Question. SMM repeatedly uses quantified investment-return language for true love — “If you invest 100 units of true love, 120 will come back” (1.1. The Work of Creation Required Complete Investment, 219-118, 1991.8.28). Is this metaphorical encouragement, or a literal ontological claim that love has a non-conservative law of operation (unlike matter/energy)?
Why it matters. The atomic csg-true-love-grows-by-investment turns on this distinction. If metaphorical, the claim collapses to a familiar moral exhortation (“love begets more love”). If literal, it asserts a genuine ontological asymmetry that needs an account: what is the mechanism, where does the surplus come from, and is the asymmetry compatible with classical theism’s view of God as the only non-derived source of being?
SMM’s framing in the same section reads literally — he explicitly contrasts the laws of dynamics (“the more things move and operate, the less you have”) with the world of true love (“things expand the more they move”, 237-127). The contrast is metaphysical-flavored, not psychological-flavored.
Current best guesses. Likely a serious metaphysical claim about give-and-take dynamics (per csg-god-cannot-love-without-a-partner and the principle-of-creation framework), but the surplus mechanism remains underspecified. Resolution probably requires comparison with DP’s account of the universal prime force.
Triggered by. csg-true-love-grows-by-investment (Ch 2 atomic, 237-124 / 237-127 conflicting framings in the same section).