Unconditional Love

[Alex K]

I think evolution has given a mother a fierce unconditional love for her babies.
Many mothers in nature will fight to the death to protect them.

Isn't the fact that her babies are her babies the reason why she loves them? This sounds like a condition to me.

As I said, if you go to this level, unconditional love becomes a nonsensical, random thing.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I think evolution has given a mother a fierce unconditional love for her babies.
Many mothers in nature will fight to the death to protect them.

Isn't the fact that her babies are her babies the reason why she loves them? This sounds like a condition to me.

In this context "conditional" means "something we could change", no?

[Astonished]

I think evolution has given a mother a fierce unconditional love for her babies.
Many mothers in nature will fight to the death to protect them.

You didn't know my mother. Evolution ain't foolproof. And she wasn't even a religious zealot. Everyone else in the family was, though.

To me, unconditional love is what comes after the initial feeling of love, not a general compassion for living things like the Jedi are supposed to have. Once that genuine love starts, then if you withhold it or it wanes because of reasons other than the person you love reveals themselves not to actually be that person you thought, that's conditional. So theoretically it should be pretty easy for, say, a parent whose mind is not addled to practice unconditional love for their children, but much harder for them to do so for a spouse. Doesn't really work in practice, though.