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Originally Posted by Neapolitan
It's not the trouble of grasping of what is said, I just don't know what the quote means to you. To me it sounds like you want to disprove love by saying it is not a tangible object, that it can not be found in the physical universe.
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The point of the quote is that people think mercy and justice are forces of nature, but they are not. They only exist because we conceptualize and believe in them. I remembered the quote and thought Pratchett might say the same about love. In a universe without life, there would be no love. Accepting that, if certain scientific predictions about our universe are true - that most matter will be swallowed by black holes etc. and our universe will no longer support life, then there will be no love. Ergo, love is not a force of nature that infuses everything.
Arguing whether gravity is love or not is, to me, just stupid. I could say okay, if gravity is love, then people made up of more matter should love eachother more or love should be affected by f.ex speed and the proximity to mass. But in the end, it's a romantic, spiritual idea and not a scientific one. I understand the idea, love is attraction is gravity, but I don't like to think of love as being defined as a law of gravity. That's gravity's job. Love to me is not a force of nature, but something who's existence is entirely dependent on biological processes in our bodies. However, arguing that will degenerate into a discussion of semantics which is a real bore.
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Originally Posted by Neapolitan
Strange to me you would say love, justice and mercy do not exist, because they are things that are attributed to God, God is Just and Merciful, and God is Love. But then you do not believe in God so to you all four are dreamt up God, Love, Mercy and Justice?
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They clearly exist. They are good strategies and evolutionary sound, for example justice helps us live together in society and love makes us get together to have sex and raise kids. But I don't believe these concepts infuse our universe in any way. CA writes that what could be more just then a ball falling down when you throw it into the air (provided acceleration is not too much I should add)? Then you say again that justice is a law of causality or a law of gravity. That's law of causality/gravity's job. I would say how does this philosophical idea relate to some poor kid who loses both his his parents in Haiti or some african girl who gets raped for months by some guerilla? I think "justice" loses it's practical meaning when you treat it like some universal law or constant, so I don't.