Delusion
n. 1. a. The act or process of deluding.
b. The state of being deluded.
2. A false belief or opinion.
3. Psychiatry. A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence, especially as a symptom of mental illness.
Reading Richard Dawkins and his “The God Delusion” and I wonder about Love & Romance. I see no reason to not dismiss them, in the same vein, as delusions as well.
Love seems to be a delusion manifested due to our evolutionary needs to procreate. The rush of emotions associated with “love” and the corresponding chemicals and hormones are designed to attract us to suitable, fertile mates and further the human race. In fact, using love as a basis for a lasting monogamous relationship (a marriage, for example) seems to be an accident waiting to happen. Rather, compatibility and rational justification for co-habitation seem the way to go for making a choice of this magnitude. Despite this obvious rationality, why are humans so convinced in their delusions?
Conditioning, almost Pavlovian in its essence, has coloured our thinking. On one hand we have the social conditioning of religion and its dogmatic principles. On the other we have the Byronic conditioning by the Romantics, imbued in us through Literature, Poetry, Music and Cinema. In effect, deluded into believing in ideals other than pure reason. Societal evolution occurs as a process of convincing individuals about the need for collective good. Whether societal ideals of honesty and honour are delusions guiding us away from our self-interests is a thought for another day.
So if we accept that the emotions surrounding “love” are delusional because they’re a manifestation of our genetic pre-disposition to find mates and it’s the chemicals doing it, then we also have to factor that all our “feelings” are based on similar electrical impulses and electro-chemical processes. If we define ourselves by our sensations, then do we nullify the existence of one who’s shorn of these senses. Our a priori assumption is, after all, “I am” and we aren’t ‘thinking away‘ our sensations of pain, heat, hunger in an attempt to isolate the self from its corporeal state.
With that we return to the acceptance of the feelings of “love” and the desire to unite with the rest of humanity by believing in an entity that tried to explain the inexplicable and reassure those who doubt, in other words, “religion”.
Returning to the definition, “a false belief held in spite of invalidating evidence”; the validity of the evidence and the falsehood of the belief not having been proven, it is premature to dismiss the two as ‘delusions‘. On the other hand, if these are to be accepted as so, then in the words of Krishna (from the Bhagavada Gita), “what is this world but a Maya, an illusion?”
