Our Spirit

To define our spirit, the third and final aspect of our nature, I had to go right back to the time I imagine “spirit” was conceived. There I can easily ‘see’ our earliest ancestors analyzing their encounters with death first associating loss of blood with loss of life and subsequently considering blood essential to all animal life. Perhaps at the same time but surely shortly after making this association our ancestors had to have realized that death did not necessarily follow a loss of blood and that death more often than not occurred without loss of blood. Thus though they could ‘see’ blood was essential to life they were forced to look for a definitive indicator of life. They found it in breathing for whether or not there was a loss of blood, when breathing stopped life ended. I think it is reasonable to assume that at the time our ancestors concluded breathing is the fundamental difference between life and death they already had a word for breathing so they used that word to label the biological process that indicated life. In at least one society the label for breathing was the genesis of “spirit”. 1

“Spirit” did not remain the simple biological indicator of life. The connection we had to our biological “spirit” was cut when as they continued trying to make sense of our existence our ancestors gave birth to our religious/philosophical “spirit”. I agree with speculation it is probable the birth occurred when our ancestors associated “spirit” and dreaming. They had to have been aware of our ‘existence’ in dreams so after deciding the presence of “spirit” indicated life our ancestors apparently concluded the part of them that dreamed was the part of them that breathed. They eventually almost certainly created a theory that explained how this invisible essence came to give them life but the theory that when it leaves our body we die was already in place. So was the name. Those of our ancestors who already called breathing “spirit” simply began calling the invisible essence of their being that breathed, their “spirit”; and speculation about our religious/philosophical “spirit” began. 2

Over the millennia leading speculators created major belief systems around our “spirit”. Early fathers of Christianity converted “spirit” to soul and created the theory of its salvation. Each of us has some measure of inherited speculation stored in our theoretical knowledge. The rest is stored in the libraries of the world. Millions occupy themselves full time defending, spreading, complicating and ‘proving’ the veracity of their religious/philosophical theories. Until quite recently our collected religious/philosophical theories, the offspring of the first religious/philosophical “spirit”, had the greatest influence on the direction of humanity; and they still have a strong supporting influence. I will return to other influences and the direction of humanity in due time. For now it only necessary to know that despite the influence, none of this speculation meets even the first one of the criteria I am using to define aspects of our nature, that “spirit” must be simple. 3

The original biological “spirit” does meet the criteria even when I expand its definition to accommodate our body/mind. I defined our body/mind as the integration of realized potential capacities, activity and knowledge. As noted, our most fundamental activity is definitively breathing. We can stop eating and drinking and continue living for awhile, but the moment we quit breathing we die. Indeed, inspiration/expiration, our “spirit”, is the indicator of life. However, respiration just begins the continuum of life activity that in humans ranges from the most fundamental physical activity through a transition of decreasing physical and complementarily increasing mental activity to predominantly mental activity I am not sure we know has an end. Furthermore as also noted, our activity is contained at a given amount that can be a blend of natural and unnatural activity in complementary amounts; and that the blend can vary from the theoretically possible living end of completely natural activity through actual decreasing amounts of natural and increasing amounts of unnatural activity to the dead end devoid of natural activity. 4

I still do not need to fully define natural and unnatural activity in order to continue. It is enough to recall I consider a life of completely natural activity to be the “ideal” or synonymously, to be real life, or being fully alive. When we replace a given amount of natural activity with that amount of unnatural activity our lives become accordingly less "ideal", less real and correspondingly we are that much less than fully alive. As we continue to replace natural activity with unnatural activity we eventually pass the mid point in the continuum at which we can describe ourselves as being more dead than alive. At the end, when the last of our natural activity stops we become completely dead. Now, since “spirit” is a biological indicator that can only be generated by natural activity it seems our “spirit” monitors the level of natural activity in our ‘container’. Consequently, while “spirit” still indicates the fundamental difference between life and death, I modified its original definition so that “spirit indicates the differences between being fully alive and completely dead. The greater our “spirit”, the closer we are to the “ideal”. 5

I don’t think anyone is investigating how we experience “spirit” specifically for me. However, I do know some brain physiologists are investigating “spiritual experiences” in an effort to disprove the theory of the “soul” and thus remove the foundation of all related religious/philosophical beliefs. I look forward to their findings because they will be as useful to me as would those of a study done for me. I think investigators are working with the hypothesis that if they can duplicate it they will have proven “spiritual experience” is biologically based and self-induced which would allow them to draw the ultimate conclusion that there is no God, forever considered the source of “spirit”. I do not know how far along brain physiologists are in their investigations. Nor do I know how they go about proving “spirit” is self-induced  using outside stimulation; but this is beside the point. The point is that while trying to disprove a theory supporting the religious/philosophical “spirit” scientists are confirming the fact we do experience biological “spirit”. Indeed, we have been experiencing a measure of it for years without unnatural stimulation; with the corresponding measure of natural activity. 6

Even when scientific investigators explain to me the biological electro-chemical processes by which we experience “spirit” I will still be able to say “spirit” is the ‘lightening’ of life. We feel the power; others see the ‘light’. Even though investigators will be able to tell me how we experience “spirit” they will not be able to give me the answer to “the last why”. I don’t need them to tell me the answer to the penultimate “Why?” is that “spirit” obviously inspires natural activity. For the unknowable reason why, we want to feel the power of our “spirit”; and it seems we can never feel enough. There appears to be in us a drive to feel fully alive and we can only feel fully alive when engaging in completely natural activity. The reasons we feel less than fully alive that include the previously mentioned collective complications, I present in “Our Reactions to the Void.” In the meantime it is enough to know that because engaging in a measure of natural activity is a condition of life, experiencing that associated measure of spirit is the same condition of life. Also, there is an "ideal" level of spirit that is the same for all of us and thus independent of our unique capacities. This "ideal" level of “spirit” varies with the "ideal" rate of integration but is likewise the maximum it can be at any given time over the period of time we are given. I can’t think of any more unanswered questions I will not answer in “Our Reactions to the Void; but if there are I will probably answer them as I proceed. 7

Before I proceed though, now that I have them all I want to combine the three structural facets of our nature. Traditionally, the body/mind/spirit concept of our nature has been represented by the equilateral triangle, the two dimensional geometrical shape with three equal sides. This shape is also in my image of our nature but the shape I see is three dimensional. The equilateral triangle is the perfect representation of our body, the integration of realized potential physical capacities, physical activity and physical knowledge. A congruent triangle also represents perfectly our mind, the integration of realized potential mental capacities, mental activity and mental knowledge. “Spirit” has no shape but already having two facets of identical size and shape I simply imagine the ‘light’ assumes that size and shape. 8

Assembled, these three identical facets create a symmetrical three faceted pyramid that has to have a triangular base  the same size and shape as the three sides. Technically, this geometrical shape is a regular tetrahedron. Speaking metaphorically of course, the tetrahedron is the static shape of our dynamic nature. Though we all ‘have’ precisely the same shape, because of our individual capacities, each of us 'has' a unique ‘size’. Incidentally, the regular tetrahedron also happens to be the static representation of the carbon atom that is considered the fundamental building block of life. It seems appropriate that the building block of life is represented by the same shape that represents the building block of humanity, a three dimensional continuum of body/mind/spirit in reaction to the void. I can now proceed to that fourth facet, "Our reactions to the void". 9