Thanks. What I took from the professor’s comment was that if we pay attention to, and manage our emotional impulses better, then we gain capacity for rational clarity.

The word has more than one meaning.

@skado What does it mean to you? How many different meanings do you need?

@xenoview
I’m content with the ones provided by the dictionary.

Probably not, it'd kind of be like a Christian being an Atheist at the same time imo.

@Triphid At the time of throwing my question in, I was thinking of some renowned scientists who are also committed religious believers.

@Ryo1 Yes sadly, there are such STRANGE and weird creatures as Scientists who still elect to cling to the Woo-Woo belief system known as Religion and I have met a few of them in my life.
I find it to be very sad that a mind that can wrangle with things scientific can also still feel the need to cling to something completely unscientific as religion.

I don’t know why people think that. I have yet to see a dictionary that had any trouble defining the word, or gave it more definitions than most other words. Most words have a similar range of flexibility.

@skado and then you get off into being concerned with human spirit, or soul, and that part that survives when the material body is dead, and religion raises its irrational thinking again...

@HankSherman
That may be where religious literalists go, but not everybody. The linked video explains it from a different perspective.

@skado Sure, I can understand the notion of flexibility, however, when it leads to an Alice In Wonderland scenario that is where it tends to remain.

“There and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents‘
‘Certainly,’ said Alice.
‘And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!’
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
‘Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t–till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”, Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean different things–that’s all.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master–that’s all’

The definitions of words and the extent of their meanings exist by tacit agreement amongst people in much the same way that every game has a set of rules. The rules define the limits of the moves that can be made in any game and without which no game is possible.

@astralmax

yep

I wonder have you put the cart before the horse in stating that rationality engenders spirituality. I am inclined to think that spirtutality engendered rationality for the simple reason that with the passage of time people began to doubt explanations that everything was caused by the gods or god.

The reference is from the linked video.

@skado Wow, link and video about total woo-woo, what will they think of next?

If you put one in your shoe, it will make you limp.

@Paul_Clamberer Har!

Wow. I've been waiting for this--real stupidity.

It isn't the word that makes us more rational - it's the practice the word points to. The video explains better than I can.

@skado a word is its practice.

@skado The practice seems to be lacking when it comes to politicians who are fond of using certain words but are oblivious to the glaring gaps between their words and their actions.

@ASTRALMAX
I doubt there’s a field that doesn’t have its charlatans.

@David1955
“ a word is its practice”

Not sure I understand. If I say the word doctor, does that make me a doctor?

@skado Silly. Not worthy of you. Doctor here is a noun. Spiritual is an adjective which relates to religion ( not a 'spiritual' song, noun) or something metaphysical: it describes something that presumably people feel, but that can mean anything, so its practise is highly ambiguous but any assumption that it makes people 'more rational' is not shown in practise or in theory. If you think so then that's your opinion, and in that you are siding with religion, that is to say non rational belief.

@David1955
We could discuss the video.

@skado So, by your reasoning via spirituality IF I spend my days flapping my arms like wings I WILL eventually fly like a bird then.
Either that or end up in a Looney Bin somewhere as a permanent resident.
Hmm, I'll stick to being a non-aerial human being thank you.

@David1955 and practices vary

@skado And the 'world' of this presumed "spirituality" would no different and a prefect breeding ground for the unscrupulous that dwell and prey amongst us.

It was much better than I expected. Very low on supernatural woo. More like practical psychology/philosophy.

@Rossy92 As a Psychologist I saw very little to with ACTUAL Psychology, a bit in relation to the more modern ideologies of Philosophical thinking but nothing much in the way of what the TRUE Philosophy is all about unfortunately.

@Triphid I'm glad you at least appear to have watched it. But it seems to me it has everything to do with functional vs dysfunctional patterns of behavior, and emotional IQ?

@Rossy92 There IS Psychology which I practice as a Psychologist and then there is what many Psychologists ( including myself) refer to as Pseudo-Psychology and is, Psychology when it is NOT psychology, similar to Vegetarian Hamburger that claims to have meat that is NOT really meat if you get my drift.

@Triphid You and Gottlieb make the same move in that he refers to "real" or "true" spirituality (I don't recall the exact phraseology). And I know enough to know that there are many "schools" of psychology developed by various practitioners such as Freud, Maslow, Jung, Skinner etc., etc., etc. And furthermore psychology is not an exact science. That would probably be more what neurology is. Ultimately I don't care what anyone wishes to call it. Seems to me that Gottlieb is focused on emotional health and well-being (Is that not a major part of Psychology, a la therapy or so called "head-shrinking"?). His angle may not jibe with you, but it resonated with me. What solutions do you have to offer for some of life's existential problems?

@Rossy92 Are you asking me as per my personal basis or my professional basis?

@Triphid I'm refering to the appeal you make to so called real psychology vs pseudo psychology. Professionally.

@Rossy92 Well since I am a Certified and Practising Psychologist WITH a Phd. mind you, as a Psychologist I do NOT GIVE my Patients advice, instead we sit and we talk WITH each other, not me asking them questions and then interpreting their answers, and by doing so it IS they who come up with the answers/solutions to THEIR problems and not me TELLING them what THEY should be doing as in Psychiatry.

@Triphid I truly don't mean to offend, but that sounds to me like a lot of nothing. Very vague, fuzzy, and potentially religious charlatanesque. All throughout you've been very high on pithy generalizations, and low on specifics. And then one is supposed to have faith that through some nebulous magical process, and lots of $$$ don't forget, one finds their solutions. At least that's the take I'm getting from. I'm aware that other qualified experts might not share your same take on the subject. Going back to your vegetarrian meat analogy which I honestly didn't get, some of the substitutes (vegetarian "meat" in this case), can offer more nutritionally than some the so-called "real" things.

@Rossy92 Well now as Psychologist and a Child and Youth in Crisis Counsellor for almost the last 20, yes that is TWENTY, YEARS I have not made a brass farthing of income from my Counselling because I do it Pro Bono and Gratis.
For the years before that ALL I earned from Counselling Street Kids, etc, was the money to cover my fuel expenses, any thing else from my recompenses was divided up as evenly as possible between the Street Kids I was counselling and helping, sometime anywhere between 5 to 15 or more per group session each week I'd do 3 Group sessions per week and as many One on One sessions as requested.
And GUESS WHAT, NO religion, No religious garbage, No God, No Jesus and NO me telling them either.

@Triphid Thanks.

No it isnt.

Imagination is useful.

The original post is a catflap in an elephant house.