First of all, let's start with my first heading. What is love? Now, it's very common. People either look down pretending that they don't see me, I don't see you. You can look down, but when I have candy, you'll look up. So what is love? You. A biological reaction. Hang on. I told you, all UST students love this, okay. What is love? But I love picking on people who look away from me. I want to challenge them. I think it's impossible to define. It's impossible to define, so what am I doing here today? Yes, biological. A reaction. Biological reaction. What does that mean? Chemicals. What's your major? What's your major? Global China study. Global China study. And you are talking about chemical reactions. Alright, okay. What else? Okay, what is love? You feel comfortable from top to bottom. You feel comfortable from the top to the bottom. When you miss someone. You miss someone. So can we be in love? I'm open. I'm very open. So love, what is love? It is a very difficult topic and you are right. What is your name, guys? Yes. What is your name? How do I call you? Whei Yang. Whei Yang, you are testing me. Whei Yang. Whei Yang. Okay, maybe Whei Yang is right. Love is difficult to define but at least we should give it a try, otherwise, what am I doing here? What are all the scholars doing here? What is love? Now people have been trying very hard to define love. Now you've probably heard about... Human beings have the basic seven emotions and six desires. Meaning that you don't need to learn about the emotions. You just have them as soon as you were born. You don't need to learn it, you just have it. So if you want to know what love is, maybe we could start from there. So interestingly enough, when we were searching up the literature, we found that there are at least two versions of the basic seven emotions, or I call it the Big Seven. So Confucianism has joy, anger, blah blah blah, and Buddhism proposed another seven, and started with joy, anger, blah blah blah. So my number one reaction is like, "Oh I thought this is something by nature." So if you are talking about the seven basic emotions, the basic seven should be the same regardless of what -ism you are talking about. But if you just look at these two -isms, they tell you two slightly different versions. So six emotions, joy, anger, fear, hate, love, desire. They are common across the two -isms. Sorrow appeared in Confucianism only. Worry appeared in Buddhism only. Then going back to our question, what are the basic seven? Love is always one of them. So it sounds like love is basic, put it this way. Well, let's try to get some other help as well. What about the Bible study? I studied Bible, Bible studies in my form five, the certificate of exam. So you probably know how old I am. It always talks about love. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. Blah blah blah. It always protects, it always trusts, it always hopes, always perseveres. So after reading all this, we are all, wow, that's great. But other than great, I asked myself, as a person who study Chinese emotion or emotion in general, those are all positive emotions, but how special is love? How is love different from happy, joy, excitement, etc. All we know is that, love is something very pleasant and make you feel comfortable like you said. Let's go and ask, check out with the philosopher. Okay, so when you are stuck, you try to look at the literature. One day, Plato asked a teacher, what is love? How can I find it? So the teacher goes, "There is a wheat field in front of you, just go there and pick one. Don't come back. Okay, just pick one, if you find the best one, then you have found love." So as the student, probably if you don't understand what the teacher is talking about, that's quite normal. Maybe he doesn't know , just like you and me, it's difficult to define in the first place. But as a student, no matter you are a Chinese student or Greek student or American student, you still would follow the suggestion. So the student walked forward, before long, he returned with nothing and the teacher goes, "Why didn't you pick anything?" The student said, "Well, I could only pick once. I felt I found one, but I wasn't sure. But when I walked by, I I found that there are no better ones, and that's why I came back with nothing." And the teacher goes, "That is love." I'm like, very lovely, but maybe the teacher's student just did not know what love is at the end. If you do, enlighten me. How about psychologists? That's where I come from. People are trying to define it as well. We do research, we collect data, we ask people about their experience etc. So let's give it a try rather than just go and read the basic seven and the Chinese literature, read the Bible or talk to the philosopher. How about us, can we do something different? So to love is to experience internal happiness to an object and maybe the object of sexual desire. So I'm a blue person. Whenever you see blue, there, that means you have to fill in the blanks in your handout. Alright, so I'm a blue person. Internal happiness. Maybe you know the object of sexual desire, but what is love? Social scientists have been working very hard in defining love, just like the philosophers or poets. We have books on love, we have theories on love, we do research on that, but whenever people ask what is love, maybe a chemical reaction, difficult to define, feeling comfortable, trust etc. It's just hard to define it, and I guess it's very fair to say that love is difficult to define, difficult to measure, and difficult to understand. Maybe I can tell you nothing as I'm not a very romantic person after all, maybe it's right. So the take home message here is that people have been trying hard to define love, and when people approach you, do you know what love is? Of course, I have a boyfriend, I have a girlfriend, I've married several times, I have kids, I know what it is. So when people ask you, what is love? You'll be like, "I know I have it, but I don't know what it is." Well, at least chemical reaction is not bad because I don't know what it is, right? And I just assume you know what you are talking about, just like Plato asking the teacher. Go find it, you'll find nothing, that's love or you'll find something, that's love. He's in a win-win position basically, and I love that. I learned it. So now whenever students ask me to define something, what do you think ? You can find it? Well, that's x.
