I define spirit as subject existing apart from object, or mind existing apart from matter. If it exists, as the millions of accounts of ghosts and other phenomenon suggest, does it possess essence, being, or is it just as dynamic as the material world?
Everything in the material world changes, nothing, except perhaps the laws of physics, of becoming/change, of affect/effect, remains. This makes for a fluid universe, yet there is also a cyclical consistency in the coming together and going apart of being, so that the same essences/forms reappear (planets, stones, mountains, fish, etc, they all pass away, but they all reappear) again and again, because the deterministic/uniform laws of physics remain, giving reality the illusion of solidity.
As far as we can tell, there’s no need to introduce God, essences/Platonic forms to explain the nature of material change. Also, despite the atomists assertion, there appears to be no true atom, no true being, finitude, solidity, only becoming. Now, when we imagine the spirit world, the world of consciousness apart from matter, we imagine it quite differently. When a glass breaks, It’s existence comes to an end, I do not imagine it’s essence, it’s form goes on existing, and even the glass particles will come to and end. Perhaps this is true of spirit, if spirit is an independent substance, maybe it has particles of consciousness that arrange and rearrange into various collectivities. This would explain why peoples minds change, obviously they’re effected by brain changes, but mind also affects itself, and perhaps mind is affected by other external consciousness particles, compounds and collectivities, consciousness particles inhabiting other bodies, vessels, or other external consciousness particles that exist independently of vessels (ghosts). Perhaps spirit exists, is mortal, and must evolve to protect it’s order, it’s constitution, just as matter must evolve to protects it’s order, it’s constitution. Perhaps spirit is always coming undone, just as matter is coming undone, imagine if you will a parallel spirit world, that behaves markedly similarly to the material world. Spirit is always coming undone, ghosts are starving, they need to constantly absord other ghosts in order to maintain and preserve their existence.
lol, this is all crazy, when we normally think of the spirit, we think of souls that never change, but my mind is always affected/effected, there is no perfect continuity, my personality changes, I’m not the same person I was a day ago, a second ago. Are spirits in a contest for survival of the fittest, just as matter is, and life, a combination of spirit and matter, is? Perhaps the universe is moving toward an integration of matter and spirit, spirit will cooperate with/dominate matter, and order will convert more and more chaos into order. Eventually the universe will evolve into God, God is the ideal, not yet manifested.
Christians say God gave birth to the universe, I say the universe will give birth to God.