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Then that means you are doubting the factual accuracy of them? The only time I would think twice about arguing for something is when I am doubting the factual accuracy of something.

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Or I just don't care whether or not other people agree with my beliefs. I'm quite confident in them; I don't really give a damn if I'm the only one who holds them or if people think I'm insane for holding them. I have my certainty; that's enough for me.

Quote: from Moridin at 1:07 pm on July 6, 2009

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Indeed, faith is belief without evidence. Notice that this would imply that faith is by definition irrational.

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Actually, faith can more accurately be described as certainty and devotion, which you might know if you'd bother to study, say, linguistics.

Quote: from Moridin at 1:07 pm on July 6, 2009

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However, your argument that you have no evidence that your fiance loves you is utter nonsense. Due to the physical-chemical facts of courting and mating, there has to be an exchange of evidence for mutual romantic or sexual interest, otherwise no consensual reproduction would occur and all sexually reproducing living organisms would die out. This is clearly not the case, so evidence must exist. To what extent these evidence is chemical or behavioral in nature is of course up for discussion, but the fact that they exist is not. From a biological standpoint, your position is so very strange and non intuitive from what we know about biology.

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You've never had a girlfriend, have you? There are times when none of the "evidences" of love exist,  but that doesn't change the action of loving. In fact, there are times when the evidence that exists would cause one to think that the opposite of love is taking place, but that does not, in fact, change the action of loving.

-------
Let yourself be enchanted,
You just might break through
To ever ever after

What you are referring to is "belief", not faith, which is certainty (which can be based on evidence or not based on evidence). When belief is not based on evidence, it is called faith. When belief is based on evidence, it is called knowledge.

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You've never had a girlfriend, have you? There are times when none of the "evidences" of love exist,  but that doesn't change the action of loving. In fact, there are times when the evidence that exists would cause one to think that the opposite of love is taking place, but that does not, in fact, change the action of loving.

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This is of course nonsense from a biological perspective. Your understanding of the evidence is not the same as the evidence themselves. Just because you personally don't see it does not mean that there is nothing to see.  It is merely a result of not investigating the situation thoroughly enough.

For instance, we can subject people to fMRI scans to reveal actual emotional connections to other people that they have. I hate to break it to you, but love is not a magical pixie, but a deeply ingrained biological phenomena.

http://www.forbes.com/maserati/singles2004/cx_mh_0624love_04single.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16255001

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Scientists have described myriad traits in mammalian and avian species that evolved to attract mates. But the brain mechanisms by which conspecifics become attracted to these traits is largely unknown. Yet mammals and birds express mate preferences and make mate choices, and data suggest that this "attraction system" is associated with the dopaminergic reward system. It has been proposed that intense romantic love, a cross-cultural universal, is a developed form of this attraction system. To determine the neural mechanisms associated with romantic love we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and studied 17 people who were intensely "in love" (Aron et al. [2005] J Neurophysiol 94:327-337). Activation specific to the beloved occurred in the right ventral tegmental area and right caudate nucleus, dopamine-rich areas associated with mammalian reward and motivation. These and other results suggest that dopaminergic reward pathways contribute to the "general arousal" component of romantic love; romantic love is primarily a motivation system, rather than an emotion; this drive is distinct from the sex drive; romantic love changes across time; and romantic love shares biobehavioral similarities with mammalian attraction. We propose that this attraction mechanism evolved to enable individuals to focus their mating energy on specific others, thereby conserving energy and facilitating mate choice-a primary aspect of reproduction. Last, the corticostriate system, with its potential for combining diverse cortical information with reward signals, is an excellent anatomical substrate for the complex factors contributing to romantic love and mate choice.

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It is a fact of reproduction that chemical or behavior evidence must exist in general when an organism has an emotional and/or sexual attraction to someone, or sexual reproduction would be impossible. Can't get much clearer than this.

Frankly, you are way out of your depths here.

-------
"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

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No, it is perfectly possible to be certain, yet have ample evidence. For instance, I believe in the existence of tables and chairs (because of the evidence).

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I wasn't saying it wasn't?

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What you are referring to is "belief", not faith, which is certainty (which can be based on evidence or not based on evidence). When belief is not based on evidence, it is called faith. When belief is based on evidence, it is called knowledge.

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You still don't know what faith means, and that is kind of saddening. Either that or you're just ignoring the definition to suit your own means, which is sadly typical of you.  

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This is of course nonsense from a biological perspective. Your understanding of the evidence is not the same as the evidence themselves. Just because you personally don't see it does not mean that there is nothing to see. It is merely a result of not investigating the situation thoroughly enough.

 For instance, we can subject people to fMRI scans to reveal actual emotional connections to other people that they have. I hate to break it to you, but love is not a magical pixie, but a deeply ingrained biological phenomena.

http://www.forbes.com/maserati/singles2004/cx_mh_0624love_04single.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16255001

---

Scientists have described myriad traits in mammalian and avian species that evolved to attract mates. But the brain mechanisms by which conspecifics become attracted to these traits is largely unknown. Yet mammals and birds express mate preferences and make mate choices, and data suggest that this "attraction system" is associated with the dopaminergic reward system. It has been proposed that intense romantic love, a cross-cultural universal, is a developed form of this attraction system. To determine the neural mechanisms associated with romantic love we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and studied 17 people who were intensely "in love" (Aron et al. [2005] J Neurophysiol 94:327-337). Activation specific to the beloved occurred in the right ventral tegmental area and right caudate nucleus, dopamine-rich areas associated with mammalian reward and motivation. These and other results suggest that dopaminergic reward pathways contribute to the "general arousal" component of romantic love; romantic love is primarily a motivation system, rather than an emotion; this drive is distinct from the sex drive; romantic love changes across time; and romantic love shares biobehavioral similarities with mammalian attraction. We propose that this attraction mechanism evolved to enable individuals to focus their mating energy on specific others, thereby conserving energy and facilitating mate choice-a primary aspect of reproduction. Last, the corticostriate system, with its potential for combining diverse cortical information with reward signals, is an excellent anatomical substrate for the complex factors contributing to romantic love and mate choice.

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It is a fact of reproduction that chemical or behavior evidence must exist in general when an organism has an emotional and/or sexual attraction to someone, or sexual reproduction would be impossible. Can't get much clearer than this.

Frankly, you are way out of your depths here.

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Nope, you've never had a girlfriend. Which...really isn't surprising, all things considered, but frankly, reading all of that made me laugh hysterically, as you have no idea what you're talking about.

-------
Let yourself be enchanted,
You just might break through
To ever ever after

---

Nope, you've never had a girlfriend. Which...really isn't surprising, all things considered, but frankly, reading all of that made me laugh hysterically, as you have no idea what you're talking about.

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You clearly have not had a proper science education, which is not at all surprising, all things considered. Ask any biologist if he would characterize the belief that the mind is not a product of evolution as "creationist" in nature. He will of course answer yes. I do not have any idea what I am talking about? That is laughable in its absurdity when it is clear that I have a much better grasp of evolution and creationism that you could ever have.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wic.html

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Emergence (example: Lipan Apache)

In the beginning, all people lived in darkness in the lower world. They held a council and decided to send someone above to find whether there was another world. First they sent wind. Water had covered the earth originally, but the wind rolled it back, and land appeared. The people next sent up Crow, but Crow stayed to eat the dead fish that had been exposed and didn't report back. They sent Beaver next, but he stayed to build dams in the streams and didn't report back, either. Next they sent Badger, who reported back that there was dry land up there. The people next sent four men to prepare the world above, which was flat and empty. These four men chose one named Mirage from whom to make things as we know them now. They formed Mirage into the shape of a ball, and of that ball made all things of this earth. Those people went around making hills and mountains, lightning and springs, etc. Then the people of the lower world ascended. First the animal and plant people came out. They moved around the edge of the earth clockwise, and different tribes stopped at different places. The real humans came out after them and likewise migrated to different places. Sun and Moon were originally with the people, but they later went ahead and separated.

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This is clearly a form of creationism, yet does not fit your definition. So your definition is false. It does fit, unsurprisingly, my definition. Thus, you are the one who is clueless of what you are talking about.

-------
"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

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Here is the rebuttal in the correct topic this time. The research I have cited shows that love is a electro-chemical reaction in a material brain and due to the way biology works, there has to be evidence exchanged between two organisms if their intentions are to sexually reproduce.

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And again I say: you have never had a girlfriend, clearly, if you think that's all that's entailed in love.

-------
Let yourself be enchanted,
You just might break through
To ever ever after

---

Quote: from Moridin at 5:23 pm on July 6, 2009

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Here is the rebuttal in the correct topic this time. The research I have cited shows that love is a electro-chemical reaction in a material brain and due to the way biology works, there has to be evidence exchanged between two organisms if their intentions are to sexually reproduce.

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And again I say: you have never had a girlfriend, clearly, if you think that's all that's entailed in love.

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I have read the research, doesn't that count for something? We have measured chemical levels and done fMRI scans. What else is there? Do you think love is supernatural? Is it inaccessible to science? If so, how come we have done so much process understanding love from a scientific perspective? Are you rejecting the findings I've presented simply because they do not fit in with your worldview?

-------
"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

I can read all I want about the painful nature of giving birth without medication, but I won't really understand it until I've gone through it.

-------
Let yourself be enchanted,
You just might break through
To ever ever after

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As most people would point out, knowing about something is not the same thing as actually experiencing it. You can do all the research you want, but yes, it mostly does count for nothing until you've experienced it yourself.

I can read all I want about the painful nature of giving birth without medication, but I won't really understand it until I've gone through it.

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This is almost exactly the same reasoning as the quite popular argument within the philosophy of consciousness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary%27s_room

The general idea is that Mary is in a white room and sees the world through a black and white color monitor. She knows everything there is to know about color. When she steps out of the room and sees the color red, will she learn something new about it?

I assume that you think the mind is not identical to the brain and therefore thinks that Mary will learn something new when stepping out of the room. I, however, does not think this is the case.

I prefer the approach by Dennett, who argues that she would not learn something new, because if she already truly knew all there is to know about color, she would have a sort of omniscience with regards to color and she would have a deep understanding of how human neurology causes us to sense the qualia of color. She would therefore know exactly what to expect before leaving the room.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

This ultimately boil down to the fact that you think qualia with respect to love exists, and I don't. It is a result of our fundamental differences regarding the mind/brain issue. Do you think this is a fair representation of our differences?

-------
"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)