The problem with depending on someone loving you because they are irrationally, "just in love!" is that it's irrational. If it's irrational to begin with there is no way to know when they'll just fall out of love: often happens, by all reports.
To be thoroughly unromantic, I model romantic attachment as a combination of irrational "chemistry", qualities (looks, wealth, personality, etc.) and, importantly, shared experience. Chemistry may or may not endure. Looks fade and wealth may be transient. But shared experience necessarily grows, adding irreplaceable history, depth, and meaning. With luck and effort it will outweigh any deterioration in chemistry or material factors.
It reminds me of a tragic story of my friend and her husband "Pete." Pete had a severe set of strokes over the course of 2 weeks that he somehow survived, but left him partially paralyzed, and chunk of his brain essentially dead. He went from a brilliant extrovert, life of the party, amazing sense of humour etc to... anything but. Difficulty communicating, almost no emotion either way. Its like her husband died and this new person, Pete 2.0 was now in her life that she was responsible for to look after like a teenager with many physical and complex psychological needs. She still loved him and looked after him until he passed away 15 or so years later. She would visit him regularly at Long Term care in his final year. Another friend, a PSW said in her experience it was 50/50 whether a spouse sticks it out with "Pete 2.0". Pete post stroke was not at all a worm of course, but he was nothing like the old Pete.
„I chose Brad Pitt because we were born 6 days apart.“
I think it was your thinking that missing a subway train would transform your life compared to not missing it. Or you not being you if the one sperm was another. And so on. So:
Ancestors-wise, maybe you have ancestry around the year 1600 (2^17 generations => some 131‘000+ alive around said year). That would make you two closer as you‘d think?!
In the movie "Get Out", we have a situation where older (rich white) people have their brains (? I don't remember exactly, but their consciousness or something) transplanted into younger (black) people. Which is an interesting case for "would you still love me if I was transplanted into another person's body"
I asked my wife Shania if it'd impress her much if I were Brad Pitt. She said that I must not be paying attention to her music career and she wants a divorce.
For this autist, it is hard to say what part is serious here, which is OK! However, the idea did not track with my experience. Definitely we love with expectations. We do not love a body, or soul, or *anything* - we are growing attached (with various levels of rational decision, as Paul describes) to an entity which — sorry, maybe impolite to say — is entirely in our minds. We love the feeling. Two individuals are leaves on the tree, and love is in the tree itself, we are both drinking it. If we’re compatible - we share it. Sometimes compatibility breaks. It’s OK!
If you think about it and as per Leonard Cohen’s delightful song, we’re all just a “brief elaboration of a tube”, embryologically and phylogenetically speaking.
If only brain transplants were a thing. Imagine all the billionaires transplanting themselves into younger cloned (or better yet, someone else’s cloned and genetically modified) bodies!
Fascinating. Because this obviously invites a question of what "you" are if not a (unique of course) combination of traits?
Perhaps we can square the irrational notion of loving the person for their soul/essence/themselves and the material reality by making love massively polygenic, figuratively.
This resolves the "what if whatever you use in place of Brad Pitt looks wise in your head moved next door, single and inexplicably attracted to you" problem, explains why shallow people seem shallow (they're too fixated on one trait, so less shallow and more narrow perhaps) and yet saves us from worm love.
It's also interesting in actually socially relevant nowadays terms: would you still love me if I was a dude? A woman? To some people the answer is obviously yes or no, others struggle.
As to the quotes:
1) I used to get the Beatles renditions sang at me, and answered in huggy but annoyed affirmatives. As it turned out, I did not need to hesitate as the person in question ceased to be anything 11 years before the title age hit.
2) surely the aching soul must be the "despite" rather than "because" factor at any given time, so she's on a losing slope here....
3) Fantasy writers recognise the problems with getting trapped in unsuitable brains, the ones I remember is birds, from TH White to LeGuin. There was also a dog one....
I checked with my wife. She said she'd love me if I were an isosceles or equilateral triangle, but not scalene.
I understand, even if it hurts. A woman has to draw the line somewhere.
The problem with depending on someone loving you because they are irrationally, "just in love!" is that it's irrational. If it's irrational to begin with there is no way to know when they'll just fall out of love: often happens, by all reports.
To be thoroughly unromantic, I model romantic attachment as a combination of irrational "chemistry", qualities (looks, wealth, personality, etc.) and, importantly, shared experience. Chemistry may or may not endure. Looks fade and wealth may be transient. But shared experience necessarily grows, adding irreplaceable history, depth, and meaning. With luck and effort it will outweigh any deterioration in chemistry or material factors.
It reminds me of a tragic story of my friend and her husband "Pete." Pete had a severe set of strokes over the course of 2 weeks that he somehow survived, but left him partially paralyzed, and chunk of his brain essentially dead. He went from a brilliant extrovert, life of the party, amazing sense of humour etc to... anything but. Difficulty communicating, almost no emotion either way. Its like her husband died and this new person, Pete 2.0 was now in her life that she was responsible for to look after like a teenager with many physical and complex psychological needs. She still loved him and looked after him until he passed away 15 or so years later. She would visit him regularly at Long Term care in his final year. Another friend, a PSW said in her experience it was 50/50 whether a spouse sticks it out with "Pete 2.0". Pete post stroke was not at all a worm of course, but he was nothing like the old Pete.
If she is using the material conditional, the statement is always (vacuously) true because the antecedent is false!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuous_truth
„I chose Brad Pitt because we were born 6 days apart.“
I think it was your thinking that missing a subway train would transform your life compared to not missing it. Or you not being you if the one sperm was another. And so on. So:
Ancestors-wise, maybe you have ancestry around the year 1600 (2^17 generations => some 131‘000+ alive around said year). That would make you two closer as you‘d think?!
I think the title is “…if I WERE a worm.” Subjunctive police!
Read footnote 1!
My rebuttal : Paul Bloom Has a Triangle Fetish
https://open.substack.com/pub/scottcave/p/paul-bloom-has-a-triangle-fetish?r=wpi1&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
In the movie "Get Out", we have a situation where older (rich white) people have their brains (? I don't remember exactly, but their consciousness or something) transplanted into younger (black) people. Which is an interesting case for "would you still love me if I was transplanted into another person's body"
She would have won: no absolutely not.
If she turned into a one that's different. I would care for her in memory of her and in a hope that she can one small become something lovable.
I asked my wife Shania if it'd impress her much if I were Brad Pitt. She said that I must not be paying attention to her music career and she wants a divorce.
For this autist, it is hard to say what part is serious here, which is OK! However, the idea did not track with my experience. Definitely we love with expectations. We do not love a body, or soul, or *anything* - we are growing attached (with various levels of rational decision, as Paul describes) to an entity which — sorry, maybe impolite to say — is entirely in our minds. We love the feeling. Two individuals are leaves on the tree, and love is in the tree itself, we are both drinking it. If we’re compatible - we share it. Sometimes compatibility breaks. It’s OK!
♥️
If you think about it and as per Leonard Cohen’s delightful song, we’re all just a “brief elaboration of a tube”, embryologically and phylogenetically speaking.
If only brain transplants were a thing. Imagine all the billionaires transplanting themselves into younger cloned (or better yet, someone else’s cloned and genetically modified) bodies!
Fascinating. Because this obviously invites a question of what "you" are if not a (unique of course) combination of traits?
Perhaps we can square the irrational notion of loving the person for their soul/essence/themselves and the material reality by making love massively polygenic, figuratively.
This resolves the "what if whatever you use in place of Brad Pitt looks wise in your head moved next door, single and inexplicably attracted to you" problem, explains why shallow people seem shallow (they're too fixated on one trait, so less shallow and more narrow perhaps) and yet saves us from worm love.
It's also interesting in actually socially relevant nowadays terms: would you still love me if I was a dude? A woman? To some people the answer is obviously yes or no, others struggle.
As to the quotes:
1) I used to get the Beatles renditions sang at me, and answered in huggy but annoyed affirmatives. As it turned out, I did not need to hesitate as the person in question ceased to be anything 11 years before the title age hit.
2) surely the aching soul must be the "despite" rather than "because" factor at any given time, so she's on a losing slope here....
3) Fantasy writers recognise the problems with getting trapped in unsuitable brains, the ones I remember is birds, from TH White to LeGuin. There was also a dog one....
I have some confessions to make
https://open.substack.com/pub/scottcave/p/my-confessions-to-paul-bloom?r=wpi1&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web