🚀 go-pugleaf

BuddyThunder wrote:
> rbwinn wrote:
>> On Jul 7, 3:48�am, The Natural Philosopher <a...@b.c> wrote:
>>> BuddyThunder wrote:
>>>> rbwinn wrote:
>>>>> On Jul 6, 12:58 am, BuddyThunder <nos...@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
>>>>>> rbwinn wrote:
>>>>> -
>>>>> Well, look spirit up in the dictionary. �If you do not believe in
>>>>> spirit, then there is no way to explain it to you.
>>>> I looked it up and found lots of vague notions of intermediaries 
>>>> between
>>>> body and soul. That kind of nonsense.
>>>> So there is no meaningful definition of "spirit" in reality? You made a
>>>> positive claim about my "spirit", then choosing to define it in 
>>>> terms of
>>>> itself. A kind of "spirit is spirit, what's wrong with you" argument.
>>>> I'm none the wiser as to what you're actually referring to.
>>> The mediaeval understanding of spirit,was essentially what we today
>>> would call the mind, as distinct and somewhat independent of, the body.
>>> The concept of the 'objective observer' grew out of this particular
>>> worldview. Science owes religious philosophy that much, at least.- 
>>> Hide quoted text -
>>>
>>> - Show quoted text -
>>
>> Spirit could also be called intelligence.
> 
> Why not simply use "intelligence" then? It's a much less nebulous word. 
> Intelligence is emergent from normal brain-activity (in many animals 
> including humans) and doesn't seem to be supernatural at all.

THat is ony one way to skin the cat.
And its probably more nearly correct to identify spirit with consciousness.


Now whether consciousness is emergent from physical reality, or physical 
reality is emergent from consciousness, is a very moot point indeed.

Classic materialism assumes the former, but neuroscience and indeed 
quantum effects suggest to some extent at least subjective physical 
reality is more or less constructed by consciousnes.

Now the materialist will say thet subjective physical reality is 100% 
correlated with real physical reality, but the justifications of this 
are about as concrete as taking the bible literally. I.e. there is no 
real objective perception out there at all.

Without modifying consciousness to see how that affects the perceptions 
of physical reality it is not possible to say whether our notion of 
physical reality exists outside of the way we happen to perceive it: 
eastern mystical traditions which concentrate on the methodologies to 
change consciousness, tend to claim that the apparent reality of the 
physical world, is certainly not as secure as our normal perceptual 
apparatus makes us feel.

This was all part of the original Xtian/Judaic mysticism as well, but 
sadly the church no longer plays in this arena. Neither does Islam, 
outside of the Dervish movement.

Which is all a sad waste, as, philosophically, there are, I think, great 
strides in understanding of both science and religion to be made by 
re-examining the basis on which we build our notions of what is real and 
what is not, and in what way.

The Church however, seems more preocupied with secular morality, than 
philosophical investigation.