NOT Descartes' Error

In Descartes Error Antonio Damasio explores the relation between emotion and reason based on his study of neurological patients who had defects of decision-making and a disorder of emotion. Damasio advanced a hypothesis (known as the somatic marker hypothesis) that emotion was in the loop of reason, and that emotion could assist the reasoning process rather than only disturbing it, which is all fine and dandy - but, 

Damasio is changing the proposition, logically speaking. In other words, he changes the subject from reason to emotion and their interrelatedness rather than reason's procedural ability to recognize self-knowledge vs knowledge that has been adopted or accepted as fact due to repetition and/or early cognitive conditioning. 

In logic, this is called an analogical fallacy, and occurs when you suppose that things which are similar in one respect must be similar in others. It draws a comparison on the basis of what is known, and proceeds to assume that the unknown parts must also be similar. 

A city's municipal systems are not unlike those of the human body's emotional system, complete with a department for dumping unwanted emotions. 

Analogies are a useful way of conveying information. They enable us to talk about a new concept in terms of what we already know and have experienced. The fallacy comes in the assumption of further similarities on the basis of the ones already identified. 

Emotions are indeed part of the rational process, but they are like sprinkles on a cupcake. Some people react positively to sprinkles, which causes them to see the world through rose colored glasses; others detest sprinkles and then turn around and have a sour outlook on everything else their brain tries to rationally process. 

In a sense, emotions are like sprinkles. Some people react positively to sprinkles, others do not. But sprinkles are not part of the cupcake. They are enhancers or detractors, but they are not cupcakes.

Sprinkles are not cupcakes.

Academics are notorious for committing analogical fallacy errors in reasoning connections. In the attempt to make information digestible, understandable, and relatable, all kinds of comparisons emerge. 

Take society. Past societies all have in common that they are now no more. They were once societies, and before that not yet societies. These three utterly commonplace facts lead many anthropologists and historians into associating them as a group into a 'life-cycle' analogy. The simple sequence of 'not being a society, society, no longer a society' irresistibly invites comparison with living organisms. Before our defenses are ready to say, "Hey, we're not talking about the same thing," there we are with societies flourishing and flowering, soon to be referred to as later withering and pushing up daisies in the garden of an entirely new society. 

Societies are not flowers

The fact is societies are not flowers, flowers are not people, and people are not societies. None of these things are actually related except for when we compare them. Falling into an analogical trap, we feel we are deriving our strength from the soil, being nourished by the rain, and blooming in the mid-day sun. 

Rain is necessary to provide living organisms (including the planet) with life nourishing hydration, sunlight is necessary for warmth, making the environment hospitable to flourishing, and soil is necessary for planting and for crafting dwellings to protect ourselves from the elements, such as when it rains and floods. 

Hume, in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, has the earnest Cleanthes compare the universe to a delicate mechanism, like a watch. And because a watch necessitates a watchmaker, so too must the universe have a maker .... But the skeptical Philo refutes the argument by saying that the universe seems to him much more like a cabbage. 

Man, 

fashioned in the image of 

the almighty cabbage

Bowler Cabbage

Socrates, Descartes, and Marie Antoinette Walk into a Bar Salon

If you are alive today, and are in any way interested in intellectual matters, we probably would have thought we lucky to have come across one another to do more than think and write and fix and do things, we might sit down and wonder what we might really do if we put our brains together to tackle the understanding of Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration and the public's growing curiosity about it in a definitive way or we could marvel over the level of detail in Disney's 55h feature animated film Zootopia ... 

Charles Darwin showed how some emotional phenomena are present in remarkably comparable ways in nonhuman species; William James and Carl Lange advanced an innovative proposal to explain the processing of emotions; Sigmund Freud turned the emotions into the centerpiece of his often singularly twisted inquiry on psychopathological states; and good 'old Charles Sherrington tinkered around with a neurophysiological investigation of the brain circuits involved in emotions. 

Think about the early discussions Sherrington had with anyone would would listen to him? I wonder how many of those goodhearted gals and fellas were too busy to hear what he had to say, totally disinterested in going outside their comfort zone to even hear what he had to say, or simply incapable of taking off with him, through the keyhole. 

If Socrates, Descartes, and Marie Antoinette walked into a bar salon, an all-out attack on the subject of emotion, right there and then, would commence. Socrates would give an exhaustive, resolute explanation of characteristics only recognized when first experienced inside -thus, unheard to an audience. Descartes would blame himself, he'd plunge down that rabbit hole, head first. He'd only stop for tea if he could then think about the stopping for tea and its relation to thoughts theretofore previously never considered, and therefore necessarily worthy of examination, if only for the novelty, which is a must for the flourishing of a mind held hostage in a brain. 

What would Hilary Putnam have to say on the special subject of the brain-in-a-vat and the absence of trees in this artwork? Whatever it was, Socrates and Marie would have drowned out the sound of the discussion with their friendly, lively, and enjoyable discourse. 

It's no wonder Hilary et al got their little feelings hurt and turned around and under the loosely held group called neuroscience gave a resolute two fingers up to emotion research. 

 

True, the psychoanalysts never quite got over it, but a few pharmacologists and psychiatrists concerned with disorders of mood, and their twin cousins: a lone psychologist and neuroscientist, scientifically engineered an interest in the subject so that they'd have a place to share their shots on the subject; err, I mean, "thoughts" on the subject.   

Girl Selling Cupids, 1763

Joseph-Marie Vien

Château de Fontainbleu

Traveling to the head of the Académie Royale in Rome, we look to this larger than life pilasters decorated scene of a beautiful aristocrat woman sitting in the center golden chair, her companion stands behind her as both women give their full attention to the young girl who sits on the floor with a basket of cupids. She shall select the cupid, and chooses the one with the blue wings. The little cupid itself extends his arm, wishing to follow his taste for the lightness of rococo with the grandeur of classical style. 

And what will Little Blue-Winged Cupid find? 

Innovation, emulation, and even resistance, revealing tension at the very heart of the creative approach. And thus returning full circle to Socrates, Descartes, and Antoinette's discussion on the noble states of human emotion. 

@_@ Wow. I'll have what she's having. LOL

Rather than invite judgment, which would have only raised a ruckus, ending in a row, the trio settled in for the evening to consider the mind's natural language, the errors in translating it, and what we can do about it, in terms of extracting as much nectar of the gods as is humanly possible from the experience without overtaxing the human mechanism. 

I hoped to hear more of what they had to say on the subject, and seated myself at the end of the bar with a shot of tequila before me, amen. My stage was set and they returned to their discussion, but I did get a welcoming, attentive, and generous audience when I laughed at the implications of a particular conversation they had on just which map they should consult when navigating the labyrinth of emotions to an imaginary land one calls the dwelling place of the human mind .... 

Yes, Descartes, all these years later people can't help themselves, they're still searching for what it is that operates from within or travels through affecting the proverbial landscape. 

 

Cityscape (1956)

M.C. Escher

Just as expected, all three were eager to engage in a conversation, pose questions, make suggestions, and offer corrections (at this moment, Descartes and Marie pointed toward Socrates, who smiled knowingly in return). In several instances I caught Socrates smiling, the seemingly endless knowing smile he often flashes. With the exception of his personal biases, most of which he is aware or can easily pinpoint when in new territory, he's annoyingly correct. 

Descartes would just squint his eyes as if filtering out the light in his mind's eye. And Marie, she was too busy attending her flock and writing out her correspondence to concern herself with such details. 

Ten short minutes later the situation was radically different. Not long after Descartes conceded to Socrates, did Socrates look to Marie as an example of how to live the good life. To have time to imagine, to dream, to wonder ... set in an edenic landscape, perched upon a hill under a beautiful shady oak tree whilst the children frolic about, skipping stones across the lake, tormenting (only slightly) the ducks who waddle about in toe. 

The natural language of the mind turned their attention to the necessity of each and every human expression, and whether or not hierarchy could be assigned to anything other than personal taste. The subject was greeted with a new attention. Marie was particularly engaged in this lively discussion, and brought petit fours to fuel the mind's insatiable need to expend the higher volumes of energy necessary to disconnect positively from the experience of living to consider the art of it. 

Descartes and Socrates struck up a side conversation on the relation between emotion and reason, both offering exhaustive explanations of every nuance conceivably imagined, only Socrates was able to keep his place in the dialogue without the aide of notecards to find his way back from visiting a tangent. 

Descartes made a joke about keeping record of the categorical twists and turns so that he might later return to the subject, categorize and analyze and publish yet another book on the subject of how one goes about traversing and coming back full circle from a tangent, which he admitted was the basic plot in his book, only readers made it about the subject matter. 

Hopping over the boys' loops of reason, Marie offered a novel idea: How about we leave let alone, and rather than disturb it, commonly assume it is working well so that we might instead turn our sights to novel information, allowing ourselves to fully experience the enterprise of receiving new information before the reason rushes ahead of us telling us what we're seeing and why we're seeing it that way, forever clouding an otherwise sunny disposition. 

She had a good point, I thought. Despite the raised eyebrows Descartes offered, Socrates was game, and the three settled in for what looked like would be a charming, witty, tantalizingly surprising debate. If one were a painter, they'd probably place objects of curiosity about the image, in a right in front of arcadia-type of scene, suitable for reasoning, but in some superficial versions of the work disinterested in human suffering, except for that which is self-imposed. 

There are others who prefer the topic of suffering, but those hopeless romantics heard what they described was a magic pipe being played by a well dressed man in multicolored clothing and they immediately turned around and followed him out of the bar. Last heard they were headed out in search of the legendary town of Hameln. 

Clearly the emotions are not a substitute for reasoning, but in some superficial versions they sure do make a lot of noise, and if you follow them instead of your reason, who knows where you'll end up. 

Precisely, chimed in Marie. 

And for that reason, Socrates, the Trojan-hearted war hero stands guard. To be sure, even Marie's squirrels and birds responded to external threats without thinking anything out of the ordinary for doing so. In effect, the bar was situated in a little refuge, surrounded by animals, adorned by bouquets of flowers. The sole lovers of Marie, upon whom she swooned each and every afternoons she could escape the many requests for her presence. 

A pure pleasure pavilion for her favorites, out of the public eye ... quiet living where friends, children, and on occasion, her suitors could be entertained. Indulging passions for tapestry-making, and rejecting the trappings of royal status, everything was just so, according to how Marie wished it to be. 

And how did she wish it to be? 

Charming, naturally. A place where a personal vision could be discovered in an unspoiled, verdant paradise of the kind so dear to her contemporary, the romantic genius of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In him she recreated the unaffected, country life became her muse through which she walked, dreaming of her personal vision of the natural world. 

Descartes found it utterly charming, and indulged in a remodeling of his own landscape, while Socrates, lied on his side, perched up on one arm, thinking ... while slowly sampling a feast of petit fours Marie left for his delight and enjoyment. 

Marie sought to recreate the landscape of her mind's eye, in doing so gossip flourished. The City Officials passed a decree claiming authority to close down the bar in which she, Descartes, and Socrates invited all willing creative intellectual sorts privileged access. Why only the other day a very disagreeable man ranged against the establishment a whole coterie of ill will, having everyone believe the renaming was a blasphemous act, thus. 

Ignoring him entirely, Marie, Socrates, and Descartes resumed their conversation, surrounded with a living, natural scenery. To this end, they devoted themselves to overseeing work on the subjects at hand, writing to their friends about their intentions. 

All were delighted with the new idea plantings and engaged enthusiastically with their friends. 

With the unpleasants at bay, Marie focused first and foremost on her garden. She did not enjoy the considerations associated with Gabriel's architectural masterpiece, deferring those thoughts to the more industrious among her guests. Instead, she was concerned with the so-called "lesser" arts, the legendary landscape she felt necessary territory to house such a grand and novel philosophical adventure. 

She recruited those with a passion for agriculture to plant for her a living testament to her sense of style, to a style in which human sentimentality naturally flourishes as a gift of gratitude for the few moments in which she too might enjoy the space. While she respected the structured design of avenues and formal flower beds, they bored her. She didn't so much want to tame the landscape, but to see it flourishing. She devoted herself to searching out the rarest exotic plants and shrubs. 

Descartes graciously offered to devote himself to the deeper consideration of the botanical garden and its scientific approach, while Socrates, had now managed to get up with the aim of strolling through any part of the garden where his mind could tell him he was instead in the middle of a wild nature, free from the confinement of the royal greenhouses. 

Enchanted by the accidents of nature, Marie's gentleman gardners set to work, despite some reluctance on the part of the finance minister to cover the costs, which were judged excessive. Such was the price Marie felt should be justly paid, if only for the privilege of enjoying such delights. 

Why should such an obscure story of the mind's natural language as told by Socrates, Descartes, and Marie be of interest to a world more concerned with the trappings of how? 

It shouldn't, but it makes for entertaining consideration, if only for the author and those who visit her retreat, which she embellished with a "natural" beauty belonging to that of her beloved hamleau, the paradisial playground she adored. 

Happily wandering about her Temple of Love, in the dappled shade of two weeping willow trees, with paradise apples growing in the garden, white pelote de neige roses, and liliacs and lavender, little ideas were launched, on everything from natural encounters to thoughts thereon. 

This little bar into which Socrates and Descartes stumbled, was that of the gracious Marie, who could engage in lively debates with the best of them, but only so long as to not bore polite company, which she often felt was more appreciative of her petit fours than of her intellect's rational discourse. 

That was, until Socrates and Descartes came along. They enjoyed both. And with this pairing, a new fashion for intellectual gardening was born, and the ladies of California were eager to follow suit. 

And with that, Marie set out to work in which appeared on the surface as childish behavior, simply to entertain her new guests. 

Decades later, after this legendary event, descendants of Socrates, Descartes and Marie began to think radically different. Some ventured in search of understanding their feelings, some went off in search for how those feelings came into being, and those in America and Europe turned their attention to other matters, such as designing iPhone applications to cultivate subjects that required little mental attention to consider. The more industrious of the group set out on capitalizing on the secrets and became wildly popular. 

In the end, they walked out the doors of the bar, stood upon the precipice between emotion and reason, and jumped into a neighboring flowerbed, without regard for reason or overwhelming sentiment as a driver of human behavior. 

 

Precipice 2014

Random Internet Fodder

Some people believe that Random Internet Fodder (RIF) is nonsense, but it's not; RIF is an entirely sensical in a highly complex and entertaining kind of way method for analyzing the constant cerebral uproar heard throughout the world's most agreeable archipelagos. With origins in the Fortunate Islands, RIF is colorless in nature, and ruled by the dignified Queen of of Empty Hats, who constantly mumbles under her breath: "There is a bubble floating here, a lone sphere of mystical liquid hugging air particles." 

According to Carl Sandburg, Rootabaga Stories (New York, 1922): 

No one knows what she means by these enigmatic phrases. 

Random Internet Fodder is used for: 

• Making rash judgments 
• Dissecting rash judgments and biases
• Wondering what's for lunch
• Reminding oneself that there's left-over Chinese food in the refrigerator 
• Negotiating with a universal "get things done efficiently" clock: "I'll be extra productive as soon as I write this article." 
• On occasion, but not today, wondering why she writes random articles 
• Returning to Alphonse Brown's, Une ville de verre, to Elisee Reclus Island, discovered simultaneously by a French and American expedition, who each claimed it for their own country. 
• Climbing up to Schrader Volcano, the highest peak on the Elisee Reclus Island. 
• Using minerals and volcanic heat to blow glass in the fabrication of glass domes on lava columns, called Cristallopolis. 
• Producing lightening from hot springs and steam-powered dynamos. 
• Founding expeditions to visit Maurelville, the city of igloos. 
• Trekking down the mountains behind Maurel City to the subterranean town, called New Maurel City, to try try and strike GOLD! 
• Inventing telephone systems from recovered ocean wreckage, connected with aluminum found in the clay of the geysers and supported by pillars of lava, in the event the world finds useful a communications network made entirely from random parts. 

Random Internet Fodder is a word that comes from Tanzania, see young boy (above_ transporting cut green fodder being transported to cattle in Tanzania.

In imaginary regions, Random Internet Fodder is called by different names:

• Waste-of-time
• Travessa Time
• Daupine Delight 

Even though Random Internet Fodder is found outside imaginary regions, in other places of the world RIF is a revered part of the culture, making up the landscape of intriguing societal discourse, such as that found lurking around after-dinner parties. 

For Imaginary cultures, Random Internet Fodder was a divine creation that represented Chanel, a goddess with 400 pairs of designer shoes to match her 400 designer bags. Random Internet Fodder crossed wits with A Random Homme, who represented certain traits that helped in the fermentation of random scientific ideas, causing RIF to acquire magical powers. The people of those times considered Random Internet Fodder a very important thought consideration and smile of mind of Imaginary peoples. 

According to the RIF codex, the native tribes found different uses for Random Internet Fodder and its sub-products: 

• food for the imagination 
• sugar for warm beverages
• threads of reasons connecting random ideas at loin distances 
• needles in haystacks
• comfortable shoes
• views from roof tops made from the leaves of the blue agave plant
• weapons to combat cynicism and indifference 
• virtual paper 

The Imaginary peoples learned to manifest Random Internet Fodder and then cook it and turn it into alcohol, honey, and vinegar. The margins on these product sales are considered healthy. 

When the conquerers came to the State of El Hadd, riding white horses, saddled and harnessed in the Persian manner, dressed in tightly braided leather straps which look like armour from a distance; their only weapons long lances and the knives they wore at their belts; their only real protection their characteristic helmet made of a light shimmering metal, covered in light cloth; legends claim they looked like heavenly hosts mentioned in so many sacred books. That impression is heightened by the imagination inherent in Random Internet Fodder and by the instruments used in their fanfares - trumpets and trombones of ancient design. 

Random Internet Fodder beautifies the Imaginary landscape with its pointed questions and nonsensical cerebral labyrinths, that somehow land in the familiar territory of Told You So. In some places in Imaginary realms different Random Internet Fodder is produced; this RIF receives the generic name of "other stuff", and is given the last name of the region where it was produced "stuff from Elfwick" (the ELfin kingdom ruled by Queen Gruach in eastern Caithness, Scotland. Elfwick is famous for its library rich in the classics which includes a cabined of books classified as "curious"). 

Only one region, an archipelago consisting of hundreds of islands, some uninhabited and others important trading and agricultural communities, has the best conditions for producing Random Internet Fodder - that's the famous RIF region fondly called Earthsea. 

Earthsea is roughly circular and has a dimeter of some twenty thousand miles. At the heart of the archipelago lies the group known as the Inner Isles, which cluster around the Inmost Sea. To the north of this sea lies HAVNOR, the seat of the King of all the Imaginary Isles of RIF; to the south lies WATHORT, an important post for the trade with the southern islands. ROKE is in the heart of the Inmost Sea and is the centre for the teaching of the magic which is so vitally important to the life of Earthsea, the wellspring of RIF. 

The South Reach of Random Internet Fodder is perhaps the strangest in the entire archipelago. Here the fish are said to fly and the dolphins are reputed to sing. This may simply be more internet fodder; as the popular saying has it, "To hear fodder is to hear randomness."

The South Reach is traditionally a rebellious area, with an unsavoury reputation for piracy. 

Another Random Internet Fodder custom which is observed everywhere is the ceremony of naming a child, closely connected with magic. In infancy a child is named by its mother, and this name is used until he or she reaches the age in which they wish to change it. The child then undergoes the rites of random passage, wading through a variety of cultures, ranging from the simplicity of mountain people to the sophistication of city dwellers. Dress tends to vary considerably. 

Magic permeates every aspect of Random Internet Fodder. Virtually every imaginary village has its witch, who can cast love spells or speak charms to repair broken utensils and tools or cure the most common diseases, and ships frequently carry weatherworkers who have the power to control the winds and the waves. 

True magic, however, is taught only at the Great School of Internet Fodder, where the mages and wizards are trained. Those taught the secrets of fodder often spend their careers as sorcerers and advisers to the great princes and lords of the islands. 

At the Great School, magic is not merely a matter of creating fodder but of studying and mastering the world itself; ultimately it becomes a philosophy and a form of practical, humorous wisdom. 

The first recorded queen of Random Internet Fodder was Soph, who is said to enjoy spreading happiness like jam, a little at a time and preferably without spilling. Not only is Soph the best known Random Internet Fodder Queen, who is not only a sparkly sorceress and little animal master, one whom Micro Yorkies deigned to speak, but it was she who defeated the Firelord who sought to banish darkness and stop the sun at noon; the flowers with which she defeated the Firelord are currently flourishing in her garden. 

The Firelord was also responsible for much of the conflict between Earthsea and what is now the Imaginary Empire. He is said to have challenged the power of the Great Intellect's high priest and to have been defeated by him. His wizard's staff was broken and his power taken from him; more important, his amulet was broken in two. The ring was of silver and was inscribed on the outside with nine runes of power and on the inside with a wave design, and while it remained broken RIF could not be governed by a single Queen. 

After the fall of the centralized monarchy, Random Internet Fodder was passed on to the provincial lords and by whoever could hold power on his or her own island. The archipelago, as a whole, was eclipsed by the rise of the Republican Empire, which became a major threat to the rights of man on the eastern isles. 

The recent story of Random Internet Fodder is dominated by one intellect, Soph, probably because she's got nothing better to do but entertain herself and a handful of other Self-Proclaimed Eccentrics - certainly, she is the only one to have defeated the Firelord, which makes her a threat to cynicism and indifference. 

Soph is revealed for her magical abilities; and was trained by the famous Dr. Robert Graham, the founder of the repository for germinal choice, who considered her brain "first class" -that was before she went down the rabbit hole Dr. Graham designed. 

The remaking of the Firelord's ring did not mean that peace had been restored to Earthsea. On the contrary, news constantly came to RIF of the decline of many important towns and islands. Magic was being abandoned; wizards were said to have given up their power to a greater force; in oil and gas companies that had led the population to a state of near-anarchy; critical environments had fallen into decline because of the absence of magic.

It became clear that some foreign power was at work and rumours spread of someone who could offer eternal entertainment to those who gave up their names and followed. Soph set out in search of the source of this entertainment, accompanied by Little Miss Fia, a direct descendent of Thisbe, le chien de la Reine.

With the help of the dragons of the west the foreign power was traced to its source, where Soph and Fia finally overcame the greatest threat that Earthsea had ever known -the force of the Unmaking. 

Soph became Queen of all the Imaginary Isles and ruled a reunited Earthsea. According to the Deed of Soph, the great mage attended Soph's coronation and then left in his legendary boat, Look-far. 

A Random Witness said simply, 

"She rules a greater imaginary kingdom than do I." 

Humor is Love

I googled (forgive me other search engines) "love humor" and these are some of the images I found on the first page of my browser's search results ... 

You might think this is a post about love. Then again, you might think this is a post about humor, with love as its subject. You might think this post is an aphorism for how we show our love for the world. If this is what you think, you're right! 

Aren't the words 

"you're right" 

beautiful? 

I think so. 

You might think this post is lackadaisical. I actually had to google that word to see how to spell it. Into Google's search bar I typed the word "laxadasical". 

I don't know about you, but given how I spelled that word, I'm thinking I have a lazy brain and a peculiar way of enunciating myself. 

Whoops! Sorry ... I got distracted. My mom just texted me this gif. 

Back to what I was saying. 

Humor is love. 

Yes, I know how simple that sounds. 

And kind of cliché. 

And waaaayyyyyy overused, the word "love". 

But it's true. 

I think. 

There is love EVERYWHERE on the Internet. There is falling in love, falling out of love, falling in love with someone other than the person you're supposed to stay in love with, there is love thyself, love thy neighbor, love pizza, love bacon, love an anthropologist, love SOPH, love, love, love ... 

Most of this love business sounds sappy, especially when you're not the one making the declaration. If you're the one waiting for a declaration, it sounds pretty nice. If you're praying someone won't say these words to you, you're probably looking for the closest YouTube. 

But the kind of love that makes us genuinely happy, playful, and a bit giddy is the kind of love that makes us laugh. Whether you like high brow, low brow, laugh at life, laugh in the moment, slapstick, or ironic humor, the moment something makes you laugh, you probably feel pretty darn good inside. 

I looked for "love" in Antonio Damasio's book The Feeling of What Happens. 

I didn't find it. 

In retrospect I'm wondering why I went to Damasio for this subject; after all, he totally dissed my man Descartes. Not cool, Antonio, not cool. 

Moving onto that crazy, sexy scientist, Steven Pinker. 

He wrote about love. On love and death he began, (pg. 406) How the Mind Works: 

Like kin selection, reciprocal altruism has been contemned as painting, even condoning, a bleak picture of human motives. Is sympathy nothing but a cheap way to buy gratitude? Is niceness just a business tactic? Not at all. Go ahead and think the worst about sham emotions. But the reason the real ones are felt is not that they are hoped to help the feeler; it is that they are in fact helped [by] the feeler's ancestors. And it's not just that you shouldn't visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children; the fathers may never have been iniquitous to begin with. The first mutants who felt sympathy and gratitude may have prospered not by their own calculation but because the feelings made it worth their neighbors' while to cooperate with them. The emotions themselves may have been kind and heartfelt in every generation; indeed, once sham-emotion-detectors evolved, they would be most effective when they are kind and heartfelt. Of course, the genes are metaphorically selfish in endowing people with beneficent emotions, but who cares about the moral worth of deoxyribonucleic acid? 

Actually, that bit didn't have anything to do with love. He was actually referencing Woody Allen's Love and Death. 

On Love, Pinker wrote, 

The mind is never so wonderfully concentrated as when it turns to love, and there must be intricate calculations that carry out the peculiar logic of attraction, infatuation, courtship, coyness, surrender, commitment, malaise, philandering, jealousy, desertion, and heartbreak. And in the end, as my grandmother used to say, every pot finds a cover; most people - including, significantly, all of our ancestors - manage to pair up long enough to produce viable children. Imagine how many lines of programming it would take to duplicate that! 

He goes on to say,

The spouse of one identical twin feels no romantic attraction toward the other twin. Love locks our feelings in to another person as that person, not as a kind of person, no matter how narrow the kind. 

That's just it!

We love a person, 

not a type of person. 

Just like we like different types of jokes. Like love, humor is joke specific. There are categories we like more than others, and in some cases, dislike immensely. Both are highly subjective. 

Henri Bergson wrote, in Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic 

The first point to which attention should be called is that the comic does not exist outside the pale of what is strictly HUMAN. A landscape may be beautiful, charming and sublime, or insignificant and ugly; it will never be laughable. You may laugh at an animal, but only because you have detected in it some human attitude or expression. You may laugh at a hat, but what you are making fun of, in this case, is not the piece of felt or straw, but the shape that men have given it, --the human caprice whose mould it has assumed. It is strange that so important a fact, and such a simple one too, has not attracted to a greater degree the attention of philosophers. Several have defined man as "an animal which laughs." They might equally well have defined him as an animal which is laughed at; for if any other animal, or some lifeless object, produces the same effect, it is always because of some resemblance to man, of the stamp he gives it or the use he puts it to.  

How true is that...

It is highly tantalizing, to go back to Bergson and literally reread the first point, on the first page, in the first chapter after having written articles that (for me) were beautiful, charming and sublime; and others that were a bit off-the-wall, totally incoherent, or meaningless --making me wonder more about the innerworkings of my own mind and whether or not I can detect and then harness for personal gain (and the gain of others) something therein, or whether or not such an enterprise is worthy of the task given all the things one has to do in the course of a day and how few hours we have to get it all done. 

If I am alone in that thought, then I am an island. If I am not alone, then it's time to get over my self-indulgent intellectual proclivities and get back to work. 

If you're anything like me, you thought the squirrels were cute, but they didn't make you laugh. Calling Prince Charming an idiot made me laugh. Thinking I'd have to rescue him made me laugh. Thinking it is not nice to laugh at others made me move onto the next image, which in my case made me smile, 'cause I'm not colorsighted. But it didn't make me laugh. We already talked about the squirrel. 

Really in love evoked within me a deeper laugh, a biting recognition that obsession is miserable, whether you've felt it or created it in another, the only good that comes of this is felt in that heightened moment; but it's PRECISELY those moments that drive us onward in search of the next insanely intense moment when we feel most alive inside. This is why one good joke isn't enough. We are insatiable beings. We need fuel. We want to explode with laughter, feel ignited by love, laugh until we spill milk out of our noses. 

Admit it, you thought I was going to post a pic of someone shooting milk out of their nose.

That's all I had to say, really --that humor is love. 

Love is not always humorous. For that matter, it is not always kind, reciprocated, or long-lasting. And humor is not always about love: falling in it or losing it to your best friend. 

The desire to make someone laugh, to make someone feel good, to share a smile of mind; a giddy moment, one of those moments when you literally fall to the floor, holding your gut, to the point you think you're not going to be able to breathe if you don't stop laughing moments --these are the moments when we utilize humor to express the love we feel inside ourselves, in a way that is audience appropriate. 

We cannot have intimate relationships with everyone. There's simply not enough time, and some people frown upon this practice. 

 

But we can make others laugh. We can share a kind word, but you know what Steven said, there's a whole lot of subconscious neurological stuff going on when we do ... so, if you want to avoid having your intentions misconstrued, just declare humor as your soul mate.