Where do memories subsist?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Deserey Lynn Velasquez on January 26, 2010 at 10:26pm

You know i have never thought about that. That is a very interesting question that I would be interested to know the answer to.

Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on January 29, 2010 at 3:20pm

Dear Glenda,

Most Christians believe that we are composed of Body, Soul and spirit. Not all believe that though, some believe that we are simply Body and Spirit and that soul and spirit are inter changeable terms.

Well sis, instances of mental psychoses bear no bearing in the afterlife and the reason many long for death and resurrection is so they can obtain the upgrade we are going to receive. The glorified body. When we die we move to eternity as conscience beings. At that moment we are restored.

It took me a minute to respond to you because I had a couple of responses, one which dealt more with the actual portion of the brain that holds our memories etc. But I do not think we are here concerned with the actual biological destination of memories, so I will post this simple answer and await your critique.

Blessings

Permalink Reply by Ginnybee on January 29, 2010 at 6:57pm

hahaha...rolling here. Excuse me while I choke on my coffee. Just kidding :D

Actually, I was hoping for a biological perspective, and a psychological perspective, and a spiritual perspective as well. lol. Here I was waiting for this extravagant answer and yet, this is what you give me?! hehe. Did I stump you?

Ok, I see that you are being careful with regard to what my particular beliefs are, which is respectable. My personal understanding is that we humans consist of a body (brain), a soul (personality), and of a spirit (life energy). Does that help?

Well sis, instances of mental psychoses bear no bearing in the afterlife and the reason many long for death and resurrection is so they can obtain the upgrade we are going to receive. The glorified body. When we die we move to eternity as conscience beings. At that moment we are restored.

I understand that, but it wasn't exactly my question. However, from this, I gather you are implying that our memories exist in the brain (body). Is this correct?

I'm thinking that memories cannot be stored in the brain, otherwise we would not be capable of "moving to eternity as conscious beings." Oh, you said "conscience," not conscious. Sorry. I'm going with the word conscious, though, just so you know. So, is not our consciousness (awareness) somewhat dependant on our memories? They seem as cohabiters (existing together). Even though we don't necessarily have to remember everything in order to resume conscious, we do need to retain a degree of memory. Do you agree? Or, maybe I should define the word memory first just to make sure we are on the same page.

Definition I'm going by:
Memory- Retained impression of event--the knowledge or impression that somebody retains of a person, event, period, or subject.

Ok, so we must have some recollection, or "retained impression" about the existence of life in order to stay aware (conscious) of it, right? Therefore, in order to move from our present condition into the after-life condition consciously, we must maintain a certain level of memory, right? That's why I don't believe our memories are stored in our brains. But, if our memories subsist in our soul, which I think is likely, how is it that people can lose memory in various cases of physical disease?

Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on January 30, 2010 at 12:53am

you brat! hahaha

I will give you a philosophical, psychological and biological break down next.

Oh and I meant to write the word conscious, my bad there is my Hispanic heritage getting the best of me. English is my second language you know. hehe You should know me enough to know I meant conscious hahahaha and it was just my Spanglish getting in the way. hehe :)

Permalink Reply by swtswan on February 4, 2010 at 5:32am

I am not a Theologeion, nor claim to be; nor can I quote you scripture at this point in time; I can only go with my feelings on the subject, from what Ive read, and personally feel,... When we pass into the next life we shall retain our Consciousness, and memories; except for those the Father personally removes ( IE: the hurtfull things from the past); As HE Himself said, HE shall wipe every tear from our eyes, and we shall remember no more the bad things, people etc;,... All sickness, disease, infirmities shall be gone, and we shall remember them no more. We shall be made anew in His image, and have His knowledge and understanding; we wont be concerned about the things of this life; but ready to move on to do His will,
All the old things shall pass away, We shall still pray for our loved ones, Yes, but there will be perfect harmony in heaven, not the worries and cares of this life;... As I said, these are my beliefs alone, and not meant to sway anyones opinion from what they believe.
I believe with my whole heart that in heaven exists PURE Love, and that we must return as children; pure of heart and mind to enter within, The Father said, to hinder not the children to come unto me, for the kingdom of heaven is for just such as these.... LOVE IS THE ANSWER to all questions ,.. oh, and Pss;... We sall be of a spiritual bodies, not a physicall shell as we have on earth, We are spirits, and as such; residing in this shell we call a body on earth, all physicall traits shall be gone; brain etc;... no need for them in heaven,....*Smiles*
GOD Bless

Permalink Reply by Ginnybee on February 6, 2010 at 7:33pm

Hi folks... I've decided to attempt an answer to my own question, but please keep in mind that I claim no facts here. The following indicates mere speculation, and I'm interested in reading others' friendly opinions.

Is the human mind a separate entity apart from the soul or are the two units one and of the same? Better yet, does the mind uniquely characterize a dynamic force that carries information from our soul to our brain—where physical reactions take place—and back again (signifying the manner by which information travels to promote memory formation)? Let’s approach and ponder a dualistic point of view itemizing the mind, soul, spirit, body/brain, with emphasis on where memories might subsist.

In order to epitomize the driving force of shifting energy, as with reference to the above second question, the mind’s activity would seem to suggest a need for universal elements working together. To explain, dynamic energy assumedly resembles a flexible substance composed of multiple constants that act similar to the parts of a mechanical devise, where each component collaborates to support a particular quality important for an entire operation. If one component goes missing, the single eliminative change transforms the total outcome of operations, or creates a different impression, or effect. On the other hand, if such coordinating elements did not identify the mind, there would present an inability to express truth in an un-uniformed fashion (or to think outside the box, so to speak). For example, imagine something that appears completely solid. What variation can come out of it (just assuming for a moment that whatever you picture can actually be solid)? None, right? Well, you might imagine the same goes for anything solid, as I do. As a side note, there may exist only one entity that truly comprises solidity, which I will explain briefly at the end, but for now, the picture I mean to paint helps to understand an important point, which is that whatever exists solid cannot be moved, or changed, because it’s solid. Okay, here is why this is important.

If this picture is correct in that the human mind represents the machine (chemical compounds that activate brain function) that sends messages back and forth, then the mind would fall short of a fixed instrument by which a solid substance would purposefully exist. Shortly, I will explain how memories represent solid substances. However, at this point, one should be able to determine a possibility that our soul, as a separate entity from our mind, might pertain to the solid object from which the mind gathers fundamental information (memories of past-experience).

What do you think? First, let us consider whether our soul is a solid (unchangeable) item. Well, is it? The answer is no, because if it were, we would not hold a capacity for inner growth relative to developing wisdom. Therefore, what is the soul? Can it be that our soul is an impotent energy--not a driving force, but rather a passenger of the mind’s driving force? Let me put it this way, is it possible that the soul is a type energy that can it’s self take new form but cannot activate changes to its surrounding environment without the driving force of the mind? And if this were the case, would it not still be more likely that our fundamental memories reside within our souls rather than in our minds?

I say that because for one, again assuming, if each our parts (mind, body, soul, etc.) carry a special purpose and responsibility as our Lord certainly intends, and our body/brain and mind seem to possess other agendas, then what is left to carry our memories seems to identify our soul’s purpose. Remember, our mind presumably occupies the task of driving, or actively transferring information to initiate successive translation and to create lasting impressions—again, just keeping within my present line of thinking. The body/brain, even though I have yet to address, seemingly takes on the role of providing physical sensations that generates a relationship between the natural environment and the supernatural one.

Second emerges an idea that falls within my attempted pattern of reason involving solidity, expressing a measurement of changeability (different from the previously assumed pattern of responsibility). I proposed above how the mind resembles a mechanical device comprising many elements that work together for purpose of creating alterations in thoughts and impressions. Then I established how we might perceive our soul to represent sort of a holding device that receives and releases bits of information as demanded by the mind, but does not forcefully exert change within its self or about its surrounding environment. So, what is a memory, that we might figure its most logical location? Is it solid?

A memory is a retained impression of an event, or a preservation of knowledge. Therefore, how solid is a memory? My guess is that it’s pretty solid. Since past-experience cannot undergo change, our recollection of the experience will not change. Let me try it this way, although our ideas concerning a memory can change, the exact memories of events cannot change. You see, the imperative terms for defining memory are the words retained and preservation. For that reason, we should determine the meaning of these two words. Retain means to keep something, as does the word preserve, which suggests that a change cannot take place. Similarly, a memory is a keeping of unchanged matter of fact. Therefore, would a memory reasonably exist better in the mind, where mechanical mechanisms constantly produce changes that instigate renewed ideas and interpretations, or would it exist better in the soul, where the only change that occurs is driven by force-of-mind and resembles only the receipt and release of solid information? My impression is that memories would more likely reside in the soul. Now, there is one other member to our make-up that I did not mention, which represents the spirit. Can memories reside in our spirit?

Now, I won’t spend but a brief moment on this one, because the spirit represents so many things to so many people that in order to pierce this topic with any real depth, I’d have to research and write a lot more. So, to keep it shorter, I’ll offer a simple idea regarding the human spirit (not the Holy Spirit..that’s an entirely different subject). In my opinion, the spirit constitutes a supernatural spark of inspiration. It holds no boundaries, and although it exists beyond the limits of time, it stands capable of mutation, or of establishing directional change. Moreover, if a fact-based memory relies on past-experiences, then naturally it’s a dependent of time, which eliminates, in my mind, the possibility of storage in the spirit because spirit, again, knows no time. Also, as I pointed out, a memory is unchangeable, yet, by my unofficial definition, the human spirit presents as ever-changing as perceived by our changing motivations. Therefore, memories cannot subsist in the spirit (IMO).

With brief consideration for the Holy Spirit, as well, the Holy Spirit is a being in and of His self. He is a separate entity apart from our own person. Therefore, our personal memories definitely would not likely remain in the Holy Spirit (not to say the Holy Spirit doesn’t acknowledge our memories, because I believe He does). I want to articulate just a bit more about the Holy Spirit now, though, because I’m brought back to my earlier statement where I offered to address the one thing (or person) that would seem completely solid. I believe the Holy Spirit is the one subject that remains solid and steadfast within the person of faith. That is because being as He is in relation to God, He must know everything, thus requires no reason for change. Finally, what about the body/brain; do memories subsist in the brain?

I’m personally not one who is convinced that our brains store any amount of information in or of their selves. The way it appears to me is it’s inconceivable to think our physical brain would hold capable of capturing what is not physical, such as a memory. As I mentioned earlier, I presume the brain to function as nothing more than a pathway for natural and supernatural information to come together for purpose that our physical experiences can become transformed into a supernatural impression, which then builds our inner character.

Now, what do all of you suppose about these things? Do you think memories subsist in our souls?

Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on February 14, 2010 at 2:32am

I am still digesting this one here, so bear wiht me just a little longer.

Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on February 13, 2010 at 9:42pm

I found this article and thought it had something to do with your question.

http://www.divorcehope.com/lovegodwithallyourheartsoulmind.htm

Love the Lord Your God...

To love the Lord our God with “all our heart” is NOT enough to fully please Him in our daily walk. It takes much more than that. It actually takes loving God five (5) different ways to fully please Him and to fulfill His calling upon our life.

Let’s step through the five ways that are given to us by the Lord Jesus Himself in Mark 12:30-31 (that He combined together and quoted from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18).

And you shall love the Lord your God:

•with all your heart,
•with all your soul,
•with all you mind,
•with all your strength, …
•and … love your neighbor as yourself.


With All Your Heart

What does it meant to “love God with all your heart” as being distinguished from the other parts and functions of our make-up?

The Hebrew word for “heart” is lebab, which means: To be enclosed—as the interior or center, hence, the heart. In the Greek, the word is kardia. It means: The seat in the center of man’s inward life—the place of human depravity or the sphere of divine influence. Both meanings point to that which gives man “life”: The depraved nature of spiritual death—which by nature is our life. Or, spiritual life which enters a person and replaces spiritual death when they accept and confess Jesus as their payment for sin and believe that He was raised from to dead to give us His new life.

Nurturing this “spiritual life” within us is essential for a fulfilling and prosperous life. It can only blossom through study and obedience of written Word of God, and, by obedience-to and fellowship-with the Word of God Himself. Our growth in God happens no other way. This in turn is our part in serving God with this new life that He has placed within us: To “love the Lord our God with all….”



With All Your Soul

The Hebrew word for “soul” is nephesh. It means: A breathing creature—whether a person, animal or creature of the sea. The Greek word equivalent is psuche, in which we get our prefix-word, psycho, for words like: psychology, Psuche means: Breath—voluntarily but gently (basically, being alive). The “soul” of a man always refers to the”lower element” of man in relationship to the “heart,” the “higher element.”

Psuche is used in a very wide sense throughout the Bible regarding mans many feelings: His emotions, attitudes and will. Hence, loving God “with all your soul” is different from ‘loving God with all your heart” in that it speaks of the “emotions, attitudes and will” of a person.

1Timothy 6:11 speaks about “godliness” —being devoted to God. It is saying to CHOOSE to love God—an attitude of self-devotion to love. It is an exercising of the will (part of the soul) to love God in all situations of life. In other words, choose to do what is right and do it with the right attitude.

The feelings (of the emotional part) of a person’s make-up will get out of control without a direct use of the will. Many stay in anger, bitterness, resentment, self-pity, hatred, fear, being covetous and such like because instead of loving God “with ALL their soul,” they have aligned their soul against God. This is confirmed by what 1Corinthians 13 says about what love is: Willfully turning your emotions and attitudes by an act of your will.

Instead of retaliating and showing the person who hurt you “how it feels,” you choose to be kind in the midst of showing them what they have done wrong and how they have hurt you. Instead of giving up hope in a situation, you choose to hope and seek a way through regardless of whether or not it turns out exactly as you want. Instead of choosing to be angry, you choose patience—long suffering and endurance. THIS, is loving God “with all your soul.”



With All Your Mind

Though Jesus states in Mark 12:30 to love God “with all your mind,” the word for “mind” is not mentioned in Deuteronomy 6:4 from where He quoted the Scripture. In fact, when the Scribe quoted that same Scripture back to Jesus in verse 33, He used a different word for “mind” than the one Jesus did. Nevertheless, Jesus accepted it as valid because of its similarities.

The Greek word Jesus used for “mind” is dianoia, which means: Deep though, exercising the mind, to think through. The word the Scribe used for mind is sunesis, which means: A putting together, to figure out, intelligence. The Hebrew equivalent (taken from Jeremiah 31:33 translated in the KJV as “inward parts”) is qereb, which means: to approach or bring near—hence, to consider and think upon.

Therefore, our mind is our intellect—the place where we analyze, figure-out and plan things; the place where knowledge and understanding are analyzed and manipulated to bring about a conclusion or decision.

Loving God “with all our mind” means:

•That EVERYTHING we put in or allow in our minds is right, true and moral.
•That we align our conclusions and decisions based upon the commandments of God and the written Word of God in all situations.


With All Your Strength

Loving God “with all your strength” speaks of the “ultimate expression” of our heart, soul and mind being released together through our bodily functions. It is the outward expression of what is going on within ourselves to the outside world through our sight, speech and physical actions.

The Hebrew word for “strength” is meod, which means: Vehemently (implying whole—with everything you got). Its root meaning is: A poker to rake, move quickly and turn-over hot coals. Basically, it means to reach into a hot situation and turn things around or aligning them to be right.

The equivalent Greek word is ischus, which means: Forcefulness, ability, might. Loving God with all your “strength” is not just having a strong determination to do something. Rather, it is a combined focused forceful excursion of the activities of the heart, mind, soul and will expressed through the physical body toward something or someone until the goal is carried-out or the situation is turned to your favor. In other words, it is the full energy of your heart—what is most important to you, your emotions, will and reasoning ability; coupled with all your knowledge, wisdom, talents and skills specifically focused to carry something out.

We can see a picture forming here: God does not want us to love Him with just “parts” of our being, but rather, will ALL our being—every single moment of every single day. His Great Commandment for us “to love,” is a display of His own eminent love to us in order that we will not be corrupted, nor will we corrupt others.

Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on February 14, 2010 at 2:12am

This is the secular definitions for the mind, brain and memory.

Mind is the aspect of intellect and consciousness experienced as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination, including all unconscious cognitive processes. The term is often used to refer, by implication, to the thought processes of reason. Mind manifests itself subjectively as a stream of consciousness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind

In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing the memory. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century put memory within the paradigms of cognitive psychology. In recent decades, it has become one of the principal pillars of a branch of science called cognitive neuroscience, an interdisciplinary link between cognitive psychology and neuroscience. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory

The human memory has three processes: encoding (input), storage (throughput) and retrieval(output). Storage is the process of retaining information whether in the sensory memory, the short-term memory or the more permanent long-term memory.

The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate, and most invertebrate, animals.[1] Some primitive animals such as jellyfish and starfish have a decentralized nervous system without a brain, while sponges lack any nervous system at all. In vertebrates, the brain is located in the head, protected by the skull and close to the primary sensory apparatus of vision, hearing, balance, taste, and smell.
Brains can be extremely complex. The cerebral cortex of the human brain contains roughly 15–33 billion neurons depending on gender and age,[2] linked with up to 10,000 synaptic connections each. Each cubic millimeter of cerebral cortex contains roughly one billion synapses.[3] These neurons communicate with one another by means of long protoplasmic fibers called axons, which carry trains of signal pulses called action potentials to distant parts of the brain or body and target them to specific recipient cells. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain

Permalink Reply by Tia Darling Martin on June 23, 2010 at 9:51pm

This is a good question. I will reply with just an opinion, you can choose to have another, and also I don't claim to know all the facts about the afterlife. But memories are contained within the body, more specifically, within the mind, a specific lobe of the brain. The mind is the center with which our entire body is controlled, so we may have a memory triggered by the senses, taste, smell, sight, touch. But just like everything about human nature our minds are not perfect, false memories are very common, as well as illnesses that effect the memory center in the brain, or if the brain is physically harmed one could experience amnesia.

After stating all this we still have the question of our memories being carried out into the afterlife. If we are given eternal life then when we die we have a spiritual body. Jesus after returning from heaven was not recognized by His disciples until He spoke to them or showed them His scars. This body will not decay, there will be no sickness, no death, no sorrow, so we are free to assume that our perfected minds inside our perfected bodies would be able to contain perfected memories. And to create new ones.

Permalink Reply by John Lemmon on June 28, 2010 at 9:25pm

Allow me if you will to put a POV on this question based on what the Bible teaches. There are many approaches that could be taken from secular, philosophy, biological, psychological or other viewpoints, but there is also some guidance from the Bible, which might shed light on this matter. Besides, this group is supposed to be theology based so perhaps this might help in that direction.

The Bible tells us when God created man it was like this: “…And the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Gen 2:7 KJV)

Here we see the three elements that make up a man. The physical man being formed from the dust of the ground, the life force (or spirit if you like) within a man being the breath of God He breathed into the man and finally the soul of man which is the combination of these first two, which when joined together become a living being or soul.

At death we see the separation of the physical body from the life force (spirit) and so there is a destruction of the soul. This is physical death, as we know it today. But what happens to the memories of the man? Do they likewise die or continue on?

Jesus gives us a clue in the story of the rich man & Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. Now I will preface this by saying that as Jesus was without sin when he lived on the earth, we can be reasonably sure he never told a lie. My reason for saying this is that this story in Luke begins, “There was a rich man…” By saying this we can be reasonably confident that there was indeed a REAL rich man & a REAL Lazarus and Jesus is recounting a story rather than just creating a parable for the purpose of teaching a principle (which he was also doing as well).

Now what we see is that after their deaths the rich man went to Hades and Lazarus to Abraham’s bosom. We see also that the rich man could communicate, he recognized Lazarus, he could remember his brothers left on the earth and the commands of Moses and so on. That is, he still had his memories intact. Furthermore we see that he could see, speak, feel the heat of Hades, and recognize a tongue & finger and the parts of the body.

So tying this all together it would appear from the scriptures that the life force (spirit) of a person retains the physical characteristics of the flesh of the person, and the life force (spirit) of the person retains the memories of the person. The soul is a combination of the life force and the flesh of a person and neither can exist on the earth without the other, but the aspect of the soul that “is the person” with memories, feelings, emotions and so on resides in the life force or spirit.

Just to add a little more emphasis to this, recall that Jesus said, “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail…” (John 6:63 RSV) The ministry of the Gospel is to the spirit of man not to the flesh.

Hope this adds another perspective to this interesting issue.

Yours in Christ,
John Lemmon

Permalink Reply by Carla on June 30, 2010 at 8:59pm

Ginnybee,
You have the best questions...

I think it would have to be a spiritual thing. Our memories are not physical. A memory is not something we can 'see' or grasp onto. It makes sense to me that when we die, we take our memories with us. We know that we will one day stand before God and each give an account of our lives...that involves our memories.

Regarding mental physchoses... I don't know sis.. Because of the fall our entire beings are affected.... that includes mental illness.

Now interestingly ...today I read an article that stated obesity can be linked to alzheimers... could be.. I don't know about that...but it was an article that I came across today. I don't know if the source is reliable or not. One thing we do know for sure is that obesity is not healthy.

here's the article bolded:

Dementia Linked To Too Much Belly Fat...
Dear Reader,

Use whatever name you like... abdominal fat... a spare tire... love handles... muffin top... a new study out of the Boston University School of Medicine that appears online in the Annals of Neurology has found that extra fat in the belly area may actually cause your brain to shrink and increase your risk of dementia.

We already know that belly fat ups the risk of heart attack and heart disease. According to researcher Sudha Seshadri, MD, an associate professor of neurology at BUSM, deep belly fat, known to medicine as visceral fat, is the real culprit, and while earlier work has linked belly fat and dementia, most of those studies (except for one in 2008) have had fewer than 300 subjects.

Seshadri and her team did CT scans of the abdomen, and MRI scans of the brain of 733 subjects, both men and (70%) women, who were part of the Framingham Heart Study Offspring Cohort. The average age of the subjects was 60 years old.

The researchers examined the potential associations of body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio and the CT measure of belly fat (both visceral or deep fat, and the subcutaneous fat just under the skin) along with brain volume. The average BMI of the study participants was 28; the average waist circumference was 39 inches.

As a point of reference, experts recommend your BMI should be below 25 (overweight), nowhere near 30 (obese) or 40 (morbidly obese). According to the National Institutes of Health, women should work to keep their waist measurement under 35 inches; men should do what they can to have theirs below 40 inches.

This latest work found that greater the amount of visceral fat, the smaller the volume of the brain, though no one can explain why.

Smaller brain volume is associated with poor thinking on testing and is a greater risk for dementia. Today almost 5.3 million American suffer with Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, where memory, language, thinking and judgment are affected.

The study also found a link between higher BMI measurements and higher waist circumference... which makes intuitive sense, but isn't always the case. Still experts are far from having all the answers... it's important to realize that some that get Alzheimer's disease have done everything right.

What we do know is that fat in the central part of the body serves to pad your internal organs and releases fatty acids, stress hormones and substances that can increase the risks of cardiovascular disease.

What's more, a single fat cell can grow to a thousand times its original size and then create spin off cells. And once you have a fat cell, it's yours for life.

The take home message from the study is that you can do something to keep your brain, and your body, healthy... lose that spare tire.

If you don't already know, find where you stand... calculate your BMI and measure your own waistline. If the numbers aren't where they should be, you need to make some changes. It isn't easy, but it can be done with the simple methods... diet and exercise.

To your good health,
Kirsten Whittaker
Daily Health Bulletin Editor