What Love Is: A Structural Account Through Core/Modulation Architecture

Authors

Griselda Poe, CUNY Lehman CollegeFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Spring 3-15-2026

Abstract

The distinction between romantic love and love has been sensed across cultures and historical periods but has rarely been structurally specified. This paper applies the Core/Modulation two-layer framework to provide the first structural account of this distinction. Romantic love and reproductive drive are re-described as outputs of the Modulation layer's species optimization program. Love is re-described as a function of Core processing: the maintenance of another's recomputable state. Existing literature on love—Fromm, C.S. Lewis— is re-read as intuitive description of this structural distinction. The paper further demonstrates that the conflation of "loving" and "protecting" is the structural origin of war, exclusion, and discrimination. No evaluative language is used. No hierarchy is proposed. This is a structural description.

Comments

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19140850

The Core-Modulation Architecture (CMA): A Structural Overview of a 14-Paper Research Program

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/le_pubs/477/