Ontology of Love: An Existential Relational Framework for Understanding Love and Hate as Testable Structures

This paper proposes a new ontological framework for understanding love and hate as empirically testable existential relational structures. Love is defined as a mode of relational existence where a subject maintains the existence of an object in their consciousness through existential transactions, an active process involving allocation of cognitive, affective, and behavioral re- sources. Three main structural variables are identified: (1) existential gap (G), the integrative distance between subject and object representations in consciousness structure; (2) existential transaction (T), the intensity of maintenance effort; and (3) separation time (W), the duration of absence of direct interaction. A non- linear model is proposed: T = k·Gα ·Wβ ·eγE, where parameters can be fitted from empirical data. Hate is defined as ontological negation with inverse dynamics: −1H ∝ G . This framework is validated through deep phenomenological analysis of paradigmatic cases (love of God, parent-child, betrayal, narcissism) and supplemented with cognitive mechanisms explaining how transactions maintain object existence. Empirical research protocols are presented with concrete opera- tionalization using behavioral, neural, and self-report metrics. Cross-cultural analysis tests the framework’s universality on non-Western concepts of love (Ubuntu, Confucian ren, Buddhist metta). This paper contributes to theoretical unification of previously fragmented love phenomena, provides a foundation for interdisciplinary research, and offers practical implications for clinical interventions and social policy.