Spacetime, Body, Spirit
A language crisis
There are physical and metaphysical objects. Physical objects exist at specific spatiotemporal coordinates. They can be located at a specific moment in time and a specific place in space. You can point to most of them with your finger. They are like points on an X-Y graph whose X-axis is time and Y-axis is space. My coffee mug is a physical object. I can point to it. It sits on my desk (spatial location) at 5:48am (temporal location).
Metaphysical objects do not exist at specific spatiotemporal coordinates. Instead, they exist across specific spatiotemporal coordinates. You can’t point to any of them with your finger, but they can be represented symbolically. You can “point” to them with words (auditory symbols). A metaphysical object is like a line on a spatiotemporal X-Y graph. You can’t see a line in a single point because lines emerge across sets of multiple points.
My habit of coffee drinking is a metaphysical object. You can’t point to it with your finger. You can point your finger at me taking a sip of coffee, but that is not my habit of coffee drinking. My taking a sip of coffee is a single action (a point, an instance). A habit is a repeated type of action (a line, a pattern). You would have to simultaneously point at multiple actions of coffee drinking to point at my habit of coffee drinking. That is impossible because you can only point your finger at one thing at a time. Your finger is physical, not metaphysical.
Countless people are deeply invested in a metaphysical object they call “spirit” or “soul.” They say spirit exists in a totally unique way. They claim it exists “in the spiritual realm,” a purportedly special domain of existence said to contain an ideologically restricted number of things. It usually encapsulates the characters, settings, and objects of a specific religious narrative — nothing more, nothing less. You hear such people say things like “you have a spirit” or “you have a soul.”
These people are seriously confused because they understand “you” physically and “spirit” metaphysically. They speak a bastard language born of an unholy union between modern scientific psychology and ancient religious mythology.
Where are you located in spacetime? Are you a body with specific spatiotemporal coordinates? Are you a physical object? If so, I should be able to point at you with my finger.
Imagine we are walking on different sides of a street. We are the only people around. We are complete strangers. You do not know me and I do not know you. I point my finger at the body across the street.
Am I pointing at you? Are you located where my finger is pointing?
I run toward the body across the street, pointing my finger at it the whole time. I yell out, “There you are! I’ve been looking for you!”
What would you say? Am I right? Are you where I am pointing?
You take a step back and respond, “You are mistaken, stranger! I am not the person you think I am! You do not know me!”
I am mistaken! Your response rightly indicates that you are not located where my finger is pointing. You are not where that body is! Why not? That is the key question.
You are not where that body is because “you” isn’t a physical object but a metaphysical one. This is linguistically represented in the use of the plural “you.” “You are,” not “you is.”
You can’t be located – known – at one specific place or time. For me to know you, I must spend time interacting with the body across the street. In other words, I must exist across time and space with the body across the street to get to know you, to find out who you are.
You are a line, not a point; a pattern, not an instance. You are a trajectory through spacetime. To get to know you is to get to know where the body across the street came from, what it is doing, and where it is headed in spacetime (life). Each bit of information is like a point. Only put together does it form a line, an understanding of who you are. “You” isn’t a what, but a who. You can’t point at who-things with fingers. You can only “point at” who-things with symbols like words. A “you” is a metaphysical object like a habit.
This means that you cannot and do not “have a spirit.” People who say this conflate a “you” with a body! They physicalize you! They reduce you to flesh! “You have a spirit” in their bastard language translates to “this body has a spirit.” They do not see you for who you individually are.
If a spirit is that which is uniquely you, then it is you, and “you have a spirit” amounts simply to “you have a you.”
Hear me! I am not saying “you exist in a spiritual realm.” I am saying “spirit” in the language of ancient religious mythology directly translates to “you” in the language of modern scientific psychology. This is to be expected since psychology, like all other sciences, is a child of mythology. Astronomy was born of astrology; psychology has equally mythic genetics.
Once you understand this, something remarkable crystallizes. These people use “spiritual” to mean “religious metaphysical.” Their “spiritual domain” is populated with the set of metaphysical objects invoked by their religion. This is exemplified in the statement “you are a spiritual being,” which directly translates to “you are a metaphysical object that I understand in terms of my religious ideology.” Their “spiritual domain” is not a distinct domain of existence, but a distinct vocabulary of words that symbolically represent an ideologically limited set of metaphysical objects. Put otherwise, it is a culturally specified set of lines (patterns), a traditional vocabulary.
You can draw or find infinite lines in the graph of spacetime. You can find patterns anywhere in life. The set of possible lines for you is the set of believable metaphysical objects. What is reality? What is most real? Your answer is you. A “you” is created by the lines a body draws anew and the ones it retraces.
Someone’s “spiritual domain” is a set of lines identified by their personally internalized religion. It is their personal worldview, but they talk about it as though it is transpersonal — as though their distinguished set of lines is the only distinguishable set of lines, as though their worldview is the only worldview!
I oppose this monotheistic arrogance with pluralism. I want to live in a world of individuals. I want the ability to learn! I want excitement! surprise! challenge! awe! hardwon love! creativity! None of this is possible if there is only one worldview, if everyone, every “you,” is equal and the same. I say be individual! Reject bastard languages, reject all ideologies, all cultures. Then, create your own. Carve new lines out of life! Become who you are!