Love Taxonomy: A Circuit-Based Framework for Classifying Love States and Bond Structures

Love is among the most universally referenced human phenomena, yet it remains inconsistently definedacross disciplines and frequently misclassified as a discrete emotion. This paper proposes that suchconfusion arises from a category error: love does not function as an emotion, but as a flow-dependentorganizing system that governs relational coherence. Drawing on convergent findings from biology, psychology, anthropology, and prior work within theUnified Coherence Framework (PLWT, RBT, BNRI, LECIF, Appendix A), this paper advances afunctional taxonomy of love based on relational bond circuits. The central axiom is simple and testable:love must flow to exist at all. Where flow is obstructed, diverted, or terminated, love degradespredictably into attachment, ego-bound affect, or fragmentation — regardless of intent orself-description.Using a circuit-based model, the taxonomy classifies love not by relationship labels but by structuralproperties such as directionality, reciprocity, impedance, capacitance, load, repair capacity, and failuremodes. This framework explains why relationships sharing the same label exhibit radically differentstability, why repair — not harmony — determines resilience, and why chronic diversion, overload, orextraction leads to measurable relational and neurobiological collapse.The taxonomy is non-prescriptive and non-diagnostic. It does not replace existing theories; it integratesthem by providing a shared structural language that aligns emotional regulation, attachment behavior,stress injury, and cross-cultural descriptions of love without contradiction. The model is explicitlyfalsifiable and invites empirical testing using existing physiological and relational measures.