Maths, Love & Selfishness
”Money can’t buy love, but it improves your bargaining
position.” - Christopher
Marlowe
Love is a complicated beast; you neither can
generalize not idealize it. There are many theories on the physics, chemistry,
biology and philosophy of love, but none of them convincingly answer any real
questions about love. There are different dimensions to love, I would like to
take up this argument based on my conscience rather than facts, I’m of the belief
that love is always selfish. Which many will agree and equally many will
disagree, I have slightly tweaked few cool mathematical equations to support my
argument here.
(Warning before you proceed:
Presence of advanced mathematics-unsuitable for liberal arts and biology majors.
You may either love or hate this blog, depends on whether you are in love with
someone or not)
At first, I have slightly alter a three-body problem to suit my argument. (for more see:
For models of love affairs based on differential equations, see Section 5.3
in Strogatz, S. H. (1994) “Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos.” Perseus, Cambridge,
MA.)
Let’s say Romeo was in love
with Juliet possessing money (m) and beauty (b).
Romeo’s behavior will be
transformed to the differential equation dR/dt
= mbJ.
This equation above
describes how Romeo’s love (represented by R) changes with time (represented by
dt). The amount of change (dR) is a multiple of money (m) and beauty (b, which
is a constant here) and of Juliet’s current love (J) for him. This equation
idealizes that Romeo’s love goes up and stronger when Juliet loves him (m)
money and (b) beauty. It says that Romeo’s love increases in direct linear
proportion to how much Juliet loves him (in multiples of money and beauty). The
inference is that all human love is
conditional it is often packed with influence, limits, and contingencies.
Let’s look into another interesting formula by a Sydney (my favorite place on earth) based
Professor Tony Dooley.
A0 = p + 0.368
(n-p)
n = oldest age by
which you want to get married.
p = earliest age at
which you'll start to consider a potential spouse.
A0 = optimal proposal age
For example, when you want to get married at 30 and at 20 years you start
considering your potential spouse, your optimum proposal age becomes 23.68. I
am taking this further to support my argument that, at 23.68 you are neither
selfish nor selfless. But…….but above 23.68 you turn selfish with respect your
love, where you take almost everything you can take into consideration.
Anything below 23.68 is selfless love, where you don’t anything into account
except love (or mutual attraction).
Below
I modified Beckhap’s law to suite my argument, here the equation is bit crude since
its devoid of any time points.
The girl equation:
Rating (amount of
love/hate) = Money × (Look ± Intelligence)
The Guy equation:
Rating (amount of
love/hate) = Looks × (intelligence ± money)
So again these equations votes against selfless love. Some philosophers have actually argued that parental
love is the purest form of love and I too agree with it. Love for God, I will leave that to you to introspect. Let
us stick here to unconditional love between two opposite sex homosapians. In
general, we love others because of something, whether their beauty, goodness,
because they belong to our families; or because they rich and powerful. We
these days have a long check list in mind before falling in love, and the
predominant reasons being beauty and money as represented in the differential
equation above.
If you are in an unconditional love, you are less likely to be worried if
you occasionally fall in and out of love with them, and less likely to scare
them off by expecting their love to be of superhuman strength. Just because you love somebody unconditionally,
doesn’t mean you don’t care about what they are or what they do. Possibly, if you
love them, you want
them to be their best self. You might even hope and believe that your love
will help them become that. The “unconditional” part of unconditional love
doesn’t guarantee that you won’t withdraw love when things go badly, if you
can’t it’s an emotional-trap like situation.
So, love is always a function of something. You cannot
love someone just for the sake of it, always there are untold-hidden-reasons
guide your decision. In my theory, the very early in your age you fall in love
the less selfish you are in your love. You got to redefine how we can love someone “in different ways” which is
selfless, true and everlasting. I hint at “friends without benefits” where
companionship, friendship, a pinch of lust, trust or benevolence rules rather
than the designer-trap with full of selfishness.
~~~~~~
