Why do we need stored memories in the brain?

bekkilyn said:

I've seen it too. Not quite as much recently, but definitely during the time of "Satanic panic". Ignorance at its finest, I suppose.

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Is that a good reason not to come to Christ for salvation?

AV1611VET said:

Is that a good reason not to come to Christ for salvation?

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It might be, depending on whose version of "Christ" they would be coming to and how a particular religious group that may be involved defines "salvation". I believe the true Christ extends grace, not a hammer. The gospel is *good* news, not threats and coercion and fear, and yet that's the (false) Christ that many have sadly experienced.

bekkilyn said:

It might be, depending on whose version of "Christ" they would be coming to and how a particular religious group that may be involved defines "salvation". I believe the true Christ extends grace, not a hammer. The gospel is *good* news, not threats and coercion and fear, and yet that's the (false) Christ that many have sadly experienced.

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As I asked Andy, who seems to be in fear of "Christians" coming after him if he converts,* but stays a witch:

The objects of his fears would still come after him, whether he converts or not; would they not?

* He uses this to justify his fear:

Exodus 22:18 ESV: “You shall not permit a sorceress to live."

Even though he, himself, isn't a sorceress.

Figure that one out!

AV1611VET said:

As I asked Andy, who seems to be in fear of "Christians" coming after him if he converts,* but stays a witch:

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Again, not in a physical stone-me-in-public way, but in a political way (see culture wars which includes all non-Christians). I don't know if I'll lose my job if my Christian employer finds out I'm Pagan. I don't know if people will litter my property with religious tracts, or damage my property like my other Pagan friends.

Figure that one out!

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Somewhere along the way, you stopped paying attention.
I've never had a Christian tell me that being a Pagan was probably OK. I've always been told, countless times, that either I am evil, I do evil things, I am in league with evil, I am a slave of evil, because I am a Pagan regardless of the fact they knew nothing about my beliefs and practices.

If you can't tell me that God is cool with me being a witch, then I'm not sure what you're whining about.

AV1611VET said:

As I asked Andy, who seems to be in fear of "Christians" coming after him if he converts,* but stays a witch:

The objects of his fears would still come after him, whether he converts or not; would they not?

* He uses this to justify his fear:

Exodus 22:18 ESV: “You shall not permit a sorceress to live."

Even though he, himself, isn't a sorceress.

Figure that one out!

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If he desires Christ in his heart and his *only* concern is what various "Christians" would do, then the desire for Christ will overcome the concern.

cloudyday2 said:

Emergent things are simply flim-flam.

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I agree. It’s just a word that gets sprinkled on top of things that means “We have no idea how that happened.”

cloudyday2 said:

An emergent thing is chemistry and biology in human brains. Without the brains that believe in emergent things there are no emergent things.

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Chemistry and biology have no means to explain it, the very rules of chemistry & biology don’t even allow for such an explanation to be given. But the very act of believing in a thing is to make an appeal to an emergent phenomena that transcends a physical explanation of brain matter that morphs from one physical state into another. Saying the words “Emergent mind” has no explanatory scope beyond a correspondence to a mind that we can match up with test subjects that when they tell us that they think or feel ‘C’, at that same time the brain matter does ‘X’. Our basis for believing in the merit of this experiment is that we ourselves have experiences so we know that they are real, and an inference that therefore other Humans do as well.

cloudyday2 said:

Alien minds looking at the same physical things would likely imagine very different emergent things as approximations and conveniences in their thinking.

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Perhaps, but the key point is that even with their advanced science they are limited to “Imagining” their conclusions about what “Emerges” from physical matter, because for us to be required to cover up our physical explanations by enhancing them with the empty word of Emergence is to point to there being a non-physical aspect to reality that coexists with the physical.

cloudyday2 said:

So there isn't much difference between humans and computers except that humans have been evolving for millions of years and computers have only had a few decades. Soon they will surpass us and put us in nature reserves.

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Dualism, Materialism, Idealism...all of these people are in agreement about the correspondence between brain states and mental events, they however disagree about the explanation of the correspondence. The correspondence is the data that we have, the interpretation is the explanation of the data of correspondence that we have. This conclusion that you are giving seems like it’s rebelling against what counts as correspondence, and inventing a correspondence where is doesn’t exist.

You are free to make this conclusion but you are making it based on a manufactured forgery of the correspondence experiment. You would basically be intentionally designing a program so that when you give it an input of ‘A’ it will result in an audio output of “I’m Scared!” and then concluding from that that the experiment has verified to you that the program also contains the emotion of fear! Instead it would just verify that you are good at designing a computer program.

AV1611VET said:

You want to wear the badge (witch, pagan, neopagan, whatever), but you don't want to earn it.

No going skyclad, no offering sacrifices, no curses, no threefold retribution, no augury, no anything I bring up.

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Those things do not a Pagan make, just like how wearing a gold cross or having a "I love Jesus" bumper sticker do not make one Christian.

Just because someone believed something thousands of years ago does not mean I am obligated to believe in it, too. That's your religion.

But when it comes to Christianity, you find some obscure verse in some translation that is supposed to spark fear in people, and use that as an excuse not to come to Christ.

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This is the fourth time I'm pointing out that it's the sentiment of the passage, found in all translations except maybe The Jefferson Bible, that inspires Christians' long history of poor treatment.

You can sit in your meadows and let birds sing to you all the rest of your life, for all I care; but when you post online against Christianity, you can neither defend your craft, nor counter our arguments.

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So you're unhappy that I'm suggesting Christianity is a certain way while complaining that my religion isn't a certain way.

You don't know the difference between a witch and a true witch, you don't know what beaconing the demonic world is ... what do you know?

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I know the difference between reality and fairy tales, horror movies, and video games. I believe your words were, "Reality can take a hike".

public hermit said:

From a Christian perspective, one could turn the question around and ask, "Why is there need for the resurrection if the spirit/soul survives death?".

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This is a great point.

public hermit said:

The idea of a disembodied spirit is more Greek (Plato) than Christian. Once we approach the OP question from a specifically Christian perspective, we can say that the divine intention is that the whole person, i.e. body & spirit, are to always be united. Does the resurrected body have a brain? I don't know, but my intuition is that the resurrected person is what endures in the afterlife and not just the spirit.

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It makes the SciFi lover in me get excited to think about how the body could be an upgrade, it’s not hard at all to imagine an upgrade to our current bodies.

public hermit said:

To think in more Platonic terms of a disembodied spirit lends itself to a denigration of the body. But, of course, the Incarnation gives dignity to the whole person, body & spirit. Since the whole person was assumed by the Incarnation, the faith is that the whole person is redeemed and endures post-resurrection.

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One thing I think about is possible body transfer, based on thinking about it from a Biblical angle due to some of the stories. When an angel takes bodily form on Earth and is physical, did the angel switch over from “Non-physical mind plus non-physical body” into “Non-physical mind plus physical body” somehow? As if to change a suit? It’s speculation of course but how do you think that might work...like getting dressed in Superman’s crystal chamber in the Fortress of Solitude lol? If there are different realms that can’t be detected, then it seems possible that there would also be bodies of some ontological kind in that realm (so that thinking about someone’s spirit being in a non-physical realm doesn’t mean that they aren’t still required to be embodied).

awitch said:

Just because someone believed something thousands of years ago does not mean I am obligated to believe in it, too. That's your religion.

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Well I hope we don't part on bad terms.

Jok said:

It’s speculation of course but how do you think that might work...like getting dressed in Superman’s crystal chamber in the Fortress of Solitude lol? If there are different realms that can’t be detected, then it seems possible that there would also be bodies of some ontological kind in that realm (so that thinking about someone’s spirit being in a non-physical realm doesn’t mean that they aren’t still required to be embodied

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It seems something like this has to be the case. The idea is not that we become disembodied, but that we are embodied differently. What is a spirit without a body? If it's located in any sense, then it is embodied, just not in corruptable material. To me, a disembodied spirit would be either ubiquitous, or else nowhere. The moment it is located/limited it is embodied in some sense.

AV1611VET said:

Well I hope we don't part on bad terms.

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That would be a shame.

awitch said:

That would be a shame.

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I apologize for my curtness and offer a handshake of friendship.

But please realize, I'm passionate about where I believe the Bible says you're going, and don't want that to happen.

AV1611VET said:

I apologize for my curtness and offer a handshake of friendship.

But please realize, I'm passionate about where I believe the Bible says you're going, and don't want that to happen.

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I understand, but that's not your call to make so hopefully you're not losing any sleep over it.
I'm not.

awitch said:

I understand, but that's not your call to make so hopefully you're not losing any sleep over it.

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No ... I guess I won't.

I don't have the level of passion for souls that Christ has, and that's a reflection on me, not Him.

Still, though, I've prayed for people here ... and meant it.

Akita Suggagaki said:

Thanks for hijacking my thread.

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Sorry.
I'll bow out now.

awitch said:

Sorry.
I'll bow out now.

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Likewise.

cloudyday2 said:

Emergent things are simply flim-flam. An emergent thing is chemistry and biology in human brains. Without the brains that believe in emergent things there are no emergent things. Alien minds looking at the same physical things would likely imagine very different emergent things as approximations and conveniences in their thinking.

So there isn't much difference between humans and computers except that humans have been evolving for millions of years and computers have only had a few decades. Soon they will surpass us and put us in nature reserves (if they keep us around for anything at all).

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"Emergent things are simply flim-flam. "
Not really. If i buy all the parts to build a motorbike, none of those parts will be labelled speed or have an attribute of speed. However once I put all the parts together correctly, the resultant motorbike will have a property or attribute called 'speed' that emerges once it starts to operate.
Emergent properties are real things, not flim flam.
It is however possible to confuse something as emergent that may not be but emergence is a real thing.

Jok said:

I had a feeling that it was a bad example. And maybe I’m just wrong, all I’m going by is that I vaguely recall hearing that programmers have now lost the ability to keep track of what their own programs do. Maybe it was just misinformation that I heard. Feel free to straighten me out on this lol.

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Its absolutely possible for a programmer to write a program that behaves in ways they didn't expect or realize, but there are methodologies and tools around to help so this doesn't happen if one wants to do a quality product.

Its like building a house without a plan vs building one that has a plan.

This is generally true for most programs but there can be exceptions in research labs where new techniques are tried or the program has access to many possibilities to resolve a problem. However in the real world people and business want programs that are predictable and its perfectly possible to build them with only the occasional bug etc, Of course its also a tradeoff against cost.