Care to define what love is? If you can't tell me the essence then how can you recognize the form?
It's as simple as that. Nothing too cosmic about it
Of course it's cosmic; it's Platonic.
That's the way the world is, we can choose.
Yes we can choose to live in the real world or in an imaginary world.
It involves caring about someone else more than our own pleasure. For this reason, it's become invisible to you - as it is to the crustacean. Incapable of seeing it, realizing it, giving or receiving it.
Of course it's cosmic; it's Platonic.
If you wish to think of it on those levels. Or, you can see it as biology, psychology and just the way the world is - you don't even have to think of it, it just is.
Yes we can choose to live in the real world or in an imaginary world.
In the real world, humans can choose values beyond satisfying animal desires. This is not an illusion. It is an imaginary world that pretends this choice doesn't exist.
I should add that Plato's philosophy, as all philosophy, is an attempt to describe, categorize and explain the world as it is.
Whether one agrees with his philosophy, another's philosophy or one's own personal philosophy, doesn't change what the world is. And we all have our philosophy, our own meta-view, our own view of the cosmos. Yourself included.