I've had an idea about heaven and the after life

[Zanderthe]

Hi I think I joined before but forgot my login info. But the last week or so I came up with a way to get my head around consciousness elsewhere.

From my understanding a persons thoughts and experiences and everything that makes them unique are the equally uniquely formed synapses in the brain. Simple neural cells that have turned in such a way to be unique to one’s self. The chances that those unique formations could form again in a person is impossible. However if somehow those connections were happen in some cluster elsewhere they would produce the same consciousness as the person has.

Also thinking about the universe and the fact that we cannot observe all of and the theory that it is infinite. Leads to infinite possibilities. I think it’s entirely possible that there could be a realm where clusters of the same synapses that made a person who they were could be put together again. It’s vague but it’s how I see it working.

 

[Vico]

Hi I think I joined before but forgot my login info. But the last week or so I came up with a way to get my head around consciousness elsewhere.

From my understanding a persons thoughts and experiences and everything that makes them unique are the equally uniquely formed synapses in the brain. Simple neural cells that have turned in such a way to be unique to one’s self. The chances that those unique formations could form again in a person is impossible. However if somehow those connections were happen in some cluster elsewhere they would produce the same consciousness as the person has.

Also thinking about the universe and the fact that we cannot observe all of and the theory that it is infinite. Leads to infinite possibilities. I think it’s entirely possible that there could be a realm where clusters of the same synapses that made a person who they were could be put together again. It’s vague but it’s how I see it working.

The immaterial soul with will and intelligence, and the material body form one person, so how does the soul work with a cluster?

 

[Zanderthe]

The cluster referring to the different synapses but together they form the being.

 

[webmasterpdx]

The universe is finite but very large. It’s so big that we cannot see the edges. We do know that the further out you go the faster the galaxies are moving and the light from many cannot reach us because of this. So we can only see so far. There is a body of evidence that consciousness resides in the soul (at least partially) and that we are more than the sum of our neurons. I suggest you search for Peter Fenwick on youtube. What we know from neural net studies, Neural nets are great at pattern recognition. We know nothing apart from that …

 

[Gorgias]

From my understanding a persons thoughts and experiences and everything that makes them unique are the equally uniquely formed synapses in the brain.

That’s certainly the materialist point of view. Yet, it proceeds from their (unsubstantiated) assertion that nothing exists except the physical.

Aquinas would have asserted that the person (a body/soul composite) utilizes the brain in order to ratiocinate, but that the brain itself is not the person or his experiences.

The chances that those unique formations could form again in a person is impossible. However if somehow those connections were happen in some cluster elsewhere they would produce the same consciousness as the person has.

Many movies have sprung from that premise. The more thoughtful ones get about halfway down that rabbit hole and realize, “wait! the person to whom this consciousness ‘belonged’ would be horribly disoriented by experiencing ‘consciousness’ in the context of an entirely different person!”

I think it’s entirely possible that there could be a realm where clusters of the same synapses that made a person who they were could be put together again.

Are you trying to say that somewhere in the ‘infinite’ universe, you suspect that there’s a factory where they’re reverse engineering your consciousness? Hmm…

 

[whatistrue]

The chances that those unique formations could form again in a person is impossible. However if somehow those connections were happen in some cluster elsewhere they would produce the same consciousness as the person has.

I am having trouble with the basic premise. If they form elsewhere, then they are not unique. On the other hand, if they are unique they cannot form elsewhere. And why is it impossible to form again in a person. but possible in “some cluster somewhere”.

 

[Zanderthe]

The concept of a soul I suppose was never clear to me or they just weren’t talked about but this is the second response. The only thing about a soul I’ve heard reference to is that it carries some kind of unique identifier to a particular person on earth. While I’ve never done much research into souls I assumed they were in some part a representation of a person.

The separation of a soul from a person is an odd concept to get around. If a soul is just an essence of a being who would want to live out as an essence? If persons soul isn’t formed by their experiences on earth and you have the same exact soul as you do when your born as when you die then whatever that’s no afterlife that’s just something. Either your soul encompasses a lot more or otherwise ive been confused by this whole thing.

 

[Aquinas11]

From my understanding a persons thoughts and experiences and everything that makes them unique are the equally uniquely formed synapses in the brain. Simple neural cells that have turned in such a way to be unique to one’s self. The chances that those unique formations could form again in a person is impossible. However if somehow those connections were happen in some cluster elsewhere they would produce the same consciousness as the person has.

Thoughts aren’t unique to an individual - close to 100% of them are learned thoughts from others.

 

[Gorgias]

The only thing about a soul I’ve heard reference to is that it carries some kind of unique identifier to a particular person on earth. While I’ve never done much research into souls I assumed they were in some part a representation of a person.

There’s lots to talk about, then. I would recommend that you begin by reading the catechism (I’m partial to the USCCA as a first resource, and then the CCC next.)

 

[BT3241]

In other beliefs its the body that makes the person - each body has different filters on how they see life which are unique to only that body giving it an identity. When you die you loose that identity and come into a different body and take on those filters to become a completely different person.

This is a philosophy thread don’t jump all over me because its not catholic - its not what I believe. Funny its close to what the OP is saying.

 

[Gorgias]

This is a philosophy thread don’t jump all over me because its not catholic

LOL!

OK… got it. It’s something that folks believe about reincarnation, and Catholics reject these theories for a variety of reasons.

 

[Dan_Defender]

Like Shakespeare wrote: ’ There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
Our human understanding is always limited.

 

[Zanderthe]

I haven’t looked into it much since making this topic but are souls believed to take on the thoughts of the person?

I could have made the first post clearer. Thinking about the soul which I wasnt constant before. The concept that the soul leaves the body is something I’ve heard mention before. That could be the mechanism but that gives the picture that there really is location based things. Such that heaven or the after life is a realm that can be reached by the soul once it leaves the body. Also I think Jesus literally ascended into heaven after he went back to earth.

I guess that deviating from my whole neuron cells being duplicated a bit. But from my understanding everything we do is controlled by these electrical synapses from body movement to thoughts, memory and thinking. I’m not sure how these pulses function exactly or what makes them unique enough to form memories or retained information. But I can absolutely see somewhere a cloud of little electric pulses and from observation would look like nothing.

Now from what I’m aware of none of these things have ever been observed to happen. Some electric discharge during death. But with everything having to do with waves radio, microwaves, what ever waves they use to send out far out places in space. You can’t see waves. But are there waves that can send information far out, yes. Does the human body have any mechanism to send waves other than brainwaves not that I know of. But it wouldn’t shock me if a person’s essence could be compacted and sent in a wave to reconfigure itself somewhere else at some point.

 

[Fauken]

But with everything having to do with waves radio, microwaves, what ever waves they use to send out far out places in space. You can’t see waves. But are there waves that can send information far out, yes. Does the human body have any mechanism to send waves other than brainwaves not that I know of. But it wouldn’t shock me if a person’s essence could be compacted and sent in a wave to reconfigure itself somewhere else at some point.

The difference between a radio wave and someone’s essence is that the soul has no physical properties, whereas EM waves do. We cannot see EM waves because of our limited vision. We can, however, observe EM waves because of their physical properties. You will not pick up soul emissions with antennas.

 

[Gorgias]

are souls believed to take on the thoughts of the person?

Not as such.

But it wouldn’t shock me if a person’s essence could be compacted and sent in a wave to reconfigure itself somewhere else at some point.

Are you suggesting that God “compacts human essences” and “sends human essences as waves” to parts unknown in the universe? No. That’s nothing that God has revealed to us. What He has revealed, however, is that we live once, die, and are judged. At the end of time, He creates glorified bodies for us, and we live for eternity.

No ‘storage’ of ‘human essences’, no ‘wave transmission’ or ‘far-side-of-the-universe’ holding tank.

 

[Zanderthe]

No it doesn’t state any of that. I was attempting to put thought into the great mystery of faith. I thing there are still yet to be discovered phenomenons that’s makes the idea of existence after this possible. I know I was making it up but to me this is how I kinda see it working.

 

[EndTimes]

Also thinking about the universe and the fact that we cannot observe all of and the theory that it is infinite. Leads to infinite possibilities. I think it’s entirely possible that there could be a realm where clusters of the same synapses that made a person who they were could be put together again. It’s vague but it’s how I see it working.

I understand what you’re saying about what you think.

That said, I’ve come to see Reality - including our Future - in a much more Singular Manner -
and I very greatly prefer this now internal growingness
over - my former fascination with the (not really infinite) Physical Realm .

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