has to be substantiated, and it has never been as far as I know.
The popular claim of some people that their pets “love” them is all to common and can be explained with what we know about the frailties of human emotions.
Whoever thinks animals “love” should go on an Oprah show and mentally masturbate to the idea that they can determine an animal’s destiny.
You’re kidding right?
You have never seen an animal react in fear? Anger? Display exuberance and joy? Grief? These things are readily apparent to humans and we do not need to read the animal’s mind to recognize the emotion they are displaying because we have the same emotions and display then similarly. Why so you suppose love would be absent? Particularly for a social animal such as dogs where Mother Nature wants bonds between members to be strong?
We are all animals, even humans.
What planet do you live on?
What worth would it have?
If you loved everyone, then your love for any one person isn’t unique or specific to them. It’s really the same problem, only instead of unconditional love it has one condition, that of humanity, but that one condition doesn’t really add much to it. Humanity, in and of itself, isn’t a reason to love someone. I would argue it’s merely the ability to be measured, not the measure itself.
Well, for dogs at least. The question gets more interesting when you consider something like birds. Dogs and humans are both mammals; we have a lot in common in terms of brain structure, including in terms of the parts involved in emotions. Birds however evolved the higher parts of their brains separately; they by all appearances do have something analogous to emotions; but it’s an open question how similar bird emotions really are to mammal emotions. The same is true but more so of something like an octopus, which has an even more alien brain.
I am sure unconditional love exists but only within loving relationships. I don’t think that anyone pulling “Jeffrey Dahmer-type stuff” comes from a loving family at all.
I don’t believe that people from sane, stable loving families do things that make loving them impossible. Maybe under extreme circumstances or while fucked up by drugs but even then it’s not hard to feel forgiveness.
I know when I was working in substance abuse I learned that no-one becomes a drug addict because it’s cool. They do it because they are fucked up by family or fate.
What makes you think that? Love doesn’t mean you are kind or moral. If anything the opposite is true, people in love with someone tend to have less regard for everyone else.
You’ve never heard of mental illness? Psychopathy? People can and do turn out bad or crazy even with the best families. A good family just makes it less likely.
Did you miss post #5, and Oakminster’s retraction?
Why the tangent about dogs? The OP is about people isn’t it? Who cares that pets imprint upon their masters and the unconditional loyalty that stems from the imprint is construed as love, or is even love of a type?
The OP is asking if it is possible for a person to love another person unconditionally. I don’t see one mention of pets in there. If someone asked you if you preferred Ugg boots or 9 West boots, would you answer that you prefer Coach gloves?
The only human “unconditional love” examples I’ve ever seen, where the love is unconditional no matter what the target of that love does, are either people with severe psychological problems…or some religionists.
I’ll give you that but that is part of what I meant by extreme circumstances, there is fuck all you can do about brain chemistry other than get medicated.
Your other point makes no sense. I am saying that real loving relationships are kind and moral. So tell me about the unkind or immoral genuinely loving relationships that you have in mind?