I constantly hear this word thrown around and I sincerely doubt any of us really grasp the true nature of this word. To me it is a silly word well past-due for some upgrading, some horrible concaution by our ancestors to place anything they didn’t understand. If they couldn’t see it, it was automatically ‘spirit’. We cannot see Love, so Love is spirit … ? I think not. What do we actually mean when we talk of the Spirit? Do we even know?
I never use this word, so I hope I’ll be forgiven for not tendering a definition 
It depends on the context. Are we talking of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (or P of Mind, depending on translation)? Are we talking about some metaphysical entity?
Hi Murdoc. Why would you be so quick to dismiss the idea of love as spirit?
If we use a definition that more or less equates spirit to those things that are metaphysical, love would seem to fit the definition, at least for one who believes in love as a metaphysical phenomenon. In other words, the concept of spirit would be perfectly valid, I would think, for somebody who believes metaphysical things. Invalid, I would guess, for somebody who sees the universe as purely physical.
Ah, so you must hold some sort of opinion towards the spirit, right?
I couldn’t agree more. My point, though, is that ‘spirit’ is too broad of a term for Love. It doesn’t quite work. It is a very silly word.
I think there are better words to describe this ‘spirit realm’, like conciousness. More realistic words. For example: My conciousness has evolved enough for me to reach out into this concious realm (with my mind) and grasp a thing like Love from the abyss. See how much more ‘real’ this mystical spirit world starts to sound?
It really is just an endless abyss of mind-power, basically. You can stretch it for miles upon miles grasping new concepts (whether real or not) and expand or evolve your conciousness. Eventually, you come to realize a way to roam what is ‘real’ with your mind through this ultra conciousness. Instead of grasping things like Love, you can grasp other things or rap your mind around things like the essence of other people! Just like you would when grasping the essence of love.
The word Spirit, in a general understanding, has been made out to be everything ‘mystical’. “The spirit world is where ghosts exist.” The word has lost the essence of what it is trying to describe. I want scientists to look apon the spirit world with logic and not closed minds. Everything in the ‘spirit world’, in fact, is not so mystical, like Love.
There is a world out there that our eyes cannot see, but our minds can … and it isn’t fake (whatever that means).
I think of spirit as something that presents itself regularly in the world. Like, if a person has a ‘curious spirit’ they’d generally display a curious personality even when they aren’t consciously deciding that they’re curious, and would be subconsciously attracted to things that appealed to that spirit. In other words, something’s spirit is composed of underlying, regular trends in its actions/existence. I agree that ‘spirit’ is a broad term, but so is ‘love’, and so is ‘term’ for that matter 
Quite a few religions/philosophies explain spirit differently, so I’m sure that’s a contributing factor to the ambiguity.
Well deduced. My opinion is that it’s an immaterial thing, so I take Wittgenstein’s famous advice on it.
To me what is spiritual is what is neither concrete nor abstract. For example, being (as being) is neither concrete nor abstract. It connot be perceived by our senses nor can our reason abstract a quiddity from it.
What is material?
According to Kant our brains only see what it can comprehend. Furthermore, that ‘material’ table over there has a lot more to it that your brain cannot comprehend and, thus, your eyes do not see.
So your are saying that something that is immaterial is something that you cannot comprehend, correct? It is still there, though … you just can’t comprehend it. So what is material?
I have never read any of ‘Wittgenstein’s famous advice’, but if he is discouraging the attempt to understand the unknown, I don’t think I want to read his advice. I am more interested in expanding and evolving my conciousness. Making new paths. Not following old ones.
Maybe you need to think about why you are asking this question.
spirit is soul
spirit is heart
spirit is unselfish, real love
spirit is some forms of bravery
It is the essence of one side of your duality.
spirit is existence itself…
Spirit is everything that is left after you have subtracted the monkey sitting at the screen reading this and all the words that are in its head.
By immaterial, I mean undetectable - directly or indirectly - to us. Tables are directly detectable, and dark matter indirectly detectable. The “famous advice” that referred to was this: “that whereof we cannot speak, we must consign ourselves to silence.” I’m not against progress and exploration - rather, I don’t think there’s any point dreaming up ideas which belong in the world of noumena.
I think Hegel wrote a whole book to work out the way of the spirit. I was on the sixth or seventh page, when he lost me.
Spirit is usually based on some silly mystical concept that needed concern anyone. There’s brain, neurons firing away, with glials facilitating them, and of course as most rational sane people contend… THERE IS NO GHOST IN THE MACHINE.
speak for yourself…i dont mind people denying they have spirit…im just coming to that conclusion, but dont doubt that anyone else hasnt…doubt it but consider that maybe we are not all the same…im convinced i have a soul, i cant speak for everyone but i know it.
I use is rarely. When I think of it as a personal quality that people always posess, then it means the same thing as ‘mind’ to me. I may use the word to suggest that the mind is not 100% determined by the body, spirit seems to be evocative of that.
Using it in a religious sense, it means the same thing as ‘soul’ to me. What’s a soul? My best understanding is that it is God’s memory of us.
Spirit - quite simply - animating force
also
Spirit - An alcoholic beverage
I prefer that definition
Spirit - VODKA
I have an only MY opinion on this, but…
I think that the ‘spirit’ is defined as the ‘animating energy’ that an organism possesses and separates them from a kitchen table. Many would call this the ‘soul.’
I have really tossed this topic around quite a bit, and I happen to believe that something actually is lost at death. I’m far from being a religious person, but I was a med student and took a lot of anatomy/physiology courses…and I kind of came to that conclusion during that time in my life. I was thinking of how the body is essentially the mechanical equivalent of a machine (car, etc…). A car, however, can be put back together just like it was before it crashed by doing the necessary repairs and replacing any lost parts - and the car will start again.
Medicine really has gotten so advanced that we can recreate the biological functions of the body almost exactly the way they were before someone died (artificially pump the heart/blood, respirators, and even close to being able to mimic synaptic impulses for the brain and nervous system). However, there is something lost from that person that - unlike the car - will never allow them to ‘start’ again. I don’t even consider myself spiritual at all either…I just think there’s something of ‘interest’ there that isn’t as explained simply with the ‘brain-dead’ excuse/theory.
Hegel has been mentioned. I believe his definition of spirit was: “That which tends away from itself.” This seems closer to the modern usage of the word as in, “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual,” or, “tending toward a higher spirituality.”
Now I think there would be a deeper understanding of spirit if one could link that meaning of spirit with the metaphysical meaning of spirit. As in, matter tends toward itself, but alive things tend toward another.
If that were established, then I might ask: How can you tend toward another – be alive – without metaphysical spirit?