Love as augmented cognition: Passionate gaming in the era of virtual romance

Love has been understood differently by various theorists. A triple-process theory of love—in which such a dual-process one consists of System 1 romantic love and System 2 care—is undertaken in this chapter as a contribution to the cognitive psychology of love. (Further, speaking of the head and heart in metaphorical terms could lead to the quantification of just how much more mature cognition or affect might be in relation to the other (either individually or interpersonally).). This theory builds on others positing that romantic love consists of joy, interest [21], and arousal [1], while consummate love in general consists of passion, commitment, and intimacy [2]. (Love has also been described as “an aspect of a relationship” ([21], p. 95).) In a Platonic model [3], love can be conceptualized as being affective, consisting of emotions like joy; cognitive, containing fond thoughts of the subject or object of love; or conative, demanding action on the part of the lover to better the state of the loved subject or object. Maslow conceived of love as a need typically experienced following the fulfillment of physiological and safety needs, and preceding esteem and self-actualization needs [5].Love is not assumed to be wholly reducible to an algorithm. However, the rise of online dating and romantic matchmaking services has raised the question of to what extent it can be. True love—an enduring and nonchanging trate (state-trait) between two individuals characterized by joy, interest, arousal, passion, commitment, and intimacy—includes, yet exceeds, logic. Psychologically, such love transcends persons and situations in favor of the true, good, beautiful [6], and functional. It is metamodern in being, at best, partially understandable via traditional scientific methods (i.e., those of logico-empiricism). It involves intersubjective interaction from which “super-rationality” can emerge.For the purposes of this chapter, love is understood partially as a sustainably positive, emergent property of human-computer interaction which gives rise to augmented cognition for all capable subjects involved. An ultimate goal of augmented cognition is posited to be the attainment of B-cognition [7], which “tends to perceive external objects, the world, and individual people as more detached from human concerns” (p. 61). B-cognition occurs during peak experiences along with Being values (B-values) [8]. Maslowian B-values are updated to include love. Lastly, an ecology of love is proposed.