What are the components of a person? body, mind, spirit, soul?

If I am in rational, faithful error, I seek correction. I like your take, the manner of it.

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I am curious, though, how one believes in God without believing that he is omnipresent.

Are you expecting any certainty? Surely this whole thing is conjecture and / or belief?

The underlying question is what make an individual unique? Why does one person react differently to another when given the same situation or stimuli? Why is one person Homosexual or heterosexual? What makes Mitchel Mitchel? Is it just memories and brain connections? if so then the idea of a sentient computer may not be far off, butā€¦

Why can you not separate automated brain functions and control from sentience (Soul?) Why must they be different or definable? And how does it help anything to do so? Perhaps it is not enough for this to be purely academic discussion? Perhaps it means something to some of us? And maybe in is a part of my personal belief system that you are challenging and / or deriding?

Richard

Everywhere is in Him, but what is where? Every Planck length at every Planck time I would suggest. Quantum uncertainty limits omniscience; One cannot be all knowing of an absence of information, a null, of a determinacy within indeterminacy. No amount of omnipotence can do anything about that. And God cannot do anything at all, eat His cake, with His omnipotence in the material, and have it too. Whatā€™s where is pretty fuzzy. There is no such thing as absolute reality. Absolute who, what, where, when. In God.

That would be TMI and eye-glazing for most (maybe include a yawn). Omnipresent suffices nicely.

Aye, itā€™ll do, even though it can imply God has extent, when He has none.

I agree, Heā€™s certain about indeterminism.

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He is extant, though. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I rather doubt if he is uncertain about anything.

Maybe you should be less certain of yourself.

 


(The should be an obligatory or system tag when someone has edited a comment after youā€™ve already replied to it, especially when the edit makes things out of sequence. :slightly_smiling_face:)

After you. Iā€™m certain in my uncertainty of God, that He is certain of indeterminism.

Yep. I am expecting a great deal of certainty in people with a wide variety of opinions. LOL Such is pretty typical in religion.

At least for many people it is matter of first experiences, when they find something that works for them.

That is ONE question and not such an important question for everyone. DNA and circumstances are certainly unique, so for me at least it seems perfectly natural that people are unique ā€“ no supernatural explanation required. It is well known that permutations and combinations give extremely large numbersā€¦ far more than there are elementary particles in the universe (let alone the measly numbers of people there are or ever will be).

I do think sentient (i.e. with consciousness) machines are a future possibility. And perhaps quantum computers are a key step. I certainly donā€™t think it is simply a matter of programming software.

As for the rest of these questions these should be questions for everyone not just questions for me.

If the asking of questions is taken by people as deriding their beliefs then their beliefs very much need to be derided. I have no pity or sympathy for such intolerance inherent in the forbidding of questions. Our beliefs will be questioned ā€“ get used to it!

You have left out one possibility. I am not saying I hold to it, but it is a possibility

  1. there is a body and a spirit which incorporates the personality and memories of the individual.

I am happy to add this to the list, for that is what I was asking people to do. However I think a little more explanation is needed. What do you mean by incorporated? Do you mean that the spirit is the only place where personality and memories are found, or only that the spirit makes the personality and memories a part of it, regardless of whether it can be found elsewhere like in the brain. I am pretty sure the latter is what you mean, but I want to make sure. And as a matter clarification on my part, I would add this as a clarification in number 4 and I think the only difference would be that 5 doesnā€™t include the belief in a mind apart from the brain.

I would say that in this case of body and spirit, the memories must be also held in the spirit because if hey are not, that spirit wouldnā€™t be the person who occupied the body.

I would choses this option: the spirit makes the personality and memories a part of it

When Jesus died he gave up his spirit. Again, if his spirit doesnā€™t include the memories of the crucifixion, then he would have literally had his brain washed! lol

Soā€¦ how does this soundā€¦

  1. There is only the body and its organs like the brain. This even includes some religious sects who believe this body and its organs will or can be resurrected. I suppose this also includes those who speak of a mind or spirit but think these are no more than functions or emergent properties of the body and brain.
  2. There is not only the body and brain, but a mental soul which drives the body like a car and which can therefore drive other bodies just as we drive different cars. This is your classic dualism and loved by Gnostics, believers in reincarnation, and those who like to make the mind into some kind of proof of their beliefs.
  3. There is not only a body and brain, but a soul and spirit also. And the mind consists of various functions of brain, soul, and spirit. When the body and brain dies, the soul continues to exist and the spirit connect it to Godā€¦ or something like that.
  4. There is not only a body and brain, but also a mind and spirit as well. The body and brain are both physical and biological, while the mind is physical but memetic (produced by a different inheritance than DNA) rather than biological, while the spirit is a non-physical product of the choices made by the physical living organism and continues to exist after the body and mind are gone.
  5. There is not only body and brain, but also a non-physical soul which takes all the things we call the mind, such as personality and memories, and makes them a part of it. So, in this way the mind continues after the death of the body in the soul, even though it doesnā€™t take the place of those things we call the mind which are likely to find some scientific explanation in the body and brain.

Does that capture the alternative you have in mind gbob? Andā€¦ do I make it clear enough?

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That capturres the basics

You need to distinguish between questions and derision. Questions are expected. Dismissal and rejection are not. It is not about right, wrong or certainty. You ask. You get answers. Do not be surprised if the answers differ from what you believe.

Richard

By the wayā€¦

In this new list I would be described as a combination of 4 and 5, using the word ā€œspiritā€ rather than ā€œsoulā€ for this non-physical thing which absorbs not only all the things of mind but the body too being created by all the choices made in the growth of body and mind. This would also mean that this would not include aspects of body and mind which are not a matter of choice, such as illnesses.

It just seems to me that the word ā€œsoulā€ is generally something used for something a bit more independent of the physical, such as a pre-existent entity inserted into the body and animating/controlling the body with even the possibility of moving to another.

Wisdom and humility.

This reminds me of a concept called Traducianism vs. Creationism. Are you familiar with it?