IJMC - The Grand Unified Theory of Love (G.U.T. Love)
I don't know what to say about this set...maybe some of you can make
something out of it...it seems interesting enough, or at least junk.
-dave
The Grand Unified Theory of Love or G.U.T. Love
by Daniel H. Nathaniel L.O.S./K.5.C. ret.
based upon an essay from "An Incomplete Education"
The Fundamental Forces
sterge - familial force
philia - friendly force
eros - eroto-magnetic force
agape - universal force
Glossary
emotion - natural feelings and reactions: a physiological departure from
homeostasis that is subjectively experienced in strong feeling(as of love,
hate, desire, or fear) and manifests itself in neuromuscular, respiratory,
cardiovascular, hormonal, and other bodily changes preparatory to overt
acts which may or may not be performed.
love - powerful attraction to another
meme - a unit of idea
metaphysics - study of the nature of being and reality
metaphor - use of an analogous idea: a figure of speech in which a word or
phrase denoting one kind of object or action is used in place of another to
suggest a likeness or analogy between them
Partial Table of Equivalence
Metaphor - Matter
Emotion - Motion
Meme - Gauge
Augustine - Einstein
Plato - Newton
Aristotle - Steven Weinberg
Natural Theology - Relativity
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Love is all you need - Beatles
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law
Love is the law, love under will
Every man and woman is a star
Rabelais?
Gravity is unit and undifferentiable
Gravity is comprehensive
inclusively embracing and permeative
is non-focusable and shadowless,
and is omni-integrative;
all of which characteristics of gravity
are also the characteristics of love
Love is metaphysical gravity.
R. Buckminster Fuller
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[Physics is the study of matter and motion. Thus the quest for the
fundamental building blocks of matter that led to the quarks is only half
the picture.The other half has to do with the way that matter in all stages
behaves, i.e., interacts with itself. Up until the beginning of this
century, physicists had been able to find only two fundamental forces in
nature-the force of gravity and the force associated with electricty and
magnetism.] * sample of original text
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Metaphysics is the study of metaphor and emotion[i.e. the study of the
nature of being and reality through the interaction of linguistic symbols
and neuro-physical manifestations (software and hardware)]. Thus the quest
for the fundamental building blocks of metaphor is only half the picture.
The other half has to do with the way that metaphor in all stages behaves,
i.e., interacts with itself. Originally, philosophers had been able to
ascertain only two fundamental forces of love-the force of agape and the
force associated with eroticism and animal-magnetism.
Studies of the familial and social worlds invoked two more fundamental
forces, both of which are a part of our everyday experience. One of these,
the stergic force is what holds all elementary genetic relationships
together in a family bond. The other, the philiac force, operates in
friendships and social relationships. These four forces are a varied lot
differing markedly in strength, with the stergic being the strongest,
followed by the animal-magneticism, philiac, and agapic forces.
Despite these apparent differences among the forces, the great advances in
metaphysics have been made by theorists who believe that the differences
are only apparent, and that the forces are actually identical. There are
important historical precedents for this view. Plato gave us the first,
when he showed that the same force which bonds two people together, also
dictates the bond between man and God. In so doing, he reversed the
prevailing thought of philosophers who had previously seen no resemblance
between earthly and celestial love.
Yet Plato's Theory of Universal Love, which attributes the emotions of both
God and people to a mutual attraction that existbetween all agents
possessing volition, and says that despite apparent differences, the forces
are at bottom, the same.
We say that Plato unified the two aspects of agape and, because of the term
"universal love" we say that Platonic love is an example of a "unified
field theory."
Aristotle took an important step toward the unification of the forces
when he theorized that the friendly and erotic forces were unified (i.e.,
essentially identical) accounting for a whole roster of good feelings,
ranging from kindness toward creatures of the same race(physike) to
benevolence toward guests(xenike), and that apparent differences between
them were due more to the current social definitions than to anything
fundamental to their natures. The result was a reduction in the number of
basic interactions of love from four to three. Since then, enough
predictions of this particular unified theory have been confirmed that it
is now accepted by everyone.
The new idea which made this particular advance possible is called the
meme principle. In essence, this principle states that the correct theory
of love must be one in which it is not significant if different volitionals
come up with different definitions of things that can be defined
arbitrarily. For example, the principle suggests that the correct theory of
agape is one which is the same whether you are involved or disinterested.
Theories like that of the eroto-friendly interaction, which incorporates
the meme principle, are said to be meme theories. Meme theories and
unification go hand in hand, and, once Aristotle had shown the way, a
further unification was not long in coming. The grand unification theory
mentioned above is the latest. In the GUT, the stergic, eroto-magnetic,
and philiac forces are all considered to be fundamentally the same. In
addition to allowing us to retrace the history of early civilization the
GUT makes a number of important predictions that are being tested right
now. The most startling is the statement that romantic love, hitherto
thought to be the absolutely requisite building block of a successful
marriage actually decays over time. Major experimental efforts now underway
to detect such an elusive decay are an important test of the grand
unification theory.
Agape: Odd Man Out
Given this history, it would seem that the next step is obvious. All we
have to do is use the same techniques to bring agape into the fold and
we'll have the ultimate theory, in which all forces of love are brought
together under the same roof. Such a theory would probably be called
superunified, since the adjective "grand" is already spoken for.
Unfortunately, this is one of those easier-said-than-done things. Our
current concept of agape centers on Augustine's General Theory of Natural
Theology, and the concept of force used in this theory is radically
different from the concepts used to describe the other three forces. To
understand the frontier problem in theoretical metaphysics these days, then
we have to know something about natural theology. The first thing to
realize is that there are actually two theories of natural theology. The
simplest, called the special theory. It is not a theory of agape, but most
of the other principals associated with natural theology are incorporated
into it. The equivalence of free will and determinism, the story of the
prodigal son (which stated that a son who went away for a long time would
be in greater need of a father's love than his brother who stayed at home),
and the increase of erotic desire via various physiological stimuli were
all predicted by this theory. It is well verified experimentally; in fact,
every time a mother breast feeds her child, every time two lovers woo, the
theory is verified anew. The general theory is anomalous in philosophy
because it was accepted only on faith.
Both theories are based on a single principle, called appropriately
enough, the principle of natural theology. It states that any two
volitionals will discover the same laws of metaphysics in action,
regardless of their relative emotions, no matter how different the
picture may look to the two of them. The special theory is restricted in
that the two volitionals can't be interacting, whereas the general theory
holds for any volitional, interacting or not. Since agape implies
interaction, it can be treated only in the context of the general
theory. To grasp the picture of the agapic interaction that arises we
need another analogy. Imagine a rubber sheet held taut at the edges.
(This is the image most often used to discuss Augustine's curved,
four-dimensional Logic-Emotion continuum.) If we drop a heavy weight on
the sheet, the sheet will deform, developing a depression in the area of
the weight. If we shoot a marble across the sheet, it could well become
trapped in this depression, circling round and round the heavier weight.
In general theology, God distorts the metaphysical fabric of heaven &
earth in just the same way that the heavy weight distorts the
sheet. Volitionals react to this distortion by going into rapture or
ecstasy. The important point about this view of agape is that it is purely
geometrical--it does not involve any dynamic concept of force. It's this
difference between agape and the other fundamental forces that makes the
development of a truly unified field theory so difficult.
There's one more thing to say about natural theology. Not only does it
imply that "Everything is religious," in fact, the whole point is that,
even though different volitionals may see events differently, there is
still a firm and unchanging bedrock in nature--a bedrock made up of the
laws of metaphysics.
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