[-empyre-] Re: love, sacrifice, and the eternal return

[sergio basbaum]

Melinda,

I don't know if I got wrong your message, but are you suggesting that all
the struggle for the meaning and expression of the world "love", or at least
some of its meanings could be reduced to "just a physiological response
sparked by a set of characteristics in the love
object (which doesn't necessarily have to be a person or the representation
of person), and the context and availability of that object." ?

This means you're throwing away a lot of meaning -- all of it opened to
interpretation and re-creation and also offering an paths to get closer
(through involvement and interpretation and dialogue and silence) to deep
hidden aspects of human soul & experience -- by a simplistic, reductionistic
causalistic and materialistic explanation of neuroscience.

Between Shakespeare and Neuroscience, I'd rather stay with Shakespeare.
Contemporarily, probably along a milkshakespeare.

love

s.



On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 7:51 AM, melinda <m at subtle.net> wrote:

> Hi all
> Well i guess it depends on what sort of love you are referring to...
> -this one sounds like the heady passionate compulsive type of love, as
> distinct the primal lust type of love, or the attached companionable type
> of
> love..
>
> Ive been doing a bit of research lately for book chapter coming out soon on
> love in 3 dimensional online environments, and this sort of love - the
> tragic, the dramatic, the love of romeo and jullette, pop music and
> hollywood, and much discussed throughout philosophy is really just a
> physiological response sparked by a set of characteristics in the love
> object (which doesn't necessarily have to be a person or the representation
> of person), and the context and availability of that object.
>
>  The more unattainable the object, the more desirable and embedded it
> becomes in our neural activity, producing a whole raft of physical effects
> from anxiety, palpitations, intense focus, breathlessness, severe
> depression, sleeplessness, etc etc, hence upping the likelihood of tragedy,
> drama, violence  and sacrifice..
>
> Neatly circular hey.. and definitely unromantic..
>
> Melinda
>
>
>
>
> > Owen et al,
> >
> > Love and sacrifice are intimately intertwined throughout history. Or
> > should we say surrender rather? But, what is sacrificed or what is
> > surrendered to?
> >
> > In a Lover's Disourse Barthes says he wants to say 'I love you' in
> > Spanish - te quiero -  because the subject is dropped in Spanish
> > syntax. And even more preferably, he would like a language that drops
> > the object as well. The subject - object sacrificed, excluded,
> > eradicated, the word 'love' becomes affirmative. In love 'I' don't
> > exist - which is very contrary to contemporary culture of taking
> > control, getting in charge etc that situates us in the violence of
> > language, control issues and so forth.
> >
> > Barthes also says he wants the lover to be a 'mute object'.
> > Interestingly enough he calls the lover an object here in the
> > discourse of love. A case in point for the 'tyranny of language'? As
> > soon as language returns, we fall into its violence, and the violence
> > and hence the I need to be sacrificed, if we want to surrender to the
> > affirmative  'love' [you].
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>



-- 
-- Prof. Dr. Sérgio Roclaw Basbaum
-- Coord. Tecnologia e Mídias Digitais
-- Pós-Graduação Tec.da Inteligência e Design Digital - TIDD (PUC-SP)
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