The Pre-Mortal Existance Refutes the Assertion that Intelligence is Genetically Determined.

[Calm]

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I can’t visualize it but I can come up with a knife attack mentally and go through where I need to plunge it to kill them or where to cut to drive them off. I don’t feel anything in that state. I doubt I could do it in person unless I was in actual danger. It is hard to know. I have had varied reactions to situations in which my life was threatened. Sometimes I mentally try to shut down and have to force myself to act. Sometime I dive into action and am excited and thrilled in a weird way. Not sure what causes the difference.

I can visualize quite easily me being violent, but there is no emotion attached to it.  I have no experience to tie it to in order to make it feel real. It is purely clinical. 
 

What is weird is when I dream my mind shuts me down for anything aggressive even in self defense…as in if I have a gun in my hand it turns into my finger pointing and me going bang bang like a little kid. And if I go to hit someone in self defense I am suddenly at a distance from them.  
 

My guess is if it happens in real life I will freeze just like I tend to do when anyone but family gets upset with me or even argues with me.  I would be rotten in an in person debate. 

It is at times remarkable to me we can communicate relatively reliably most of the time given the variability in how everyone thinks and experiences their world. 

Edited November 29, 2022 by Calm

[Calm]

On 11/28/2022 at 4:17 AM, Stargazer said:

Quantum physics and the law of conservation of mass and energy are not Hellenistic ideas.

For us to exist only in this form, and to not have a prior form of existence or a post form of existence, requires that the laws of physics be violated.

Existence as a being or existence as elements?  If the first…

Doesn’t this first assume there is additional matter and energy that we are not able to measure or even really define, but guess it exists?  Spirit or intelligence.  If it is all just physical, we can see what we ‘were’ and what we become and it isn’t a being that carries our essence, but food and water our parents consumed for the most part and then later it’s decomposed bodies that end up as dirt or would if we didn’t interfere with the process.

And I am not sure that it follows even if we assume another type of matter anyway. If we assume this matter follows laws of physics, we have physical beings that didn’t exist that existed and then ceased to exist even if the elements which made those beings do not cease to exist (think of a reptile in the desert that is formed through biological processes, lives, and then decomposes into dirt eventually), so why not spiritual or intelligence bodies doing the same thing?

Ifmyou are talking about eternal existence as the second, our elements always existed and always will no matter what forms they combine to make over time…not seeing the relevance at all. 

Edited November 29, 2022 by Calm

[Damien the Leper]

On 11/19/2022 at 8:51 PM, bluebell said:

Right.  The question is, does the word intelligent here (or in other scriptures when they talk about intelligences) mean what we typically mean when we use the word today?  Often when we talk about intelligence or someone being intelligent we mean that they are smart or have a high IQ.  

Is that what the scriptures mean when they use those terms?  I don't know that they do.  Defining those terms would seem to be an important part of a discussion like this.

I'm not arguing with you. I did want to provide this link on the etymology of the term intelligence. There also is this lesson from the Hebrew University website. Just thought you might like the short reads.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

I can visualize quite easily me being violent, but there is no emotion attached to it.  I have no experience to tie it to in order to make it feel real. It is purely clinical. 
 

What is weird is when I dream my mind shuts me down for anything aggressive even in self defense…as in if I have a gun in my hand it turns into my finger pointing and me going bang bang like a little kid. And if I go to hit someone in self defense I am suddenly at a distance from them.  
 

My guess is if it happens in real life I will freeze just like I tend to do when anyone but family gets upset with me or even argues with me.  I would be rotten in an in person debate. 

It is at times remarkable to me we can communicate relatively reliably most of the time given the variability in how everyone thinks and experiences their world. 

Interesting.

As I sometimes manifest here, I sometimes can be very emotionally aggressive and feel like I could manifest it if I let myself.

As I recall, the only person I have actually ever hit was a kid in 5th grade who said something about my mother. I punched his arm HARD., but somehow he survived. 

But it kinda scared me.

Now it comes out of my mouth, which can be worse.

Debate teams high school and college.  I definitely can get riled up, sadly.

[mfbukowski]

On 11/29/2022 at 6:55 AM, Eschaton said:

 

 Here's some further reading for you regarding Philo's influence on the author of John in regards to the doctrine of the Logos. 

 

Divine Embodiment in Jewish Antiquity: Rediscovering the Jewishness of John’s Incarnate Christ (Deborah Forger 2017)

 

King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature (Eerdmans, 2008)

http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10618-memra

 

 

Yes, that's the whole reason for the Logos to exist - it's a way to give God some distance from the material. The Logos (son of God, creator, archtype of man) does the materialistic work of creation, giving God the father some distance from it. Even in more materialistic Mormonism Jesus is still the logos, son of God and creator. While LDS theology is different from Platonism, it probably wouldn't have the concept of Jesus as the creator and logos without that early seed of middle Platonism. 

 

It appears you are not understanding our disagreement.   My point is that "logos" is not used in a way that would allow God or Jesus or anyone to be a material being.  God does not want to escape being material- He IS material.

Every article quoted here affirms my position, not yours.   

Forger- discovering Jewishness of Christ ie: embodiedment

Eerdmans- Divine and Human- not unembodied

Finally Jewish encyclopedia is a perfect reference for the LDS belief that God is embodied, not a Platonic disembodied "Form"

Quote from Jewish Encyclopedia that YOU quoted- note that the term "logos" is only used for non-embodied aspects of God.

Sorry for the cut and paste format that does not correspond to this board.  The other links might be useful

I really don't see why we need to carry on this discussion further.

This is YOUR reference making my point, discussing the TERM "logos" as the Greeks used it from a Jewish/ Hebrew perspective.  You provided the link, above

Quote

 

MEMRA (= "Ma'amar" or "Dibbur," "Logos"):

By: Kaufmann Kohler

Table of Contents

• —Biblical Data:
• Personification of the Word.
• —In Apocryphal and Rabbinical Literature:
• —In the Targum:
• Mediatorship.
• The Logos.

"The Word," in the sense of the creative or directive word or speech of God manifesting His power in the world of matter or mind; a term used especially in the Targum as a substitute for "the Lord" when an anthropomorphic expression is to be avoided.

—Biblical Data:

In Scripture "the word of the Lord" commonly denotes the speech addressed to patriarch or prophet (Gen. xv. 1; Num. xii. 6, xxiii. 5; I Sam. iii. 21; Amos v. 1-8); but frequently it denotes also the creative word: "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made" (Ps. xxxiii. 6; comp. "For He spake, and it was done"; "He sendeth his word, and melteth them [the ice]"; "Fire and hail; snow, and vapors; stormy wind fulfilling his word"; Ps. xxxiii. 9, cxlvii. 18, cxlviii. 8). In this sense it is said, "For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven" (Ps. cxix. 89). "The Word," heard and announced by the prophet, often became, in the conception of the seer, an efficacious power apart from God, as was the angel or messenger of God: "The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel" (Isa. ix. 7 [A. V. 8], lv. 11); "He sent his word, and healed them" (Ps. cvii. 20); and comp. "his word runneth very swiftly" (Ps. cxlvii. 15).

 

President Russell "translates" Logos as merely an "expression" of God, not God himself or the savior himself- in other words, the word :

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2000/04/jesus-the-christ-our-master-and-more?lang=eng

Quote

Under the direction of the Father, Jesus bore the responsibility of Creator. His title was “the Word,” spelled with a capital W (see JST, John 1:16, Bible appendix). In the Greek language of the New Testament, that Word was Logos, or “expression.” It was another name for the Master. That terminology may seem strange, but it is appropriate. We use words to convey our expression to others. So Jesus was the Word, or expression, of His Father to the world.

No reply necessary.   Further non-LDS quotes are irrelevant, since we have our own defintions 

[Eschaton]

13 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

It appears you are not understanding our disagreement.   My point is that "logos" is not used in a way that would allow God or Jesus or anyone to be a material being.  God does not want to escape being material- He IS material.

Every article quoted here affirms my position, not yours.   

Forger- discovering Jewishness of Christ ie: embodiedment

Eerdmans- Divine and Human- not unembodied

Finally Jewish encyclopedia is a perfect reference for the LDS belief that God is embodied, not a Platonic disembodied "Form"

Quote from Jewish Encyclopedia that YOU quoted- note that the term "logos" is only used for non-embodied aspects of God.

Sorry for the cut and paste format that does not correspond to this board.  The other links might be useful

I really don't see why we need to carry on this discussion further.

This is YOUR reference making my point, discussing the TERM "logos" as the Greeks used it from a Jewish/ Hebrew perspective.  You provided the link, above

President Russell "translates" Logos as merely an "expression" of God, not God himself or the savior himself- in other words, the word :

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2000/04/jesus-the-christ-our-master-and-more?lang=eng

No reply necessary.   Further non-LDS quotes are irrelevant, since we have our own defintions 

You  don't seem to have understood any of the material I shared with you, but instead wish to read your own theology onto the non-theological material I shared with you. And for some reason you are still trying to make this about "what God is really like" when that has never been the topic.  

[theplains]

13 hours ago, Ambrosia said:

We are intelligences and I believe we are what we are because of who we came from.

Prior to being born as spirit children to heavenly parents (from what I read in Gospel Principles), did
the eternal uncreated intelligences have gender?

[Stargazer]

On 11/29/2022 at 7:46 AM, The Nehor said:

I can’t visualize it but I can come up with a knife attack mentally and go through where I need to plunge it to kill them or where to cut to drive them off. I don’t feel anything in that state. I doubt I could do it in person unless I was in actual danger. It is hard to know. I have had varied reactions to situations in which my life was threatened. Sometimes I mentally try to shut down and have to force myself to act. Sometime I dive into action and am excited and thrilled in a weird way. Not sure what causes the difference.

The closest I ever came to dying was back in 1979 when I was driving down a road that where seemingly the road was empty ahead of me in my lane. I temporarily paid some attention to my car's radio, and as I looked up I saw a car in front of me had stopped in order to make a left turn, and was waiting for oncoming traffic to pass. I was so close it seemed his rear end was just a few feet in front of me. Out of pure instinct I jerked my steering wheel to the right and managed to get around him, running a bit off the road in the process. It seemed that all this occurred in less than a second. If I had tried braking there wouldn't have been enough time to stop. I was in deep shock, and pulled over at the next opportunity, at a gas station a few hundred feet down the road, parked, and just sat there for about ten minutes until I stopped shaking.

It was then I took notice that I hadn't buckled up my seat belt -- something I did only occasionally to that point -- and realized that if I hit him I would likely not have survived. I have never since that time not buckled up.

What astonished me was the utter lack of thinking in that whole episode. I just reacted. I suppose that I might react to a self-defense situation in the same way. Maybe. 

In some ways, your lack of ability to visualize things might be a blessing in disguise.

[Stargazer]

On 11/29/2022 at 7:53 AM, The Nehor said:

I have a friend who has hyperphantasia. She is a brilliant artist. She can superimpose her “mind’s eye” on the real world. It borders on controlled hallucination I think. When I first heard that people visualize I assumed it was a metaphor. Now I realize it is not. I am trying to break out of the limitation but have had only limited success. One of my earliest memories suggests I used to visualize a lot more. I can remember what the image was but I can’t see it. It was a combination of the real world and something in a coloring book I was using. I was afraid because I was about to be moved from Nursery into Primary so I was probably two years old, maybe three.

There are apparently some mental conditions that don't manifest themselves much before puberty. Might be why you used to be able to visualize more, because your brain hadn't fully matured. Or not yet enough.

I have ADHD, though the hyperactivity thing has never manifested with me. I am just very easily distracted. I've always been that way, so the maturing brain thing doesn't apply in my case. Now that I am retired and have less structure in my life I am finding it rather difficult to be task-oriented. 

 

[Stargazer]

On 11/29/2022 at 5:11 PM, Calm said:

Existence as a being or existence as elements?  If the first…

Doesn’t this first assume there is additional matter and energy that we are not able to measure or even really define, but guess it exists?  Spirit or intelligence.  If it is all just physical, we can see what we ‘were’ and what we become and it isn’t a being that carries our essence, but food and water our parents consumed for the most part and then later it’s decomposed bodies that end up as dirt or would if we didn’t interfere with the process.

And I am not sure that it follows even if we assume another type of matter anyway. If we assume this matter follows laws of physics, we have physical beings that didn’t exist that existed and then ceased to exist even if the elements which made those beings do not cease to exist (think of a reptile in the desert that is formed through biological processes, lives, and then decomposes into dirt eventually), so why not spiritual or intelligence bodies doing the same thing?

Ifmyou are talking about eternal existence as the second, our elements always existed and always will no matter what forms they combine to make over time…not seeing the relevance at all. 

No, I'm thinking of the life-force of which our consciousness is a manifestation. It cannot be created nor destroyed. It is conserved. As DC 93:29 says: "Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be."

The physical matter of our bodies of course obeys the law of conservation of mass and energy, but we're not permanently associated with that matter. It's only a temporary association, and as you know, the matter which composes your body right this minute, will in a few years have been fully exchanged with completely new matter. Not even your bones consist of the same matter that they consisted of, say, ten years ago. Your biological processes are constantly tearing down and rebuilding. The same shape is maintained, and the scars on your skin that you may have had for fifty years may look the same, but the molecules that were there just after the scar formed have been replaced by different molecules, many times over. 

When you are resurrected, your resurrected body will not (necessarily) consist of any of the molecules or atoms that ever comprised your mortal body. In my personal opinion, our resurrected bodies may not actually consist of mortal material at all anyway. Our resurrected body will, according to the scriptures, have a perfect form. But the most important part of us is the spirit/intelligence that is us. That is the real you and the real me. And that is the part that I say obeys the law of conservation. We are eternal beings, like our Father and Mother. We're just temporarily restricted to these earthly forms -- and even after earth life, our spirits will still be under restriction, so that when we are in the post-mortal spirit world we will still be within the veil of forgetfulness that stands between us and our pre-existent life.

This is as I see it, anyway.

When Joseph Smith speaks of "more refined matter" he is speaking of (what I call) the meta-matter that our spirits are comprised of. What are spirits, anyway? How large are they? Do they even have a size at all? I have no idea. Where is your spirit? Inside your head? Somewhere next to your heart? So many questions, and we don't know the answers. I have a theory that makes me happy, at least. My theory is that my spirit is actually "outside" the universe in the place where God dwells. And that I am attached to it here through instant communication via a form of entrainment. When I die, the entrainment will expire with it, but the entrained particle involved will remain here on earth to exercise its will in the Spirit World. Which is of course here on earth, too. The entrainment has a bandwidth limitation by design, which is what keeps us from remembering our life with Father before we came here. In short, our mortal existence is through a "waldo", or remote manipulator, followed by a spirit existence where the "waldo" operates similarly, though not with matter.

I know, I know, it's a weird way of looking at things. But it makes me happy, if no one else.

[dougtheavenger]

On 11/28/2022 at 9:02 AM, Eschaton said:

No, but they don't appear in scripture either. 

In traditional Jewish thought, our "prior existence" was the dust of the earth. Which is more or less scientifically accurate. 

 

Ancient Jewish people didn't believe humans were eternal beings, and yet they believed in God. 

D&C 93

29 Man was also in the ^abeginning with God. ^bIntelligence, or the ^clight of ^dtruth, was not ^ecreated or made, neither indeed can be.

[mfbukowski]

On 12/1/2022 at 6:17 AM, Eschaton said:

You  don't seem to have understood any of the material I shared with you, but instead wish to read your own theology onto the non-theological material I shared with you. And for some reason you are still trying to make this about "what God is really like" when that has never been the topic.  

A discussion about the Logos and why it doesn't go with our beliefs is not about theology

Uh huh

If anyone knows what this means, please explain it to me.

Edited December 6, 2022 by mfbukowski

[Eschaton]

10 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

A discussion about the Logos and why it doesn't go with our beliefs is not about theology

Uh huh

If anyone knows what this means, please explain it to me.

Academic Biblical scholarship isn't theology. I don't know how to make you understand that since you apparently don't want to understand it.  

Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine. I'm talking about historical and textual criticism of the Bible. 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Eschaton

[Eschaton]

12 hours ago, dougtheavenger said:

D&C 93

29 Man was also in the ^abeginning with God. ^bIntelligence, or the ^clight of ^dtruth, was not ^ecreated or made, neither indeed can be.

This is off topic. The topic was ancient Jewish thought. 

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Eschaton said:

This is off topic. The topic was ancient Jewish thought. 

That appears to be your favorite reply to everyone 

[Eschaton]

2 hours ago, Ambrosia said:

No, although you seem to want the topic to be about that.  The topic has to do with what we were before we were born into mortal bodies.  Here is a direct and full quote of the opening post in this thread:

In the pre-mortal existence we engaged in intellectual thought; possibly of a very complex nature. We had intelligence and the level of intelligence varied from one spirit to another. We did not have genes or hormones. Ergo intelligence cannot be genetically determined and morallity cannot be determined by hormones.

I and others have shared why we think the original poster jumped to a false conclusion.  The topic is not limited to only ancient Jewish thoughts.

Fair enough, but why would you aim this comment at me instead of someone else who was discussing it?  I'm not that interested in debating LDS theology and I have no interest in discussing what "really happens" before or after death - I would consider that a matter of personal faith. 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Eschaton

[Eschaton]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

That appears to be your favorite reply to everyone 

I'm fine that people want to talk their views on LDS theology, but it really has nothing to do with what I've been saying. So why direct those comments to me? 

[Chum]

On 11/27/2022 at 6:34 PM, The Nehor said:

Stupid Word of Wisdom. If I ever start a blog I will call it “Stupid Wisdom”.

When sufficient sleep is added to the Word of Wisdom, I will be the new worst WoW shill.

[Chum]

On 11/27/2022 at 6:34 PM, The Nehor said:

I can still feel. I can even be enraged at something. I just don’t have the ability to replay it. I instead channel my brain to more productive things like say…..VENGEANCE!

It is more the trauma where people have flashbacks or dreams that I am mostly immune to. Then again one possibility is that trauma caused me to suppress the ability to visualize. I think I may even know what it is. It is so stupid that, if it is true, it destroys much of my belief in the idea that resolving the original event will cure psychological stuff. I remember being able to visualize more when I was younger. I had vivid memories going back to being two years old and I remember visualizing them even if I can’t really do it now.

I was discussing this in a PTSD group (private DM) and I quoted some of what you said.  As far as feedback went, I didn't get a lot; I get that a lot.

Searching for Trauma and Aphantasia, I see lots of folks wondering if the trauma causes Aphantasia. Not so much about trauma effects being blunted by Aphantasia. If Aphantasia is a coping mechanism, I'd wager both are true.

[The Nehor]

27 minutes ago, Chum said:

I was discussing this in a PTSD group (private DM) and I quoted some of what you said.  As far as feedback went, I didn't get a lot; I get that a lot.

Searching for Trauma and Aphantasia, I see lots of folks wondering if the trauma causes Aphantasia. Not so much about trauma effects being blunted by Aphantasia. If Aphantasia is a coping mechanism, I'd wager both are true.

I have wondered if some kind of event triggered it. I can only fit one memory into the right timeframe and if that was the trauma then it is very stupid.

It is possible it is something else I don’t remember. More likely it was a dream.

[Chum]

11 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I have wondered if some kind of event triggered it. I can only fit one memory into the right timeframe and if that was the trauma then it is very stupid.

It is possible it is something else I don’t remember.

I first came to know about some events in adulthood. Some because a perp confessed to me, others are things I hadn't properly framed before.

14 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

More likely it was a dream.

Did it involve household appliances?

[mfbukowski]

On 12/6/2022 at 12:50 PM, Eschaton said:

I'm fine that people want to talk their views on LDS theology, but it really has nothing to do with what I've been saying. So why direct those comments to me? 

IF that is the case, you need to re-frame your sentences, because they are apparently being misunderstood by me as well as others, since you have repeatedly said this to others as well.

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Chum said:

I first came to know about some events in adulthood. Some because a perp confessed to me, others are things I hadn't properly framed before.

Did it involve household appliances?

My dreams have always been dark.

So obviously yes.