True Love

[fnb20@bath.ac.uk]

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Sorry if this topic is a bit out of date, but I have some interesting 
trivia regarding the 'folk biology/psychology' aspect out of which the 
ideology of true love and soul mates derives:

The pre-socratic philosopher Empedocles (c. 492-432 BC) spoke of two 
fundamental cosmic forces, those of Strife and Love- strive drives 
apart, love brings together.  The pre-human predecessors of the ancient 
greeks were said to have worshipped only Kypris, queen of love, and 
thus all was in unity and harmony.  As time passed and Strife became 
more prevalent, both physical reality and souls rended from their 
unity.  Thus upon finding Love (note the capitalisation) in each other, 
two souls again became united as in the days of pre-history that 
Empedocles talks about.  The origin of the concept of having a single 
soul mate lies in Empedocles' idea that these pre-human 
Kypris-worshippers were creatures of both male and female sex- upon the 
onset of Strife, the male and female parts of each creature were broken 
from each other.  Finding one's soul mate would require finding that 
person which was the original other male or female half of your 
pre-human Kypris-worshipping self.   Go to 
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/e/empedocl.htm#SH4a if you want to read 
anything about this bizarre metaphysics.

Thus rooted in thousands of years of myth and in what some ancient 
greeks believed to be philosophically correct, lies the formal origin 
of true love and soul mates.  This probably seems to you, as does to 
me, a highly questionable origin to these concepts which has been lost 
somewhere over the past two and a half millenia.  As Daniel and Nick 
have suggested, true love as a form of analogy and also as a part of a 
highly complex set of human emotions, experiences, psychology etc seems 
far more plausable, though I haven't thought about the issue adequately 
to form more than a critical account of what it might be.

Best wishes



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