Do you believe in soul mates?

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They are based on romanticism and escapism. There’s a reason why “it’s not like it is in the movies” is a common saying these days. It’s not far off from the idea of religion being borne of seeking meaning that isn’t there.

You’re right in saying that it’s not like it is in the movies.

It’s better.

How the heck is that supposed to be a soulmate story?

A “Soulmates” story is supposed to be of lovers madly love each other no matter what; and not a story of someone friendzoning and rejecting the other.

This story is not one.

i think just because infatuation occurs due to chemical reactions doesn't take away from the magic of the experience.

Any 'magic' that occurs is called 'limerance' -- a state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person and typically includes obsessive thoughts and fantasies and a desire to form or maintain a relationship with the object of love and have one's feelings reciprocated. The physiological correlations of intense limerence can include seizure-like trembling, pallor, flushing, heart palpitations, pupil dilation and general weakness. Awkwardness, stuttering, shyness, and confusion predominate at the behavioral level.

And you call all of this 'magic'?

well, no that's the headfuck part. the magic happens when your infatuation is reciprocated and then it grows into something meaningful. being obsessive about a person who's not into you is just a waste of mental energy.

Then this 'magic' you talk about is nothing more than a mutual obsessiveness between two people. Nothing magical about it. People get obsessed about other people, and maybe only half of the time, the obsession is returned.

So just toss a coin: 'Heads', your obsession is reciprocated; and 'Tails', it isn't.

Chemical interactions AND random chance -- that's what having a 'Soulmate' is all about!

Fnord is Two-Face

No, Harvey Dent is Two-Face. Fnord is the Metasyntactic Variable.

Ok, but science doesn’t make claims as to what doesn’t exist. And science cannot “prove” anything. Part of what makes science what it is is its ongoing search for truth about the physical world. All the established dogmas of science can be completely undone by better theories with more explanatory power. Science cannot “prove” the soul exists any more than it can “prove” anything else. Once something is “proven,” the book is closed and it is no longer science.

Gravity, for instance, is an established law. Gravitation, however, is NOT.

Proofs are for math and logic.

Hard empiricism is predicated on circular reasoning, therefore every conclusion derived from it is irrational.

When it comes to the existence of a soul, for example, do you draw that conclusion from merely a lack of evidence? If so, that’s problematic because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Or is it because you assume something to not exist until it is proven so? Then you’re begging the question. What about all the people who report having a sense of a soul, an awareness of it? Is that evidence or hearsay? If it’s evidence, then you should adjust your views. If you claim it’s hearsay and not evidence, then you’re moving goalposts. You could also say that’s argumentum ad majorum, but science even draws conclusions from interpreting data and consensus. Are we to understand red herrings as rational arguments now? Because now, since scientists draw conclusions from consensus and peer review, you’ve just added appeal to authority to appeal to majority. And then we’re right back to what “proof” is and the actual role science plays in “proving” anything, which is no role at all, and thus your statement regarding belief in what science proves is absurd from the get-go. Science proves nothing, therefore you believe nothing. And we already know this is absurd because you’ve already expressed a belief in something.

When it comes to love/dating, religion/questioning the existence of spirits/souls, you might as well throw logic and particularly scientific reasoning out the window. Objective beauty may exist according to a romantic realist standard. But what happens when a woman walks by who goes against the grain of the romantic ideal and you turn a total Shallow Hal on her? Where’s the logic in that?

Maybe the argument of whether or not the soul exists, either way, is not really useful. But terms like soul and soulmate can be useful in discussing what happens in the context of dating and relationships. If you don’t feel there is a soul, fine. Appealing to science in support, though, is putting the belief on shaky ground.

well, you are focusing on the process and not the experience. the experience can feel wonderful regardless of the process. it's like listening to music or eating good food. do you judge the process? usually you notice the experience first. then analyse the process.

I don't really believe that there is only one soul mate for everyone. We go about life meeting people and we meet a few that we have a deep connection with. That connection doesn't have to be romantic either, as platonic friends can have just as deep of a connection. I'm able to connect with my boyfriend on a deeper lever, but he certainly isn't the first person I've felt that way about. He just happened to be the person where we mutually felt that deeper connection and have been able to make it work for a few years now.

I don’t believe in magic. Doesn’t mean things don’t happen that have a magical “feel” to them. It’s just a figure of speech, nothing to obsess about.

I think even if those things ARE merely “chemical reactions,” it doesn’t make something less magical. Great illusionists could let their audiences in on every detail of an act, every tiny nuance of fakery, and audiences would leave even MORE amazed than they were when they were ignorant. I think the chemical reactions are only correlational. They occur as a manifestation of a stimulus. They are caused by something, which in turn we experience physiologically. They are machines, smoke, and mirrors. They are not the man behind the curtain.

I am a hopeless romantic.