Do unicorns exist? Cuz I know what those are. Please spare me any “unicorns exist in our minds” silliness, unless you are a fool you know very well thats not what we mean. — DingoJones
Interesting post, thanks! That is exactly what the OP was requesting. Like you, the (possible) relationship between mind and spirit is worthy of some examination, I think. I don’t think anyone disagrees with the existence of mind? And the concept of mind is large enough to encompass a myriad of sub-components, such as memory, critical thinking, subconscious, emotions, etc. Proposing spirit as one of those components does not seem to be especially radical. Sure this is mainly a matter of semantics. But such naming and distinguishing can have a purpose. Let us not be anti-semantic! (sorry :wink: )I often consider spirit to be the counterpart to body. [Or maybe to body and mind?] The mental, immaterial, part of us. The really confusing and difficult-to-know-about part of us. There is mind, which we divide (why? :chin:) into conscious and unconscious, and the latter is, by definition, observation and actuality, inaccessible to our introspection. There are feelings and emotions. And there are beliefs, often arrived at by means we know not of. All of these things are difficult, all of them exist (confirmed by the observations of billions of humans), and it is this context/arena that spirit exists. So of course it's difficult to discuss.
Simple discussions, whose terms can be clearly, completely, and accurately defined, are easy. Discussions like this one are a bit more challenging. Farther away from the lifelines of definition, logic, binary thinking, certainty, and so forth, discussion requires more of us. It's easy to dismiss such things as meaningless frippery, and if you do, I can't prove you wrong. But so what?
For myself, I think I split my mental self into spirit and mind, where spirit has to do with such things as souls, spirits (to use another shade of meaning :wink:), and things that go bump in the night. So spirit follows into spiritual, which I see as a more general version of religion, but without some of the entrapping requirements and conventions. These days, few describe themselves as religious, but many describe themselves as spiritual. So spirit definitely has an aspect that resembles religion. — Pattern-chaser
Obviously you are assuming a definition of ideas such that they have no existence other than their occurring to us and then going on to tautologously conclude that ideas cannot be anything beyond our having them or knowing about them. — Janus
Delusions, errors, assumptions, assertions, etc. All part of some experiencing and learning process maybe. But I would propose (as you might agree) that simply because one can have delusions about the spiritual aspect doesn’t necessarily mean that spirit itself is a delusion. Thoughts? — 0 thru 9
Even as a post to this thread is criterial evidence of mind, the ethical quality of that post is criterial evidence of spirit. — Galuchat
can we investigate rigorously and reproducibly matters of the spirit? — Louco
I think the underlying question of this thread is "can we have scientific knowledge about spirit?"
By this, I mean, can we investigate rigorously and reproducibly matters of the spirit? — Louco
Or if a general Science of Spirit could even possibly build itself from the ashes, it might face an even steeper challenge. I dare say very few doubt whether Mind exists (despite the important issue of the hard question whether it exists in some way apart from the brain. But that’s a whole ‘nother thread.) But how many would say that a “Spirit” aspect / nature of humans exist which is roughly parallel to “Mind”. And yes, the particular definition used for Spirit is CRITICAL. The “definitionistas” admittedly have a point there, lol. I will come out and say my mind is still open on the matter. I’m re-reading some of Ken Wilber’s stuff in hopes of seeing some kind of framework, where spirit is not completely dismissed or relegated to the “for entertainment purposes only” section. His AQAL diagram and theories are quite interesting. And a bit more nuanced than the usual subjective vs objective perspective.If Science of Mind (Psychology), then why not Science of Spirit (Pneumology)?
Of course, many will object that Psychology is a soft science which is experiencing a replication crisis, and that a Science of Spirit would be no different. — Galuchat
Oh goodIf the OP determines that this question is off-topic, it would at least be interesting to discuss in a new thread. — Galuchat
To poll or not to poll... For what it is worth, I am mildly considering the possibility of running a poll asking whether forum members believe spirit exists (in some form or another) or not. — 0 thru 9
I think the problem is I wouldn't know how to make the difference between reality and imagination, between what exists and what does not. Sure I can believe that something is real and that some other thing is imaginary, I can believe that something exists and some other thing doesn't, but how can I know if I'm not mistaken? How can I know if I'm wrong, how can I know if there isn't something I haven't noticed yet that makes me wrong?
I'm saying this, because it seems what we classify as real or not, what we classify as existing or not, is based a lot on conventions. Usually we say something is real when most people agree they're experiencing it. And the things that are experienced by only one person, or by a small minority, we say they are imagination, that they do not exist, but all we're saying really is they do not exist for the majority. But they do exist for the minority experiencing it, they are real for them.
Then this leads me to think, what we call the material world is the subset of experiences that the majority somewhat agrees on. But what makes experiences that the majority agrees on any more real than those experienced by a minority? It's always real to the subject experiencing it. It's only after the fact that the subject might say, ok this experience wasn't real, it was just my imagination, but in saying that how are we saying anything more than we can't fit well this experience into the range of experiences that we deem to be real?
I just can't clearly make a difference between reality and imagination that is devoid of convention. Experiences that the majority deems to be imagination do have the power to have a 'real' impact on the person experiencing it, on how they behave on how they feel, so we can't say that what's 'real' is what has an observable effect. To materialists any experience we have corresponds to electrons firing in the brain, different patterns of electron motion correspond to different experiences, there is a one-to-one equivalence, but if we start from that premise then how can there ever be a distinction between reality and imagination? From that premise every experience is on the same level of reality, there is nothing to differentiate between a world that is real and a world that is not.
So I feel like I can't hang on to any stable conception of reality. What people call the material world seems to me to be a range of experiences that they somewhat agree on. What people call the spiritual world seems to me to be another range of experiences that they somewhat agree on. Different people have different ideas about what experiences they classify as real and what experiences they classify as imaginary. And it seems that all we can ever do is relate experiences to one another, find relationships within our experiences, commonalities, similarities, and that it is meaningless to talk about what exists or what is real in some absolute sense, it is always subjective, what we experience is real to us, what is part of our experiences exists to us.
If there is something I sometimes see with my eyes closed but never when my eyes are open, do I have to call it imaginary, not part of the 'real' world, or can't I simply say that it is real to me? That sometimes I do see it, that when I do see it it exists, and when I don't see it it exists as a memory, just like there are things I sometimes see with my eyes open but never when my eyes are closed, what makes these things any more real? They're more real just because there are more people who say they see these things than the others? How does this make reality anything more than a social convention? — leo
Maybe ask first whether the non-material can exist. I'm of the opinion that it can — Devans99
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