Memory is stored outside the body
Science News Magazine February 3, 2018, “People tend to think of memories as ephemeral and deeply personal possessions: fragments of emotions, words, colors and smells sewn into our unique neural tapestries as life goes on.” One of today’s most entrenched explanations places engrams (memories) directly inside synapses, connections where chemical and electrical messages move between nerve cells, or neurons. However, Tonegawa and her colleagues in 2015 in the Journal Science concluded that “memory was stored in something unrelated to the strength of synapses.” “The cellular machines that are required to retrieve memories are not necessarily the same machines that store memories.” Ryan, Tonegawa and Glanzman (lead scientists) think that…accumulated synapses are important for retrieving memories, but not what actually stores them… Levin and Tal Shomrat reported in 2013 in the Journal of Experimental Biology “The fact that That memory somehow survived the decapitation experiments suggests that signals outside the brain may somehow store memories, albeit temporarily.” “For now, the field has not been able to explain the memories in tangible terms.”
Assumption: There is a human spirit that each person inherits from their parents at birth that stores that person’s memory.
Looking at the full Science News article cited above and the research behind the article, it follows that the brain is the mechanism for retrieving memories into consciousness, but not for storing them, and that memory is not only not stored in the brain, but perhaps not stored in the body. So where is the memory stored? This is the question I address in this article.
Look around the room you are sitting in, and then look away. Can you remember what you saw? Do you think it’s likely that the brief glimpse you just took caused the brain to physically change so quickly that any part of your body was immediately altered to store that glimpse and all the flashes and senses you’ve experienced in your life? Do you believe in life after death? If so, wouldn’t he think that he would retain his memory when the body passed away? While science doesn’t normally address spiritual questions, I believe that finding the location of memory will help us understand the nature of the human spirit and more than that.
Theory: To discuss the human spirit, one must look beyond science for the theory and then try to use scientific methods to see if the theory might be true. I don’t think math helps us find a proof. I draw my theory from Christian Bible revelations and personal experience because it is only through revelation and personal experience that spirit can be cognitively understood and felt.
Personal experience: While spirit cannot currently be scientifically proven, it can be felt through emotional energy. If we think about what can be detected in the human spirit, the most evident is love. Love cannot be detected directly with the senses, but everyone knows that it exists. This is also true for hate, anger, envy, and other emotions. Think about how your energy level increases when you experience any of these emotions. The increase in energy we experience is the result of chemicals in the brain reacting as a result of information received by the spirit’s brain. The concept is like cloud computing where information is stored outside of the computer. Under this concept, the window to the spirit is emotion. The theory is that all memory is stored in the spirit and we can detect this through emotion, a direct link between the spirit and cognition.
We know of the Human Spirit through Revelation: I propose that each one of us is the result of the combination of the physical and spiritual “DNA” of our parents. If we believe in God, we are told that men and women are created in the image of God. (We have a spirit and a physical form like Jesus). However, not only do we look like Him, but God has created us so that we can also reproduce. The man’s sperm fertilizes the woman’s egg and another human being is formed. That human being is “engendered” by two humans and has his own physical body and, also according to my theory, a human spirit of his mother and father. I propose that the human spirits of the mother and father unite to form the human spirit of their baby. I propose that each one of us is the result of the combination of the physical and spiritual “DNA” of our parents. This human spirit feeds his conscience and has the free will to seek God or walk away.
I further propose that the human spirit is the spiritual egg of a spiritual person. From a human spiritual perspective, we are all women. If a person seeks God, God impregnates his human spirit with the Holy Spirit to form a spiritual person, just as the father’s sperm impregnates the mother’s ovum to form a physical person. According to this theory, the two spirits (God’s and the individual’s) develop into a spirit embryo and are finally born as a spirit person, a child of God at the time of a person’s physical death. If you think about the story of the Virgin Mary, we see this described, in part, in the birth of Jesus.
Luke 1:35 (ESV)
35 And the angel said to him: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, the child that is to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God.
Jesus only had half a human spirit because Mary was a virgin. She had to be a virgin under this theory. Human spirits only result from the union of human parents. Jesus, therefore, had half the human spirit of Mary and the full Spirit of God within her miraculously conceived human body. He was tempted and felt pain showing the half of Mary, but he overcame his human desires by the Holy Spirit of God. He had both a physical and a Holy Spiritual body while he was alive on earth. The Apostles saw his spiritual body during his transfiguration. When he was crucified, his physical body passed away and his spiritual body remained. He is the first Son of God.
Under this theory, the spiritual person is born after the physical death of the physical person. We are literally born again in the spirit as children of God. With all the memories we gathered while we were physically alive. This would be you with all your memories, skills and abilities still in a recognizable spirit body. As Paul says in Romans 8 Verse 23, now we only have the firstfruits of the Spirit and we are waiting for our full adoption/birth as children of God. These firsts include all our memory. This makes us spiritual embryos throughout our physical life and land in the womb of God. The human spirit has the choice to love God or walk away. If the choice is to love God, then the Holy Spirit comes upon us as he did Mary and creates a spiritual embryo uniting our human spirit and the Holy Spirit. In this way, God creates a truly loving spiritual family understood as “children of God” who truly love him. And, Jesus is the scoop, so we will be like him. This is what Paul has to say:
1 Corinthians 15:42-46 (NIV)
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body;
43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; he is down in weakness, he is up in power;
44 natural body is born, spiritual body is raised. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
45 Thus it is also written: “The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL.” (Human spirit) The last Adam (Jesus Christ) became a life-giving spirit. (Holy Spirit)
46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.
Romans 8:14-17 (ESV)
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.
15 For you have not received the spirit of bondage to make you fear again, but you have received the spirit of adoption as children by which we cry: Abba, Father!
16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
17 And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
We will be born again as children of God.
Our spirit in the above quote is our human spirit that contains the seat of our memory throughout our lives before and after our death. Memories are retrieved by the brain.