Hellbound
Merchant of Doom
Heh. I did define it, and you told me that wasn't a good definition.
Let me try explaining this a different way.
If something can't be meaningfully defined, then it doesn't reflect reality. Period. If you insist that love must be a single, united thing, then you aren't reflecting reality. Your arguments so far show that you agree with this view: a child's love is different from a girlfriend's love is different from a parent's love is different from love for a friend, etc.
When I say "love can absolutely be tested", I'm not saying love is a single, united thing. This is you confusing the map for the territory.
The word "love" is used to describe a collective grouping of behaviors that include a multitude of things: affection, dedication, loyalty, trust, dependency, habit, and probably a lot more (varying depending on the kind of love one is discussing).
If you insist that I must test this single thing, love, and that the definition must cover everything in the grouping, then this is you confusing the map for the territory. In that sense, I'd respond that what your looking for doesn't exist in reality in any meaningful sense. Although the common thread I'd put in love is affection, and that can be tested for by various means (behavioral observation, case studies, likely by fMRI at some point in the future if they haven't gotten it there already).
IN any case, for all the multitude of things we group under the term "love"; the actual reality behind the label; we can design tests to look for them, or to study them. For any part of "love" that has a meaningful definition or a meaningful impact on reality, we can examine it. Such examinations are already being done in medicine and psychology.
Heck, we can chemically create love now (Ecstasy, anyone?). Now, you can make a "No true Scotsman" argument there, but that goes back to definitions.
I've given you one definition for love, and a test for it. And frankly, I wasn't the one who brought love into this conversation; my initial post that you keep pointing to was a response to those who said that love and belief were outside science. They aren't; they are amenable to testing just like anything else.
And no, energy isn't a group of behaviors, it's a number of different things that share one trait: the ability to do work. In the same manner that love is a group of behaviors that share one trait: affection. We can't measure potential energy like we do kinetic energy. We can't measure heat energy like sound energy. We can't measure electrical energy like nuclear energy. There is no single definition of energy that is both explicit and all-inclusive; that would cover all the attributes of every energy type. Yet we can still study each type of energy, and relate them by their common thread.
Likewise, we can study love, in each of it's types, and relate it by the common thread (affection). Just because a particular test doesn't cover everything that could ever possibly be included under the label love, doesn't make it an invalid test, or not scientific. It's just looking at one particular aspect.
AS to "not defining the term", I've told you, repeatedly, how I'm using it. Love is the word we used to describe a group of related but different behaviors. There's nothing to prevent us from testing those. You keep rejecting this definition, or any definition I propose, which is why I ask you to define yours.
I've told you what I meant, repeatedly. You refuse to tell anyone what you mean in any clear sense, and your primary objection seems to be that because you use the word in a way that doesn't reflect reality, it's something that can't be tested. Again, map and territory. If it doesn't reflect reality, it doesn't exist in any meaningful sense. TO the extent that it does exist (as that group of related behaviors), it can be tested.
If you were more interested in discussion than being right and winning points, this would've been been over long ago.
I've given multiple examples of how you can design tests to look at aspects of love. You've simply rejected them out of hand, or fallen back on ":but that's not how I define it, or someone else defines it!" For any definition: mine, yours, or Joe Smith's, there are two options: It isn't a meaningful definition (doesn't reflect any reality), or it can be tested.
One counter-example is all I ask: A meaningful definition of love that can't be tested. Because every definition I can come up with can be tested. And I've asked repeatedly for one that can't, and just get obfuscation, insults, fallacies, and a lot of assertions without any reasoning or evidence behind them.
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ETA: Eh, it was a slow morning. Just don't expect too much 'til Monday
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