Spirits

Spirits are purported disembodied beings — wandering minds without the physical connections — pure intelligence or thought. Many religions see them as what remains after one has died. The idea of spirits may arise from the awareness that something seemingly "non physical" and distinct from the body is what animates us. If one cuts off my foot, or my arm, or any part of the physical me, there is still something left. Some cultures define that essence as a soul, others a spirit, and still others as both. This duality, of physical body and 'soul', leads directly to the belief that consciousness will somehow continue even after the very organ of consciousness, the brain, has turned into worm-ridden tapioca pudding.

Gather 'round the campfire
Folklore
Folklore
Urban legends
Superstition
v - t - e

Most cultures posit some form of invisible spirits which may or may not be benevolent, but which generally all share the same characteristic of being an invisible friend or foe, which is not quite a deity, but not quite mundane.

In philosophy and theology

The Israelites of the Old Testament did not postulate the survival of identity after death - this notion became part of Jewish thought only after the injection of Hellenistic ideas, especially Plato's "ideal forms".[1] Just as the philosopher Plato (died 348/347 BCE) regarded an actual chair as a poor copy of a perfect "ideal" chair which existed somewhere in a remote mathematical mindscape, so was the psyche[2] held to be the ideal, "true" human being, temporarily imprisoned in a corruptible body. The distinction between the mind and the body — and sometimes the dichotomy between the evil body and the good soul — made its way into Jewish communities, first in Jewish colonies outside of the Levant, bleeding into Judea during the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE.

The Alexandrian philosopher Philo (circa 25 BCE - circa 50 CE) developed the pre-Socratic[3] idea of Logos]] into the notion that God's word (Logos) is itself an ideal, spiritual being. This idea seems to have gained attention from early Christians, for the Gospel of John (usually dated to between 90 and 110 CE) makes frequent references to this sort of Logos (which, of course, the author identifies with Jesus Christ). The tradition of Paul of Tarsus (died circa 64 or 67 CE), meanwhile, developed Christian spiritual theology, emphasizing the superiority of the spirit over the body, and often blaming "the flesh" for causing problems in the early Christian communities. However, Paul still holds onto a very Jewish distaste of the body and soul being separate.[citation needed]

All of these ideas have trended into Roman Catholic theology, even to the present day, leading ultimately to the concept that God, angels, demons, and even Heaven and Hell are all spiritual.

René Descartes (1596–1650), the father of modern philosophy and skepticism, divided the world into matter (physical things) and mind (immaterial things that move the physical world). As a result of his radical doubt, he made the observation cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am") — identifying himself with his mind, which he considered unchanging, and his body, which could change.

In alcohol
See the main article on this topic: Alcohol

A "spirit" in alcohol terms is used to refer to a type of alcohol that is low in sugar but usually around 40% ABV. Some examples include gin and vodka.

gollark: Well, I paid £100 for the primary server node™.
gollark: I could buy ten osmarks.tk™ server nodes™ with that!
gollark: Even my dirt-cheap phone has an octacore SoC, and while it has half the clockrate of my laptop's CPU and uses some old ARM cores, newer phone CPUs go up to *ten* cores for some reason, can (very briefly, I assume) reach 3GHz, and have better IPC.
gollark: Unless you really like gaming on your phone for some reason, but stop doing that. Or unless you need really good cameras, but there are comparatively cheap ones with good-enough ones.
gollark: yes.

See also

References
  1. Compare: Drazin, Israel. "Does the Soul Survive the Body's Death?". "The famous Greek philosopher Plato [...] believed that the soul exists independent of the body. It is the real me that is clothed in the body, which is not me. It might not have existed from the beginning of time, but it will survive for all eternity with the same personality it had when it was joined to the body. [...] Plato's notion was enormously influential and although not even hinted in the Hebrew Bible, it became the religious view of most religions."
  2. See the Wikipedia article on psyche.
  3. See the Wikipedia article on Pre-Socratic philosophy.
This article is issued from Rationalwiki. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.