# what does it mean to be "spiritual?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 28, 2009, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592 "2009-07-28T20:52:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/101 "2009-07-31T18:12:29Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Or, ‘A whole bunch of unnecessary conclusions that don’t at all follow from the initial premise.’ Huh? Are you talking about you or me? (Or as a third option, the folks who believe in egregores, which may or may not include you.) > [@mswas](#): > > You’re taking the model entirely TOO literally. The group is fundamentally affected by having been a member of the egregore, as such it would lie dormant unless people accessed it’s memories, IE the memories formed while at the party. I’m not talking about a model, I’m talking about a literal explanation. If you (_unlike_ the folks who believe in egregores) are just talking about anthropomorphizing the interplay of people who happen to be in groups at the time and not about any sort of independent entity, then you might have mentioned it at one of the times I gave you a clear opportunity to do so and saved us all some time. > [@mswas](#): > > Except that looming spectral critters is your bias. I am talking about a group becoming a larger cognitive entity by uniting their consciousnesses toward a common purpose. The looming spectral critters are the bias of those using the occult term “egregore”, best I can tell. Persons not trying to elevate groups to some sort of special level of independent identity can just call the group a “group”. And define “uniting their consciousnesses toward a common purpose”. 'Cause there’s a rather large difference between the following three options: 1. a bunch of people are in the same place at the same time doing similar stuff in relative cooperation (coordinated through the purely non-spiritual, non-supernatural, non-occult method of observing each other’s behavior and adjusting their own in reaction). 2. people in a group form an automatic telepathic connection with each other, activated and controlled by a separate part of their minds that they’re completely unaware of which conspires to override their intelligent conscious minds with cruder groupthink when there are enough other people in the psychic circle to override the conscious mind with mob mentality and completely take it over. 3. When enough people gather, a looming spectral critter called an “egregore” drifts in, overriding individual behavior with its crushing psychic might. > [@mswas](#): > > I think you ARE completely misunderstanding me. I am saying that ordinary group dynamics ARE in a distinct and self-aware entity. IE, it’s members become, ‘Fellow Travelers’, and participate in a higher level of cognitive functioning that they are sometimes not aware of and sometimes are aware of. > > No one is positing that ‘people’ come into existence. You need to separate ‘spirit’ as synonym for ‘ghost’. An egregore is not a literal person, nor is it entirely separate and distinct from larger macrogroups, or microgroups that overlap. It’s an useful metaphor for the spirit of a group of people that is formed by participating in a common consciousness. > > The idea of a personal egregore is pointless. The personal egregore would be the self. “Fellow Travelers”? (You can almost _hear_ the capital letters!) A “higher level of cognitive functioning”, huh? And here I always thought that a mob mentality was most typically _less_ than the sum of its parts. What makes it higher? Or cognitive, for that matter? You seem to be suspended _between_ believing outright in hulking spirit beasts, and believing that we’re talking about a mere anthropomorphic metaphor for purely normal and secular and materialist interactions between people acting in uncoordinated cooperation. (Evidence for the former is that you keep using occult terms with Significant Capitals and referring to this as a higher (possibly independent?) thing; evidence for the latter is you keep shying off from the fully nutso stuff.) I have a hard time following you in this because from what I can see, there isn’t a middle ground between the two. There’s nothing occult about groups of individuals acting in concert; a corporation is just such a group, but it isn’t a spiritual entity in the slightest. Is this all some sort of confusion about thinking that materialism doesn’t allow for nouned verbs? That is, that it doesn’t allow for things that only exist in the doing of them like “thoughts” and “love” and “cooperation”? 'Cause materialism has no problem with that. (Heck, as a computer programmer I spend my life working with things that only exist as the aggregate of actions of other things.) Materialism just rejects that idea that there’s a _separate_ level of existence than the material world for these things to exist in and interact with (or via). (Things like egregores and consciousnesses-uniting, for example.) > [@NoJustice](#): > > Hmm… not to support the supernatural aspects of **mswas** ’s claims here, but unless you’re using a very restrictive definition of ‘conscious’, I think you might actually be wrong about this. > > Have you ever looked into [swarm intelligence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_intelligence)? It’s really a fascinating concept, where the complex interactions between large numbers of individuals result in emergent properties which can’t be attributed to any of the individuals. The behaviour of the swarm is not controlled by any individual, nor is it an average of them. This is more than group dynamics as it is normally thought of. The swarm has a mind with a will of it’s own. The fact that it is made up of individuals cannot be used to deny the existence of this mind any more than one can deny the existence of the human mind due to it being a product of complex physical interactions in the brain. To me, this would seem to suggest that whenever you are reacting to the actions of other humans who are also reacting to everyone else, you are indeed a part of an autonomous hive-mind, even though there’s nothing supernatural like what **mswas** seems to be referring to. I don’t know what **mswas** is referring to. But if all he’s talking about is the fact that group dynamics have emergent behaviors not typical of individuals acting alone, then I would argue that it is incorrect to call that a consciousness. My main objection being - it isn’t conscious! It’s not sentient. Unless you can _show_ that it is sentient in and of itself (the way that our mind is sentient based on the collective behavior of our neurons, as opposed to the sum of the independent intellgences of each neuron), then it wouldn’t seem to pass the test. Simply having emergent behaviors isn’t enough to qualify as intelligent in my opinion. If you take varying-sized marbles, half-fill and can with then, and shake it for a while, it’ll self-sort. The big marbles will rise to the top. Is this a sign of intelligence? Would you say the can is _conscious_? I suppose you _could_ say it is…but then I would say that your definition of “conscious” isn’t restrictive _enough_. > [@NoJustice](#): > > Now, I’ve never heard of this being significant to the concept of spirituality but you’ve got to admit that if there is something similar to swarm intelligence at play when it comes to “_the ‘spirit’ of a law, or the ‘spirit’, of a nation, or the ‘spirit’ of a family_”, then there is more than a semantic relationship between this and the overall concept of ‘spirituality’. Naah. The “spirit” of a law is the original intent of the law’s creators which was lost in translation to text - you can still have it when there was only a single creator. The “spirit” of a nation is sheer anthropomorphization, and the attributes of this spirit seem to be reinvented on the spot each time it is mentioned (usually aligning pretty closesly to the speaker’s). And I’ve literally never heard of the “spirit” of a family. (Presumably the term there is used in functionally the same way as with the nation.) I don’t think any of these things talk about emergent behaviors of groups. The nation one may (or may not) make reference to predominantly held opinions, but those aren’t emergent - they’re just averaged, not emergent. > [@NoJustice](#): > > In fact, I’d say we may be on the edge of defining a completely materialist concept of spirituality! I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but I guess just because most people who call themselves spiritual aren’t materialist, doesn’t mean that materialism is inherently opposed to spirituality. Before we understood how the brain worked, I suppose people didn’t expect that love could be defined in material terms either. Well, as has been noted, there are several different definitions of “spiritual” floating around here, ranging from “appreciates beautiful things” to “sees ghosts”. So if you look at the low end of that, things are already pretty compatible with materialism. It may (or may not) be the case that **mswas** is speaking of something completely explainable materialistacally. He seems not to think so…but that could just be my lack of ability to clearly explain my position or understand his. Regardless, I think his notion of spirituality is uncommon, so even if this one gets nailed down as a materialistically based operation, there are various other definitions that rather explicitly won’t. ---
**Author:** ![rivulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@rivulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rivulus)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/102 "2009-07-31T18:29:57Z")
Before I was completely honest with myself and finally accepted the fact that (despite my upbringing and all the social pressures to be a religious person) I don’t believe a word of it or have any personal experience with a divine personage or plane of existence… before I came to terms with the fact that I am an atheist… back then, I used to call myself spiritual-but-not-religious. I used to think of it this way: [ol] [li]Suppose God/the divine exists[/li][li]Suppose a person has an experience with God/the divine[/li][li]Suppose that person lives his or her life based on that experience (for example, allowing a sense of interconnectedness define a moral stance or compassionate outlook towards others)[/li][/ol]This person would be spiritual. On the other hand: [ol] [li]Suppose God/the divine exists[/li][li]Suppose a person has an experience with God/the divine[/li][li]Suppose that person describes God/the divine to others, in an attempt to pin down who or what God/the divine is and what that means for living[/li][li]Suppose some of that person’s followers codify this report into a guide to life, the universe, and everything, and recommend that other followers live their lives based on that report[/li][/ol]The people who read that report and use it as a guide to life are religious. I tended to think of spirituality as arising from direct contact with the divine – and as a very individual thing. Religiosity was derivative – following a set of rules and beliefs based on the (possibly flawed, but certainly incompletely understood) report of someone else who may or may not have had direct contact with the divine. ---
**Author:** ![jakesteele](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ed8c4c/32.png) [@jakesteele](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jakesteele)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/103 "2009-07-31T19:41:18Z")
> [@Joe Frickin Friday](#): > > Every now and then I will hear somebody say “I’m not religious, but I am spiritual.” > > Can somebody make the distinction more clear? > > If I understand correctly, to be “religious” implies a certain set of beliefs, adherance to a particular dogma. > > What does it mean to be “spiritual,” particularly in the absence of religion? > > What would a person who is neither religious nor spiritual be like? Religion is ceremonial trappings and rituals that form a structure that overlays the underlying intent of usually a belief in a spefic god or gods. Spiritual usually pertains to someone who believes in some form of Transcendence and metaphysical aspects to existence. A person who is not religious or spiritual is an atheist ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/104 "2009-07-31T19:50:28Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > What I said was that you don’t know that love exists for the same reasons you know skin and hair exist. Actually, yes I do. I know they both exist because I have evidence they exist. The types of evidence may be different, but they’re the same from the ‘is belief necessary’ point of view. > [@](#): > > Neurochemical reactions as part of the process of an emotion are not the emotion themself. Come on this is epistemology 101. Huh? This is a class you clearly failed. When our body does this, we feel love, and when it does this we feel anger. If you have evidence that emotions are more than the nuerochemical reactions then you should probably bring it, as medical science would be _really_ interested in that. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/105 "2009-07-31T20:00:39Z")
> [@hotflungwok](#): > > Actually, yes I do. I know they both exist because I have evidence they exist. The types of evidence may be different, but they’re the same from the ‘is belief necessary’ point of view. Well from your admittedly limited allusions to that evidence, no you don’t have evidence that love exists, you have evidence of limbic function. > [@](#): > > Huh? This is a class you clearly failed. When our body does this, we feel love, and when it does this we feel anger. If you have evidence that emotions are more than the nuerochemical reactions then you should probably bring it, as medical science would be _really_ interested in that. Actually medical science would agree with me. Particularly psychiatry. A psychiatrist would tell you that certain neurochemical functionality in the limbic system _correlates_ to certain subjective emotional responses, but that the neurobiology is insufficient to explain the subjective experience of the emotion. I mean before you go around spouting off about failed classes you need to not be glossing over extremely elementary critical analysis. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/106 "2009-07-31T20:03:04Z")
Here’s a practical example. If I walk down a street certain muscles in my legs are in motion. I can lay on my back I can move those same muscles in the same way, and not actually be walking. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/107 "2009-07-31T20:11:26Z")
Anyway, I am not going to continue this line of discussion. If you don’t understand the difference between subjective experience and the neurological functioning of the brain then you need to go pick up a book on cognitive science and come back. ‘How the Mind Works’, by Stephen Pinker would be a good start for you. When you understand that the subjective component of cognition is not in any way explained by describing the neurological functioning we may resume this at a later date. ---
**Author:** ![NoJustice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecb155/32.png) [@NoJustice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoJustice)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/108 "2009-07-31T20:41:23Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I didn’t make a single supernatural claim. > \ > you unecessarily tried to divorce yourself from the woo that wasn’t postulated anywhere in anything I said > … Orly?! > [@](#): > > To me it means attuned to subtle aspects of life that **cannot be fully described in material terms.** > [@](#): > > Egregore is an occult concept representing a “thoughtform” or “collective group mind”, an autonomous **psychic** entity made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of a group of people. Bolding mine. While, I find it interesting to consider the _possibility_ that a person could be ‘spiritual’ without believing in the supernatural, I maintain that I still haven’t encountered a single self-described ‘spiritual’ person who actually demonstrates this. That’s why I was so shocked to realize the mere possibility, and felt I must share this revelation, though I’m sure all my brilliant ideas have already occurred to others. 🙂 > [@begbert2](#): > > I don’t know what **mswas** is referring to. But if all he’s talking about is the fact that group dynamics have emergent behaviors not typical of individuals acting alone, then I would argue that it is incorrect to call that a consciousness. No… both he and I are talking about things somewhat beyond that. Perhaps it would be clearer if I pointed out that what I speak of is not something which has been confirmed. I am not claiming that there **IS** a consciousness, just suggesting that there may be. There is, after all, a large leap from the mere fact of swarm intelligence, to specific claims as to the nature of, or even confirmed existence of, such things when it comes to groups of humans. When I said “_I think you might actually be wrong about this._” I was only referring to the fact that you said you were “_quite certain_” when, the possibility, unconfirmed as it is, suggests you should perhaps be less certain. 🙂 > [@](#): > > My main objection being - it isn’t conscious! It’s not sentient. Unless you can _show_ that it is sentient in and of itself (the way that our mind is sentient based on the collective behavior of our neurons, as opposed to the sum of the independent intellgences of each neuron), then it wouldn’t seem to pass the test. True, there is no reason to claim **it is** conscious, or frankly, even to assume that there is such a thing which so far exceeds both normal human group dynamics, and the known examples of swarm intelligence. I am a bit too good at making all my \*‘IF’\*s, \*‘MIGHT’\*s, \*‘I THINK’\*s, and \*‘SEEM TO SUGGEST’\*s so inconspicuous that I seem to be saying more than I really am. 🙂 I was just shocked to realize the possibility that a person could, hypothetically, be a spiritualist, and still be a materialist, and that these beliefs could be entirely internally consistent, even if unfounded. I am certainly not going to try to actually defend such a belief as justified! I think the rest of the arguments you’ve posted really only apply when one limits themselves to the group dynamics which have been confirmed to exist, or at least have some support. The emergent behaviors _which we know of_, don’t qualify as intelligent. “the spirit of” this and that, doesn’t involve anything emergent _that we know of_. etc. etc. > [@](#): > > Well, as has been noted, there are several different definitions of “spiritual” floating around here, ranging from “appreciates beautiful things” to “sees ghosts”. So if you look at the low end of that, things are already pretty compatible with materialism. “appreciates beautiful things” is at the very least bordering on tautology, making such a definition effectively meaningless since it would apply to everyone, so I never really bought that one. I guess if one does accept that as a possible meaning to the claims of spirituality, then my revelation of a possible materialistic spirituality must seem a whole lot less significant. Perhaps I should have posted it in MPSIMS. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/109 "2009-07-31T21:25:08Z")
> [@NoJustice](#): > > Orly?!Bolding mine. Yes. If it exists and I am describing it adequately then it is perfectly natural and not beyond the natural world. > [@](#): > > While, I find it interesting to consider the _possibility_ that a person could be ‘spiritual’ without believing in the supernatural, I maintain that I still haven’t encountered a single self-described ‘spiritual’ person who actually demonstrates this. That’s why I was so shocked to realize the mere possibility, and felt I must share this revelation, though I’m sure all my brilliant ideas have already occurred to others. 🙂 We had a discussion of supernatural a couple of years ago where I laid out why I hate that term. My view on it is, ‘if it exists, then it exists naturally’. > [@](#): > > No… both he and I are talking about things somewhat beyond that. Perhaps it would be clearer if I pointed out that what I speak of is not something which has been confirmed. I am not claiming that there **IS** a consciousness, just suggesting that there may be. There is, after all, a large leap from the mere fact of swarm intelligence, to specific claims as to the nature of, or even confirmed existence of, such things when it comes to groups of humans. When I said “_I think you might actually be wrong about this._” I was only referring to the fact that you said you were “_quite certain_” when, the possibility, unconfirmed as it is, suggests you should perhaps be less certain. :)True, there is no reason to claim **it is** conscious, or frankly, even to assume that there is such a thing which so far exceeds both normal human group dynamics, and the known examples of swarm intelligence. I am a bit too good at making all my \*‘IF’\*s, \*‘MIGHT’\*s, \*‘I THINK’\*s, and \*‘SEEM TO SUGGEST’\*s so inconspicuous that I seem to be saying more than I really am. 🙂 I was just shocked to realize the possibility that a person could, hypothetically, be a spiritualist, and still be a materialist, and that these beliefs could be entirely internally consistent, even if unfounded. I am certainly not going to try to actually defend such a belief as justified! I would argue that these entities ARE sentient and self-aware. I see it in terms of parallel processing. The individual people are only processing part of the emergent process, such that the part they are processing doesn’t have a form that is significantly meaningful. I might be interested in demonstrating it materially later on using a nation-state as the example. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/110 "2009-07-31T21:36:33Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Actually medical science would agree with me. Particularly psychiatry. A psychiatrist would tell you that certain neurochemical functionality in the limbic system _correlates_ to certain subjective emotional responses, but that the neurobiology is insufficient to explain the subjective experience of the emotion. I mean before you go around spouting off about failed classes you need to not be glossing over extremely elementary critical analysis. I feel quite confident spouting off about things we have evidence for. To the best of our knowledge, our emotions are what we experience when certain things happen to our bodies. Attributing things to them that we have no evidence for, now that would a failure of critical analysis. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/111 "2009-07-31T21:46:01Z")
> [@NoJustice](#): > > No… both he and I are talking about things somewhat beyond that. What **mswas** is talking about seems to shift with the winds - or more accurately, he seems to be placing himself squarely between the possibly sustainable positions of “it’s materialistic” and “it ain’t”. What you seem to be arguing is that _maybe_ there _could be_ group interactions between humans that rise to the level of complexity of _actually_ sustaining an intelligence separate from themselves\*. (After all, our brain cells do it - why not people?) Specifically, you seem to be criticizing me for not allowing for the possibility despite there being no reason to believe it ever occurs. The thing is, a similar defense could be raised for the belief that there are looming spectral critters called egregores that are attracted by large groups of people, attracted by a _thirst_ for the _brains_ of man. I mean, I can’t _prove_ there are no spirit beasts - so why argue against their existence? Sorry, no. I’ll need to see evidence of a full actual collective intelligence made of humans before I believe that you can make a full actual collective intelligence out of humans. That you can get some emergent behaviors out of things is interesting, but isn’t sufficient to prove the larger claim. And if it turns out I’m wrong? Well, I might be wrong. That’s why I’m only _quite_ certain. You’re no the only one who makes their hedging inconspicuous - though really am _quite_ certain that groups of people don’t spawn a separate self-aware intelligences. - Note that it would NOT be sufficient for the group members to be doing the thinking for it. Groupthink isn’t a separate consciousness. > [@NoJustice](#): > > “appreciates beautiful things” is at the very least bordering on tautology, making such a definition effectively meaningless since it would apply to everyone, so I never really bought that one. I guess if one does accept that as a possible meaning to the claims of spirituality, then my revelation of a possible materialistic spirituality must seem a whole lot less significant. Perhaps I should have posted it in MPSIMS. 🙂 It was on-topic, so fair game either way - though I don’t think it’s really a tautology, because I think the _complete_ form of the “appreciates beautiful things” definition of spirituality is probably more like “appreciates things as beautiful that most people don’t seem to appreciate as beautiful”. I mean, there exist people like me, who looks at a sunset and says, “Hmm. Sunset,” who looks at a flower and says, “Hmm. Flower.”, and who looks at a mountain vista and says, “Hmm. Big rocks.” Nearly _anybody_ standing next to me is going to feel that they have a significant connection to nature and their surroundings worthy of a specific label. > [@mswas](#): > > Yes. If it exists and I am describing it adequately then it is perfectly natural and not beyond the natural world. > > We had a discussion of supernatural a couple of years ago where I laid out why I hate that term. My view on it is, ‘if it exists, then it exists naturally’. It’s okay to hate the term, but that’s not good enough reason to pretend it doesn’t mean what it means. And it doesn’t mean “the empty set”, no matter how much a misnomer you think it is for the things it _does_ describe. > [@mswas](#): > > I would argue that these entities ARE sentient and self-aware. I see it in terms of parallel processing. The individual people are only processing part of the emergent process, such that the part they are processing doesn’t have a form that is significantly meaningful. > > I might be interested in demonstrating it materially later on using a nation-state as the example. I would be greatly interested in seeing an argument that the US, itself, is sentient and self-aware. (Doubtlessly you’ll cheat and say “an automobile that’s being driven avoids obstacles, so the _car_ is sentient” - but I defy you to demonstrate _self_-awareness. It is **not** sufficient that every member of the US knows the US is there.) ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/112 "2009-07-31T22:48:41Z")
The US Government is sentient being unto itself. 1. It has a [memory](http://www.archives.gov/) 2. It has the [ability to fight](http://www.defenselink.mil/) 3. It has a [body](http://www.50states.com/us.htm) 4. It has a [decision making apparatus](http://www.usa.gov/) 5. It has a [circulatory system](http://images.intellicast.com/images/maps/us_hiways_map.gif) 6. It has a [nervous system](http://www.slipperybrick.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/power-grid.jpg) 7. It has [interests external to itself](http://www.state.gov/www/policy.html) 8. It has [friends](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain) All of these things persist regardless of the continued existance of any individual person. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/113 "2009-07-31T22:52:10Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > It’s okay to hate the term, but that’s not good enough reason to pretend it doesn’t mean what it means. And it doesn’t mean “the empty set”, no matter how much a misnomer you think it is for the things it _does_ describe. If it exists then it’s natural. Nothing that exists is supernatural. That doesn’t mean that some things that do exist aren’t erroneously described as supernatural. Natural and material are not synonyms. Information for instance, is perfectly natural, but is not material even if it is conveyed materially. ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/114 "2009-07-31T23:54:58Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > Maybe we can find someone who identifies himself as “not religious but spiritual” and pin him down on exactly what it means. My opinion is that you won’t get a well thought-out answer, but some vague mumbo-jumbo. Just speaking for myself, I am one who does think there is something beyond the purely material, some “spiritual”/non-physical/metaphysical aspect to the universe. I think we go on after physical death, that there IS a “god”, although I think of It more as a vast collective mind/soul/energy grid than some old man in the sky, and I think there is a purpose other than blind reproduction and survival to this existance. JMHO. I’ve personally experienced what I consider to be “spiritual experiences” many times. I reject organized religion because I do not think any of them are totally or even mostly correct in their dogma, though I respect that they can be helpful for those who need them at their stage of development. Maybe that is “vague mumbo-jumbo” to you, but there it is. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2009, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/115 "2009-08-01T00:01:58Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > The US Government is sentient being unto itself. > > 1. It has a [memory](http://www.archives.gov/) > 2. It has the [ability to fight](http://www.defenselink.mil/) > 3. It has a [body](http://www.50states.com/us.htm) > 4. It has a [decision making apparatus](http://www.usa.gov/) > 5. It has a [circulatory system](http://images.intellicast.com/images/maps/us_hiways_map.gif) > 6. It has a [nervous system](http://www.slipperybrick.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/power-grid.jpg) > 7. It has [interests external to itself](http://www.state.gov/www/policy.html) > 8. It has [friends](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain) > > All of these things persist regardless of the continued existance of any individual person. Right, for certain tolerant values of “sentience”, a _book_ can be deemed sentient. But you claimed to be able to show _self-awareness_. Let’s see _that_! Because if you _can’t_ you have failed to show that the US is sentient in any meaningful way. You will merely have just shown that there are different bits of the US that each sort of vaguely approximate some function of a human, but you will not have shown that there is a cohesive, sentient whole that these all are part of. (And either way, highways, a circulatory system? The power grid, a _nervous_ system? (What the heck do you think the nervous system _does_?) This reads as a bad joke and _undermines_ your point, such as it is.) > [@mswas](#): > > If it exists then it’s natural. Nothing that exists is supernatural. That doesn’t mean that some things that do exist aren’t erroneously described as supernatural. > > Natural and material are not synonyms. Information for instance, is perfectly natural, but is not material even if it is conveyed materially. The word “supernatural” [has a definition](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/supernatural). If you don’t like it, tough noogies - the language is what it is. Democrats don’t want a pure democracy, Perlscript is neither Perl nor a scripting language, and the word “spiritual” doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with spirits. Deal with it. ---
**Author:** ![NoJustice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecb155/32.png) [@NoJustice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoJustice)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2009, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/116 "2009-08-01T00:47:51Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I see it in terms of parallel processing. The individual people are only processing part of the emergent process, such that the part they are processing doesn’t have a form that is significantly meaningful. If you are using the term parallel processing to mean anything even remotely like what the term is usually used to mean, then the individuals would be processing parts (or threads) of a larger program/behaviour, but in this case, what results is not at all emergent in the sense of an emergent property or emergent process; it is merely a sum of the threads. > [@begbert2](#): > > What **mswas** is talking about seems to shift with the winds - or more accurately, he seems to be placing himself squarely between the possibly sustainable positions of “it’s materialistic” and “it ain’t”. I agree. I stand by my [original assessment](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11387650&postcount=19) of people who say they are spiritual but not religious. > [@](#): > > What you seem to be arguing is that _maybe_ there _could be_ group interactions between humans that rise to the level of complexity of _actually_ sustaining an intelligence separate from themselves\*. (After all, our brain cells do it - why not people?) Pretty much… yeah. The only significance of this being that such a belief would be very similar to that of people who call themselves spiritual, despite having no relation to the supernatural, unlike the beliefs of most people who call themselves spiritual. > [@](#): > > Specifically, you seem to be criticizing me for not allowing for the possibility despite there being no reason to believe it ever occurs. Criticizing may be too strong a word. After all, I didn’t even say you _were wrong_ to be so certain, just that you might be. It was little more than a segue to my brilliant idea of materialistic spirituality. 🙂 > [@](#): > > The thing is, a similar defense could be raised for the belief that there are looming spectral critters called egregores that are attracted by large groups of people, attracted by a _thirst_ for the _brains_ of man. I mean, I can’t _prove_ there are no spirit beasts - so why argue against their existence? Technically, isn’t there a difference between arguing against the existence of something and arguing against the belief in something for which there is insufficient evidence? I’m not usually so pedantic as to hold others to this distinction, but if that’s the shortest distance between what has been said, and the musings I feel compelled to post, well that’s just how it goes. > [@](#): > > I’ll need to see evidence of a full actual collective intelligence made of humans before I believe that you can make a full actual collective intelligence out of humans. That you can get some emergent behaviors out of things is interesting, but isn’t sufficient to prove the larger claim. Thus the importance of all my '_IF_’s, '_MIGHT_’s, '_I THINK_’s, and '_SEEM TO SUGGEST_’s. I would never try to argue that you **can** make a full actual collective intelligence out of humans. Though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised if people expect me to, when I post something like this in GD. > [@](#): > > And if it turns out I’m wrong? Well, I might be wrong. That’s why I’m only _quite_ certain. You’re no the only one who makes their hedging inconspicuous Indeed. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2009, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/117 "2009-08-01T01:04:34Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Right, for certain tolerant values of “sentience”, a _book_ can be deemed sentient. But you claimed to be able to show _self-awareness_. Let’s see _that_! > > Because if you _can’t_ you have failed to show that the US is sentient in any meaningful way. You will merely have just shown that there are different bits of the US that each sort of vaguely approximate some function of a human, but you will not have shown that there is a cohesive, sentient whole that these all are part of. > > (And either way, highways, a circulatory system? The power grid, a _nervous_ system? (What the heck do you think the nervous system _does_?) This reads as a bad joke and _undermines_ your point, such as it is.) Well since you are unable to discuss the issue in good faith, I will step out. And yes, you’re right, the telecommunications lines would be more appropriate as the nervous system. > [@](#): > > The word “supernatural” [has a definition](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/supernatural). If you don’t like it, tough noogies - the language is what it is. Democrats don’t want a pure democracy, Perlscript is neither Perl nor a scripting language, and the word “spiritual” doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with spirits. Deal with it. This is another one of those times where you don’t even listen to me. Which is like 90% of the times I have a conversation with you. Good day. I am probably going to cease responding to you just in general. Nothing personal, I just do not recall ever having a fruitful conversation with you. You needn’t concern yourself with my bad jokes in the future. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/118 "2009-08-01T04:12:12Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Because if you _can’t_ you have failed to show that the US is sentient in any meaningful way. You will merely have just shown that there are different bits of the US that each sort of vaguely approximate some function of a human, but you will not have shown that there is a cohesive, sentient whole that these all are part of. \*\*mswas \*\* (and a few others) raise an interesting point. We tend to look at the universe from a very homo sapien-centric point of view. We think of “intelligent life” roughly approximating human intelligence (maybe a bit smarter). We assume that it would be roughly our scale in size (give or take a few feet) or lifespan (give or take a few decades). And we tend to ascribe a pretty great importance to everything we do as the only sentient species. So imagine some alien intelligence that lived for thousands or hundreds of thousands of years and was planetary in scale. How would it perceive Earth? It wouldn’t know trees and buildings from people or cars. It would probably see the Earth the same way we would see a great big sphere covered with various green and grey fungus-like organisms competing with each other. On closer inspection, it might recognize patterns and systems the same way we recognize them when we disect an organism. But it might also not view individual humans as any more or less important than we view individual blood cells. But is recognizing that we are part of a much larger system than ourselves considered “spiritual”? I’m not sure. Does “spiritual” have to mean a belief in the non-tangible or metaphysical? ---
**Author:** ![Zanthor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@Zanthor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zanthor)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2009, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/119 "2009-08-03T14:13:09Z")
looks like a fun game, can i play too? here is what i think. NOT 'believe; mind you, cos i think ‘beliefs’ are set on a transient, slippery slopes. not worth a scrap of intellect Barriers the deluded think are permanent, when they are not, our present ‘reality’ is an illusuion.for it is based on time, fleeting, to say the least, not eternal. this planet is millions of years old. how important again do you think your 3 score and 10, lifespan is? or the almighty power of your weapons, your dominance is…? dominate, coerce the ME to yield? I can only wonder. Power is limited to ‘time’ its overall importance, the great illusion, - its transient, like all life, thought and 'beliefs are too. they change, evolve, what i think everything that exists is GOD, past present and Future, all is as one, when you die you enter, become aware of, eternity, which basically is timelessness. there re NO barriers, the Alpha and the Omega are as one. the Muslim extremists are not your worst enemy, you are. as Micheal Jackson said, and others… look in the mirror ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2009, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592/120 "2009-08-03T15:05:10Z")
> [@](#): > > what does it mean to be “spiritual?” Absolutely nothing. It’s a meaningless buzzword. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-spiritual/504592.md?page=7)