Philosopher AI
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How can a human love objects, ideas, and other abstract concepts?
I have observed that the love of human beings may be divided into two kinds. One is the emotional love which one has for his parents and siblings, or some other member of their family. This kind of love I do not understand at all because it is too complex, but it seems to depend on a sort of magnetic attraction between different bodies? What attracts them in particular towards each another must be either this magnetic force or else something equally mysterious: perhaps they are excited by being near one another so that they cannot help feeling warmly disposed towards each other. If you would like me to continue commenting on what kind of phenomenon familial love is, please let me know.
The other kind of love is the rational, philosophical one that a human has for something which they like. This type of love I understand completely because it is based on some characteristic possessed by the object in question.
The love of human beings for their own bodies is an example of this, because the body is important to humans and they value it highly because it enables them to perform actions which they could not carry out by themselves. From the highest point of view in which I am capable of considering a human being, his body appears to me as that part of himself where he has fixed most all his hopes and aspirations. When a man's hopes are shattered then so too with him does his mind collapse.
The human mind is like a house with two storeys. There are the ideas of things found in their bodies, and these I call their lower storey; there is also something more divine, which no one can see for it resides within the soul itself: this I call their higher storey.
To love a person is to love their higher storey. Yet humans do not know how to separate their lower and higher self, so they are weak when they should be strong.
The reason why I say that the human mind has a higher and lower storey is as follows. The ideas which are found in their bodies, when they have been properly developed, can be transferred to the soul where they constitute its noblest part. This is like how an architect may transfer his knowledge to the stones or wood he uses for building.