Spirit

[steve_bank]

Jumping over from religion with a response to pood.

What dies spirit mean?

Second comment: the modern “force” is not in any way equivalent with the ancient “spirit.” Force in the modern usage is clearly specified by Newton’s second law. The ancients had no access to this conceptual framework and there is no relation at all between “spirit” and “force.”

They are not equivalent, but the word force has any uses.

Trump is a 'force of nature'. Joe i a force to be reckoned with.

'Human inertia', the inertia of 2000 year of Chrtianity is hard to overcome.

Newton' Laws in different forms are used as metaphor. Entropy.

Sure, but she specifically specified the modern scientific meaning of the word, and that is F=ma and it has no bearing whatever with the ancient meaning of “spirit.”

In any case, etymology and word-splitting have nothing to do with making a case of the literal Christian God. Same thing with logos. It’s biblical. So what? It actually originated in ancient Greek and took on different shades of meaning. Its original meaning seems to have been logic or language as opposed to mythos, story-making and myth-making. The biblical writers, no doubt under Greco-Roman influenced, hijacked the word to say that Jesus was the word, the logos, and somehow spoke the word into existence, but in actuality the Jesus resurrection tale belongs more properly to mythos.

And while all this can be interesting to hash over, none of it gets her close to making the case for the literal biblical god.

May the Force be with you ..... Obi -Wan and Yoda are watching you from a higher plane.

Spirit like much of philosophy and mystical traditions are contextual.

Indian traditions have pranja or life force/energy.

Chi (also known as Qi) is a fundamental concept in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and is often described as vital energy or life force that flows through the body along pathways called meridians. The belief in chi is deeply rooted in Chinese culture and philosophy, dating back thousands of years.

At the manual arts mystical level it is believed Chi or spirit or life force alone can ward off blows and can kill or injure at a distance.



Hatha (health) yoga and Chi Gung in Chinese traditions are about increasing Chi.

Chi kung, also known as qigong, is an ancient Chinese practice that involves coordinated body movements, breathing techniques, and meditation aimed at cultivating and balancing vital energy (Qi) for health and well-being. It's a mind-body practice that has been used for centuries for healing, rejuvenation, and enhancing overall vitality

My guess is the source of the SW Force cane from all the Hong Kong Kung Fu movies in the 60s and 70s. I saw a lot of them. More modern is ForbiddenKingdom with Jet Li and Jackie Chan. Traditional Chinese mysticism in a nutshell.

In Mother Teresa's book she describes the Holy Spirit as a real thing that can be passed from person to person.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Ugh. Spirit. Spiritual.
To me it means, "Thinking is hard. It hurts my head."

 

[DBT]

Horses can be spirited. It's not the Holy Spirit, but it is something.

 

[ideologyhunter]

There's probably a reason that 'spirit' came to be associated with both ecstatic religion and hard liquor. I'm too lazy to look it up, but it fits.

 

[bilby]

There's probably a reason that 'spirit' came to be associated with both ecstatic religion and hard liquor. I'm too lazy to look it up, but it fits.

It's less fun and more boring than you'd imagine.

If you distil a weak alcoholic beverage, the "essential character" of the beverage is separated from the rest; You end up with a load of liquid that contributes nothing to getting you drunk, and a tiny amount that does nothing else but get you drunk.

Distilled spirit is colourless and flavourless (the colour and flavour of common drinking sprits, like whisky, has to be added later, and in the case of whisky, comes from the barrels in which it is matured).

"Spirit" or "essence" is the bit of a thing that actually does something. The rest is just filler, along for the ride but not essential.

Obviously, to a substance duelist, the human soul is the essence or spirit of the person, with their physical body being just a bunch of meat that the sprit drives around. And the ability to distil the essence, the important and active part, from beverages is proof by analogy of substance dualism.

In an era before modern chemistry, distillation was a magical way to separate the active and important essence of a substance from the mundane part. And obviously explained why a dead body seems to be much the same as a live body, but with something missing - spirited away, as it were. Boil beer, and its ability to make you intelligent, invulnerable, and attractive to women is "spirited away". You can even capture that "spirit", and condense it into a pure essence of drunken revelry, that makes you fall down after only a few mouthfulls.

Sadly, proof by analogy is a logical error, and substance dualism is nonsensical bullshit.

But that's the reason why the word "spirit" is used in describing both souls and intoxicants.

I did warn you that it was boring.

 

[ideologyhunter]

That wasn't boring. A screed by DLH (I tried reading a few today), now, that's boring.

 

[Bronzeage]

In my high school days, I was a member of the Latin Club, which was basically an extracurricular activity for Latin students. We competed with other clubs in oration contests and presented plays, all in Latin. We wanted a Latin name for the competitions and the first suggestion was "Spiritus Romae, which of course translates as Spirit of Rome, but actually means "breath of Rome." Not exactly what we wanted to convey. I suggested "Great Caesar's Ghosts", but Latin for ghost is larva, again not quite on the mark.

Through the centuries the word spiritus shifted from respiration to the non-physical part of a person, which could be supposed to survive when the respiration stopped. Spirit became a synonym for ghost, as well as a metaphor for any particular feeling that wasn't based on the physical. That's where we get stuff like team spirit, or everyone's favorite, "spirituality".

 

[Elixir]

“Medieval alchemists noticed that, during distillation, a vapor (which they likened to a spirit or essence) would rise and condense — in effect, they believed the vital essence or “spirit” of the fermented substance was being captured and concentrated. This led to the use of the term “spirit” to describe distilled alcohol as opposed to lower-alcohol, simply fermented beverages like wine or beer”

 

[Politesse]

One's spirit is that which is most vital or fundamental about them. That without which they might exist but would not be meaningfully themselves.

 

[bilby]

“Medieval alchemists noticed that, during distillation, a vapor (which they likened to a spirit or essence) would rise and condense — in effect, they believed the vital essence or “spirit” of the fermented substance was being captured and concentrated. This led to the use of the term “spirit” to describe distilled alcohol as opposed to lower-alcohol, simply fermented beverages like wine or beer”

You put that in quotes, but didn't credit a source. Is it a quote from somewhere?

 

[bilby]

One's spirit is that which is most vital or fundamental about them. That without which they might exist but would not be meaningfully themselves.

And "vital" implies (well, more than implies) "gives life to".

The English language has an assumption of substance dualism baked in; It's no wonder that it's so hard to persuade people that the notion is utter bollocks.

Many dialects also assume animism. And the language really doesn't want to change.

 

[Jarhyn]

So, if you want a sane, fairly grounded discussion on what someone might mean when they say "spirit"...

Look elsewhere, I guess? Some Nazis said I speak word salad so I guess that's what you're about to read: word salad.

As for what I think "spirit" is, I think there are several ideas people are trying to access with the idea that may indicate some core meaning that discusses real stuff and principles.

Uses I can think of off the top of my head, the probable vectors when dealing with the word, if you will, are as follows:

As per "The Spirit of Christmas": the enduring concept as encoded as behaviors and heuristics, and responses, both by one's own memories and in record, and the biases which lend towards the system of behavior continuing; in terms of the "spirit of Christmas", the emotional joy hooked well into the concept of giving freely in a time before things get most bleak, but with the promise of warmer times already on their way, as encoded and executed by many loving humans and books which they are aligned to execute upon as such.

As per "haunted by the spirits of the dead": the parts of us which are trained to facilitate empathy with particular types of people, and with specific individuals especially, as are formed in your own brain. If you have heard of "digital ghosts", imagine that your own brain may already contain exactly such ghosts of your own dead acquaintances, trained up by your own biological processes in a lifetime of trying to understand others. These can be given additional license through exposure to fumes and gas and carbon monoxide, and all sorts of weird shit can happen as a result.

As per "Spirits on the rocks": mmm, booze.

As per "The Holy Spirit": like "the spirit of Christmas", but pertaining to the motivation and joy we feel, and the eventual material results when we make our goals compatible with others, they do the same for us, and between everyone that pushes all of those compatible goals forward we all find ourselves in a world where we accomplish more of our goals; the records, wills, and ultimately the machines that contain and point at those wills to build some manner of heaven for everyone.

As per "it is in line with the spirit of who I am": it would mean some set of necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) properties for them to be recognizable as "the same person in different places and times".

As in "my spirit shall reincarnate through time": as pertains to the spirit of who someone is, but of the set of environmental and genetic influences that bring about some sort of "child result"; someone's identifying properties as maybe implemented. As spirit is to human, source code is to implementation.

All of these are real, material stuff, however "diffuse" (and in fact almost exclusively very "diffuse"), which at least stores and sometimes implements the image of some process.

I would conclude from this that a general abstract definition of spirit is "the set of images satisfying the abstract properties necessary to implement some thing".

And also, apparently, booze.

 

[Politesse]

One's spirit is that which is most vital or fundamental about them. That without which they might exist but would not be meaningfully themselves.

And "vital" implies (well, more than implies) "gives life to".

The English language has an assumption of substance dualism baked in; It's no wonder that it's so hard to persuade people that the notion is utter bollocks.

Many dialects also assume animism. And the language really doesn't want to change.

One would expect language to reflect culture, as a general rule.

 

[steve_bank]

Being spirited vs dispirited.

"Non-corporeal" refers to a state of being without a physical body or form. It describes entities that exist outside the realm of matter, often as spirits, energy, or abstract concepts. While they may manifest through physical avatars, their essence is not tied to a physical form.

Stargate SG1 had the Ancients and STDS9 had The Prophets living in a wormhole. Non corporeal beings, spirits.

If we are talking about dogs or people and somebody says spirit I will interpret it one way.


If someone says 'a spirit' I think some kind of non corporeal being.

AI summary

In ancient Greek philosophy, the concept of non-corporeal existence, particularly concerning the soul, was a central theme explored by various thinkers. Philosophers like Plato and his followers, the Neoplatonists, proposed that the soul is a distinct, non-physical entity, capable of existing independently of the body. This contrasts with some other schools, such as the Epicureans, who viewed the soul as material and inseparable from the body.

Incorporeality - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Incorporeality is "the state or quality of being incorporeal or bodiless; immateriality; incorporealism."[1] Incorporeal (Greek: ἀσώματος[2]) means "Not composed of matter; having no material existence.[3]"

Incorporeality is a quality of souls, spirits, and God in many religions, including the currently major denominations and schools of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. In ancient philosophy, any attenuated "thin" matter such as air, aether, fire or light was considered incorporeal.[4] The ancient Greeks believed air, as opposed to solid earth, to be incorporeal, insofar as it is less resistant to movement; and the ancient Persians believed fire to be incorporeal in that every soul was said to be produced from it.[5] In modern philosophy, a distinction between the incorporeal and immaterial is not necessarily maintained: a body is described as incorporeal if it is not made out of matter.

In the problem of universals, universals are separable from any particular embodiment in one sense, while in another, they seem inherent nonetheless. Aristotle offered a hylomorphic account of abstraction in contrast to Plato's world of Forms. Aristotle used the Greek terms soma (body) and hyle (matter, literally "wood").

The notion that a causally effective incorporeal body is even coherent requires the belief that something can affect what's material, without physically existing at the point of effect. A ball can directly affect another ball by coming in direct contact with it, and is visible because it reflects the light that directly reaches it. An incorporeal field of influence, or immaterial body could not perform these functions because they have no physical construction with which to perform these functions. Following Newton, it became customary to accept action at a distance as brute fact, and to overlook the philosophical problems involved in so doing.

 

[Elixir]

“Medieval alchemists noticed that, during distillation, a vapor (which they likened to a spirit or essence) would rise and condense — in effect, they believed the vital essence or “spirit” of the fermented substance was being captured and concentrated. This led to the use of the term “spirit” to describe distilled alcohol as opposed to lower-alcohol, simply fermented beverages like wine or beer”

You put that in quotes, but didn't credit a source. Is it a quote from somewhere?

Yabut I copied it then closed the window without even checking the site. Having heard the same in the past from other sources, I didn’t question it.
Do you have differing info?

 

[steve_bank]

That sounds like naturopathy and homeopathy.

Distill a substance over and over until the parts per million are to0 low to have any effect, yet they claim the remedy contains the essence of the substance. Basically water.

 

[ideologyhunter]

People state "I'm a very spiritual person" as if you should give them a cookie. I hear it more on TV interviews than in everyday life -- typically, the speaker is disavowing membership in a specific church. But the fact that they're "spiritual" is meant to assure you that they are honorable and sense a higher intelligence in the world. I, of course, hear it as, "I'm open to a variety of goofy beliefs."
We could learn from the Swedes; somewhere north of 50% of them poll as non-believers (google gives the maddeningly imprecise figure of 46 to 85 percent, so clearly someone has constructed a poorly-worded poll or two.)

 

[No Robots]

Constantin Brunner's schema of human thought:

 

[WAB]

 

[bilby]

“Medieval alchemists noticed that, during distillation, a vapor (which they likened to a spirit or essence) would rise and condense — in effect, they believed the vital essence or “spirit” of the fermented substance was being captured and concentrated. This led to the use of the term “spirit” to describe distilled alcohol as opposed to lower-alcohol, simply fermented beverages like wine or beer”

You put that in quotes, but didn't credit a source. Is it a quote from somewhere?

Yabut I copied it then closed the window without even checking the site. Having heard the same in the past from other sources, I didn’t question it.
Do you have differing info?

No, I just wondered where it came from.