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People,
throughout history, have often considered phenomena such as "love at
first sight" or "instant friendships" to be the result of an
uncontrollable force of attraction or affinity.[11] One of the first to
theorize in this direction was the Greek philosopher Empedocles, who in
the 4th century BC argued for the existence of two forces, love
(philia) and strife (neikos), which were used to account for the causes
of motion in the universe. These two forces were said to intermingle
with the classical elements, i.e., earth, water, air, and fire, in such
a manner that love served as the binding power linking the various
parts of existence harmoniously together.
Later, Plato interpreted
Empedocles' two agents as attraction and repulsion, stating that their
operation is conceived in an alternate sequence.[12] From these
arguments, Plato originated the concept of "likes attract", e.g., earth
is attracted to earth, water to water, and fire to fire. In modern
terms this is often phrased in terms of "birds of a feather flock
together".
Bertrand Russell describes
love as
a condition of "absolute value", as opposed to relative value. Thomas
Jay Oord defines love as acting intentionally, in sympathetic response
to others (including God), to promote overall well-being. Oord means
for his definition to be adequate for religion, philosophy, and the
sciences. Robert Anson Heinlein, one of the most prolific science
fiction writers of the 20th century, defined love in his novel Stranger
in a Strange Land as the point of emotional connection which leads to
the happiness of another being essential to one's own well being. This
definition ignores the ideas of religion and science and instead
focuses on the meaning of love as it relates to the individual.
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