I nearly wrote this entry once before, but I abandoned it when I thought it was obvious, and it is, but I guess I forgot the point I was actually trying to make, since there is a personal outlook I failed to factor into the idea.

The topic of today’s entry is Mating.

Hopefully that word doesn’t attract google (pun not intended initially, but relished)

I was thinking a couple weeks ago about a philosophical outlook by someone I can’t remember (and thus can’t look up) that I read about in my Philosophy of Love PHIL 201 course from waterloo. It basically sounded like the type of thing I might have come up with as a 40 year old virgin (damn you google), were as love, and thus love-making, and thus reproduction, were sort of the things our genes trick us into doing. There was one quote that I remember and will certainly misquote here, but paraphrasing, they said that giving in to sexual desire made one (temporarily) the fool of the species. I had two problems with this (three if you could how it sounds like bitter recriminations), one: Without it, there would be no one around to say that it makes us the fools of the species as there would be no species at all. And two: What else would we be doing? Somehow I feel it is possible to think the high thoughts, attain the high immutable truths (if any) while still partaking of love in it’s various (albeit silly-looking) forms. In fact, another philosophical theory states that one cannot even contemplate the high uttermost truth/knowledge/philosophy while baser desires go unfullfilled.

Anyway, it was the “fool of the species” I was thinking about.. since I feel like it often, not really with the “of the species” part, but just foolish trying to invoke relationships since it seems quite labourious, futile, and most notably a shock to the other person that you were steering the conversation in that direction. However, I’ve tended to think my pursuits are a little less tarnished than some others’ statements of love might be. Some people might speak in flowery words only to gain a chance to mate, and then flee. Indeed this seems to be a theme that goes back a long while. Here is quote from Hamlet I remember from highschool, from father to daughter:

Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire. From this time
Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence;
Set your entreatments at a higher rate
Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him, that he is young
And with a larger tether may he walk
Than may be given you: in few, Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
Not of that dye which their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
The better to beguile. This is for all:
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
Have you so slander any moment leisure,
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to’t, I charge you: come your ways.

I more remember the analysis we did at the time, rather than retain the ability to analyze it now. My skills at this ye olde english are not good (actually, I beleive this is considered New English, as is ours, while Canterbury Tales is Middle, and Beowolf is Old, and is truly incomprehensible to the uninitiated). Anyway, basically, Hamlet is on the make, wants Ophelia in the physical sense, but has no real further desire. His fire has little light, and less heat, not to beleive his vows, etc. And of course, it’s still easy to see that, from friends, to media, there are many who do this, at least until they get older, wiser and settle down or something, whatever it is those people do.

But I thought, I’m not like them, when I pledge my affection, it is for that reason alone, I am not trying to beguile. But then I think to the point at the top of this entry, that we are fools, in a way. This can be analyzed fairly simply, why are certain things attractive, or rather, cause arousal. It’s like asking why breathing feels good (after say, not being able to do it for a while)… because it’s how we developed, it’s intrinsic to our nature. If I were making love, I wouldn’t need to think that it is arousing to be aroused… I’d be too busy being aroused, plus it’s all handled above the level we are able to control, for the most part. I liken it to the kind of instant processing someone will do to determine if someone is attractive to them, they may not be entirely sure of the actual determining aspects themselves, they just know it when they see it, since it’s the parts working away above their conscious interpretation just sending them pre-processes “TRUE” or “FALSE” signals.

My concern then, is how can I be sure about my own intentions, motivations, etc. I can’t get direct access to the outside unfiltered inputs any more than anyone else, so I can quite easily be convinced of my own shiny intentions, while at the higher level, my brain is just trying to trick me into things another way… can’t win a heart with an ugly body, so go for the sincerity. Possible, and of course, utterly untestable. That’s the problem with philosophy, it’s always in search of questions that it knows it damn well can’t answer, not really.

When I started taking philosophy, I used to think that it would be this cool, intellectual screw you to idiots I had to contend with when I was a child, but as I started taking courses, I was just bored. Some of it was interesting, but actually sitting down and reading Plato was just tiresome, and I rarely got the point. When I finally did get the point of some of it, it turns out some of it was stuff I had come up with, except they came up with it first, many many many years ago. So I guess that leads me to a unixism that I’ll adapt.. those who haven’t learned philosophy are doomed to re-invent it, poorly.

For the moment, I’ll beleive in my own convictions as the truth. Not that it matters, as I get a whole lotta “FALSE” from people anyway.