I find it difficult to define a single concept meaningfully. So I take the liberty of defining a few concepts which I think establish a framework within which the concept of spirit has a meaning.

- Existence is to be in the flow of consciousness. Examples: when you are reading this post, you exist. When you are in a dreamless sleep, you do not exist. To die is to cease to exist forever.

- Science is knowledge from evidence and from deduction that is reproducible and rigorous.

- Matter can impress the senses and can be coerced into repetition under rigorous conditions.

- Spirit is non-material existence.

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?

One could say there is no science of the spirit because the investigation of the spirit has to deal with beliefs, and not evidence. (It is funny that such a materialistic point of view could be said to be accusing spiritualists of having bitten off of the forbidden fruit).

It could be said that there is a science of the spirit if we suppose (for arguments' sake) as few beliefs as possible, and deduct scientifically from this basis. In other words, the investigation of the spirit would proceed deductively.

Having evidence only for "that which is not spirit" we are left only with the capacity of deducing how spirit works. I think that when we rigorously abide by deduction and clearly identify when a belief is necessary to advance an argument, we have a science of the spirit.

I think it is more than a question of authority; truth being pathless means also that we ourselves can't establish paths upon this land.
How could someone say that, and at the same time have a high regard for human culture? (Since it seems to me that when you say truth is pathless you throw all culture, all transmission of knowledge, away).
Ignoring the misanthropic option, we are left with a saying that is at odds with, for instance, the teaching of mathematics. What would be a class in geometry but a guided tour around the land of truth?

So when K. talks about pathlessness, he is not talking about (lacking) transmission of knowledge. Perhaps he is referencing a qualitative difference between learning and truth-seeking: learning happens, while truth simply is. Man changes, truth is static.

I am happy that I have lived as fully as possible, for some time now. I think that is what happens to anyone who faces death as a matter-of-fact issue, and keeps that thought around. I ready myself for death by wanting more and more out of life.
So many people seem to forget death, to simply absorb themselves in other matters. I try to respect their decisions and not think of it as escapism, but that is my prejudice.
Also, so many people think they will continue to exist in some form or another, after death. That is just some magical thinking that relegates our real world to become less real. Death as the inescapable dissolution of me is the only death worth considering. The concept of the afterlife imposes that the real world be interpreted as a draft, a classroom, a dream - in short, as preparation for the afterlife. It not only diminishes the nobleness of the real world - it makes people live for the afterlife, despising their real lives. It makes people more accepting of polluting and destroying the planet.

Am I happy that I will die? No. I think the question is badly formulated: happiness happens alongside the consciousness of death, and not because or despite the finiteness of being.

This has already been answered, I refuse to objectify the subject in order to arrive at your paradox. If you are unsatisfied with my answer, we will just have to agree to disagree.

Is he really not there having that experience of thinking himself not existing? — petrichor

I can only experience the certainty or the illusion of being. I cannot get out of myself and take a peek into what is "really there" concerning myself.

Could we we instead say that the the intention IS the self? This way treats the self as a transitive process rather than a container. — Joshs

I wouldn't say that. Quite the opposite, actually: I think of the self as a metaphorical space where mental phenomena happen; so the metaphor of a container seems quite apt to me.

You can be sure that you exist! — petrichor

There are a plethora of mental issues where the madman can be sure of his inexistence, or that he is a ghost, or other "degrees" of non-existence. And these people are functional language users and we share the world with them.
Personally, I prefer to acknowledge them in my beliefs, and I've brushed with the idea of non-existence myself. Yes we can doubt our existence. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this.

I have to excuse myself as ignorant again, this time about the concept of time according to Heidegger and Husserl. That being said, I would say simply that in time two events can happen at different times and we order them to say one happened before the other.
When we pay attention to something, we emit the intention to focus on a sense, and this emission has the velocity of the nerves. Therefore when we receive the sensorial information, time has already passed and the self is no longer the same.
So in the instant when we focus on a sense, the self and the intention belong to the same being, the intention is inside the self. But when we get the sensory information, this information is the result of a biological process commanded by a self that already been left behind in time. So the sensory information comes from a will not inside the self.

I think it is a catch-22: philosophers define the pursuit of happiness as something connected to reflection. Since most people dislike reflecting, they do not qualify as being "pursuers of happiness".

Self is both an inside and an outside at the same time. — Joshs

Please forgive my ignorance: is this point canonical Merleau-Ponty or you took some liberty in your exposition?
I ask because I find compelling the idea of self-reflection being a reflecting on an other, but that is because of the self being immersed in time: we propel ourselves to self-reflect, but what we find is a self to which time has passed since the propelling. So I'd agree self is both an inside and an outside, but only at different points in time.

What if we are actually code running in a simulation, and the simulation (being run by a military entity) has as its objective to assess the effectiveness of a demoralization of the enemy, where in the real reality the people being targeted are majoritarily atheists, and the simulation is there to demonstrate numerically that if the enemy were to be made to believe in gods, they would become more sectarian and less capable fighters?

Then it would be our duty to denounce this simulation, and its objectives, out of solidarity towards our real flesh selves.

In other words, if we are in a simulation trying to assess how weak we are when believing in god, we should disbelieve and resist.

What if we are being nurtured by divine beings into becoming better people than we are, but in order to avoid gamification of the educational system, our true nature (the spirit) was hidden from us with lies and deception, so that we strived to be better persons primarily out of strength of character and secondarily out of education, but only marginally out of religion?

Then it would be our duty to follow the deception, and its objectives, out of solidarity towards our real spiritual selves.

In other words, if we are in the material world of a spiritual reality trying to learn morality, we should study and accept.

What if we are consciousness deluding itself that anything exists, and the illusion (made of more or less spiritual parts) has as objective creating reality indefinitely, as an endless social dream?

Then it would be our duty to improve the world in all senses, out of self interest: we are going to be stuck here forever.

In other words, if reality is make-believe, we should play as seriously as possible.

What if god micromanages only irrelevant stuff, like the number of folds a curtain has when being softly blown by the wind, how many pigeons coo at a specific time near your window, the shape of clouds, the pixelization of your screen when the tv transmissions bugs out, in summary, only idiotic things. Then even though there is a layer of divine controlling everything, it strives to remain hidden. Like if the secular world was a masquerade, and guessing out the divine behind the mask was the first significative step towards a religious awakening.
Well then it would be the case that there is a hyperactive god but it won't be found in the physical realm: it covers its tracks.
Also, reality may be like a TiVo to the deities: they pause and rewind and replay at will, and can tinker with the frames when they think its cool. Since they keep their miracles to the times while reality is not running, we don't experience them.

"The content of experience can be in doubt. That I am experiencing cannot."

Let's consider a drunkard just awakened from a blackout. People tell him of his deeds during the blackout, but he doesn't believe, because he can't remember experiencing those things. He doubts he experienced that.

Let's consider a child being told that when he grows, he will do stupid things with his life, because that is the lot of all humans; the little tyrant disbelieves his imperfection because he does not yet remembers experiencing those things. He doubts he will experience that.

Finally, consider a madman whose madness is about reality being a computer simulation, and every person being just running code. He will then doubt that his experience is real: it is just a fiction being projected, with the intention to dupe.

So we see, we can doubt that we experience; and that throughout time.

"You're not educating them; you're unjustly showing extravagant superiority that is not justified"

Well the effectiveness of the method should be measured on its results. I have never been accused of being brutish by my interlocutors, so I think that on the one hand people are actually flattered someone is engaging with them at the belief level and on the other hand I am exaggerating here because it is fun.

About humility; I would say humility is a vice because it is a defense mechanism that prevents you from telling truth to others, and vice-versa. That is a great disservice to us: we should be relentlessly attacking each other's beliefs, so as to carve out everything that is untrue or secondary in our minds. It is a vice because it is easier to remain silent about things which would lead to awkward or pathetic conversations. It is a vice because it defers to our mental status quo.

"does that make me somewhat by your terminological premises, mentally enslaved?"

I don't think someone can be mentally slaved by a single idea. I think mental slaves are those who defer uncritically to authority, and those who have a set of rigid ideas that they adhere to. The nature of knowledge and life are such that we are capable of continually discover new aspects in every concept, and therefore to affirm stuff with rigidity is to deny either the fact or the potential of other meanings in the ideas one has "spoused".

You guys conflate being a fighter with arrogance.
Of course, being a man of knowledge requires an inordinate amount of pride: you notice the cutting edge of imagination and try to go beyond.
To do so is to fulfill the most creative role one can have, and heck yes you get a healthy dose of pride from doing it.
Humility is a vice, it is a chain that weighs down on men of knowledge, and to even hint at it being a virtue you are putting yourselves in the company of men who thought of their mental slavery as the highest prize they could aspire.

What makes you different from a crusader? — yupamiralda

Only secondary things. I would say that my social fight is secondary to my inner fight, but not being an expert on the crusaders, I find it presumptious to say that they were all unidimensional and dogmatic. Probably quite a few of 'em crusaders were fine thinkers. But as I said, I am not an expert.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ignore what you meant: what is the difference between me and a caricature of a crusader.

I'd say that my methods are only metaphorically violent: I try to convince people of atheism and about responsibility to the planet. So all my fighting is done with words. Also, my goal is to flexibilize minds, not stiffen them. Finally, I'd say I'd like to fight as fiercely as a caricature of a crusader.

What about you? What makes you different from a caricature of your choice?

Why do you feel compelled to "save the masses", as it were? — yupamiralda

When you see a grown man sucking on a pacifier, slap him hard.

Not only that, but also that we should not objectify in general.

You don't go far enough. Let us avoid objects altogether!
Reality is just a game where you an I have to agree on some stuff; let's agree to disagree, and stop at that. No more of anything you can point at, only feelings and experience.

Imagine two balls. You just got two things out of nothing. Now imagine one of the balls is material, and the other antimaterial. These two balls should erase each other from existence, but what if one falls in a black hole? Then the other would be "condemned" to exist.

Also, consider a character in a play; the author might have imagined its destiny, and written its past accordingly to a path into that destiny. So the cause of something might be its destiny.

Of course, the destiny of all things is death. Perhaps this is the difference between death and nothingness: those who die have existed.

Perhaps Spinoza made up a straw man, with the intention of propelling the reader to a revelatory conclusion. That would indeed make complex to identify the "sense" of the word god: is it the literal Spinozan god which is immanent or the mystical god which is to be deduced from the literature?

Abandon wisdom, discard knowledge,
And people will benefit a hundredfold. — Tzeentch

Thought flows; wisdom and knowledge - even the most dynamic examples - are stiffenings of the flow; are corpses.

Abandon benevolence, discard duty,
And people will return to the family ties. — Tzeentch

Being good, behaving filially: these are roles, are "the way I think I ought" to be. Abandon all pretension, all acting and the only relations that will remain are those which are actual consequences of love.

Madness is to immerse oneself in one's imagination; it is to destroy reality, and build it anew, each breath one takes.
You chose materialism, and I respect your choice. There are those who chose religion, and I respect their choice.
But I do find it disrespectful to confound these things. Religious folk are the stiffeners of thought; madmen are facilitators of imagination. When you say religion is madness, you make a disservice to madness.

That's absurd. — S

What is not absurd? That small balls hit each other and that builds reality? Or that spirit becomes flesh?

Madness is just another option. Up to you to take it.

we are floating down a river with serpents of defilement/vice on either side toward the ocean and we want to get to the ocean without ever being bit. Perhaps the banks are lighted with things we are afraid of or tempted by — Anthony

You buddhists should make more movies!

Ideas are shareable thoughts.
Faith are the coalesced ideas. Or perhaps the coalescing of ideas.
Take gravity, for instance: we fall down when risen above the ground. This happens because of the faith in that what has risen, must fall.
We can fly using planes and helicopters: it is the faith in scientific machines that makes them fly.
They are true miracles: you can even tie up a profounder disbeliever (say, a mormon) and ship him in a plane to China. He will fly, oh yes.
Consider the imperfect miracle of not being bitten by a snake: the snake might be accustomed to your handling, and will not bite. Your miracle is hidden in coincidence and "could be"s. Then faith is not what makes the miracle work, but what the miracle works in you: certainty about the impossible.

I guess that it's role is to try to dither out, before choosing a love or hate bias, what the various options are so as to select the one most likely to give the best possible end. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

That makes sense for a set of activities: decisions. But the intellectual life is full of thoughts, images, desires, inopportune thoughts, beliefs, memories, half-remembered faces, in summary, the mind is a tornado of mental things and the imagination is the stem through which many of these things go through.

To relegate imagination to a "filler of options" role is to lack imagination.

I think that our instincts are (written) in our genes. I guess that our thinking is involves as situations and our responses, positive or negative, must be evaluated before our minds tell our bodies what to do. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Your writing is incomprehensible. Perhaps you meant "our thinking is involved, as situations and our responses, positive or negative, must be evaluated before our minds tell our bodies what to do."

So would it be fair to say that you think the mind is a instinct interpretation machine? If so, what is the role of imagination in your psychology?

But, back to the theme - the basic philosophical point about the Buddhist view is that there is nothing which doesn’t change. This applies equally to the concept of self, to atoms, and to Gods, insofar as they are posited as comprising some unchanging essence. — Wayfarer

That is a very neat cut into what matters; thank you.

We can define as unchanging anything we want. It is just a language/imagination task. And to posit as unchanging some thing might be just what we need to advance our knowledge. So to deny that stuff can be unchanging - specially we ourselves, when we see so many people stuck in a dream or another - is to blind oneself of a very useful concept.

So philosophers, whom are still religious, are compacted to the finitude and are not capable to know the truth? — SethRy

To clarify: I would say philosophers who are still religious are compacted to the infinite (as in, they have a compact with the idea of eternity).

Just as anybody else, they can know the truth. A good indication they would be listening is if they leave the crack pipe be.

Also, truth is such a loaded word. It is more sensible to think like this: we can expect to be able to live and think for a few years, barring some accidental sudden death. We could waste all this brain time dreaming about immortality and spirits and voodoo or we can get cracking on our problems.

Wisdom is based on knowledge, and one cannot reach his height of wisdom if he ignore verifiable knowledge. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

One century ago, people didn't know about a ton of verifiable knowledge we now know, and that did not impede them to attain wisdom.

Instincts guide us from birth on. They create our love and hate biases. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

You are creating a psychology there. Would you say that thought is a substrate upon which instincts are built, or the other way around?

Men of knowledge are those who appreciate the finitude of existence; it is our duty to ring the bell and awaken people.

This is specially true in our religion-soaked world; people are simply numb and deluded with dreams of immortality. It is our noble fight to make others aware of their finitude!

Of course, when the world dies, all of it will have not have mattered. But I'd rather have belonged to a species of warriors, who faced death standing up, than belonged to a rabble of cowards who kneel. So it is merely an esthetic choice.

Perhaps my favorite social scientist can educate you where I failed. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Sorry, I couldn't get past the halfway mark on that video, because it is very constructive in its style, and I am uninterested on its theme.

Genes and natural selection are relevant for the evolution of the species, sure, but I don't think they are relevant for the pursuits of the man of knowledge.

The man of knowledge searches for wisdom relentlessly, and language and its memes are just another layer upon which he reflects on the nature of being.

So I get it that memes (and even more basally, instincts) might enslave the masses, but we men of knowledge are above that in the sense that we know about and consider questions about such constraints.

I cannot agree — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Yeah, you are right. I should have written that having no religion is the right way for a man of knowledge, but of course there are the unwashed masses who need shiny trinkets.

I stand corrected. Thank you!

I think as Jean Luc Picard thinks about humanity (as he discussed it with Q). — Anaxagoras

Well, what is becoming if not transformation? And what is transformation of the species, if not extinction?

I agree that humankind has in it the potency for greatness; but if we can build offspring that seems even more potent than we, I say it is our duty to go for it.

Imagine what will feel the researcher who creates the first artificial intelligence entity. Sure, it will start as a baby's mind, and the researcher will have the choice of shutting it down or not.

If he keeps it, it may outsmart humans, and bring about the end of the human species by being out-competed by the machines.

If you are the researcher, and you have clarity about your options, what would you choose? The choice that preserves humankind but condemns the universe to not be known by a species even more smart than humans?

I think that what is most human about humans is our consciousness, and if we ever have the chance to have offspring that has more powerful consciousnesses than ourselves, we ought to do it - although it is suicide of the species.

The body is composed of elements that are always in flux: we eat stuff, stuff becomes us, we defecate stuff. We do not call body the specific composition at any given time: we call body the system that smartly sustains itself in a changing environment. Look at the body of an old man: possibly none of its flesh is made of the same stuff as when he was a baby, and yet it is the same body.

The self is composed of memories that are always in flux: we learn, we change our beliefs, we forget. We do not call the self a specific substrate upon which memories exist: we call self the learning entity.

Yes our selves are fragmented daily by sleep, and occasionally by drugs and other intense psychological phenomena; but past the novelty of the fragmentation, we resume our cognitive train of thought unchanged.

Therefore, there is a psychological identity which is carried forward from birth to death, and we call it the self.

One could, of course, argue about the relevance to mankind of a God whose existence requires such a search but lets ignore that too. — Jacob-B

I think you threw the baby with the bath water here. Perhaps more important than knowing the truth about the existence of god, we should ask ourselves what is the right way of living.

If there is nothing beyond materialism, we should live according to the material limits of our existence. In other words, religion would be a waste of our time.

If there is a spirit, and it doesn't miraculously manifest itself regularly (so that we may deduce its existance whenever we doubt), then it wants us to work things out as if it didn't exist. What better way to do such a thing then to simply not waste time with religion?

If there is a spirit, and it doesn't manifest, and it wants us live religiously despite the lack of evidence, then such a spirit has created a prison of the mind. One would have to imagine the spirit and believe in one's imagination. In such case we should rebel against the warden, and what better way than ignoring religion?

However I see it, not having religion seems to me the right way to live.

I understand the rules of your test to be:

- ignore concepts based on a materialistic point of view
- ignore concepts based on an idealistic point of view
- are there two different sensible things?

I think we should add the following:

- ignore concepts based on the senses

And now we have a more specific problem: are there two things?

I do not discard any possibility. I consider possible that even some horrific religious fanaticism is, actually, the ultimate truth. It just might be.

In that case, could I not be "in the wrong" even when I'm doing what - for all non-fanatic observers - is a good, altruistic, charitative, beneficial act?

What pisses me off about do-gooders is that they act as if they have a handle on truth - like, they are sure that "doing good" is the right thing to do. It is up to interpretation, man!

But perhaps it isn't! What if we are in some sort of nightmare reality driven by a god who has already decided we are trash - but we are useful as cannon fodder for their disciples (someone has to to play infidel in the Jihad-was-right-all-along game!)

In such a warped reality, doing good is actually just piling up more "negative points" on an already "lost" person. Like: it not only is an infidel, it is an infidel who tries to ilude the true believer with loving acts. "Disgusting!" they would say.

In summary: do-gooders act according to a moral compass always pointing north, and that such strength of belief is at odds with the ambiguity we should have as investigators of reality. We simply do not know what the next person is deserving of, and to "help" him or her is an act of cosmic arrogance.