What is Love?

The most misconstrued word in the English dictionary…

I asked ChatGPT to rank the most used words and the result is quite astounding albeit sensible if we dig a bit deeper into our intuition.

Source: ChatGPT — Query result on most used words with meaning by author

With the word “time” ranked right on top, followed by the words “person,” “life,” “work,” and “love,” we can gain some insight into what people are conversing about from this particular perspective. (Use the same query condition to test your results with other AI systems.) The point I want to make here is that while the word “love” ranks high in usage, most people struggle to define it when asked.

While debating scripture verses with a friend, I asked him for the definition of love. Without a true understanding of love, we risk misinterpreting and misconstruing the messages in scripture. Without discrediting his attempts, he skirted around the concept but couldn’t define it. To confirm this “super complex” conundrum, I searched for “the most misconstrued word” using ChatGPT 4.0 and Perplexity.ai, both of which identified “love” as the top result. This finding is telling, though perhaps not surprising, as both tools provided insights into why love is so often misunderstood.