Are You More than Just a Physical Body?

Learn what the spiritual section of Affolter Academy is all about.

Photo by Cash Macanaya on Unsplash

I consider this section to be the basis of everything. Here we explore just what you really are. Are you just a body? Or is there more to being human than a physical body can explain? Is one religion better than another at helping us lead fulfilling lives?

I admit to believing that I am more than my body. I also admit that sometimes the evidence appears to contradict me.

Look at AI (Artificial Intelligence). You can ask a question and get an answer. The AI even appears to write or speak as a person. Is it intelligent? Are humans any different? I often get better answers from AI than I get from my friends.

What if our brains are just bio computers? Some believe that is the case or at least the analogy is good. Let’s look at that idea a bit.

Did you realize that we must start before you are born? Mice have been trained to fear certain odors. The mechanism is to put the mice on an electrified floor. When the mice are given an odor (perhaps a cherry blossom), they are simultaneously given a shock. Soon the mice appear to be startled at the odor without being shocked. No surprise there. Anybody who has taken a psychology course probably expected that. The surprise is that the startle reflex is transferred to their offspring. Even great, great, grandchildren can inherit the startle reflex without ever being shocked.

Apply that to humans. Are we inheriting brains whose operating systems were affected by our great, great grandparents? I think it is quite possible. Look at evidence around you.

One of my sons went through a period of blowing on his fingers. It just appeared to be a nervous habit. My brother came for a visit. My brother licked his fingers similar to my son blowing on his. I found that remarkable. Could that action be due to something that happened to our ancestors? How did it skip me?

Let’s just accept that as a possibility. Perhaps we are all born with brains that have been programmed by events that happened to our ancestors. What happens next?

We are further programmed by our parents, teachers, preachers, advertising, etc. In other words, brains change based on our environment. Let’s explore that in a little more depth.

According to physicist, John Gribbin, there is a question that physicists have been ducking since the time of Newton: Is the universe determined? By determined, it is meant that if we knew the position and velocity of every particle in the universe, we could predict the position and velocity in the future. Think of Newton’s first law of motion: A body at rest remains at rest or in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force.

That is an assumption we all take for granted. If something moves, we look for what caused the movement. If something stops, we look for what made it stop.

Now apply that to the neurons of your brain. Your brain is constantly making new connections. Are the new connections the result of the programming you were born with being changed by your environment? If that is true, you have no control. You are a victim of your environment and what happened to your ancestors. There is a lot of evidence to support that idea. Think of my oldest grandson learning to talk.

Nathan came over to sit in my lap one morning. He was learning to talk and pointed to my coffee cup and said, “Hot coffee.” I explained that there was coffee in the cup, but it was no longer hot. It was just coffee. He said, “Coffee.” Then it hit me. He just created a program in his brain. Did he have any choice?

How could he? When we are little, we have no brain filters. We have no experience to compare new data against. We are just sponges. We take in whatever we are told as truth. That was coffee. I consider myself a good grandpa, but what if I had told him that was chocolate? What if everyone around him told him that was chocolate? Can’t you imagine him being upset when he ordered chocolate in a restaurant and actually got chocolate?

That seems simple. How many times do I teach my grandkids something that I believe to be true, but isn’t?

Therein lies a problem. Before we have learned to control our brains, many programs have been recorded as truths. Ideas about religion, customs, ethics, money, social order, sex, racism, health, etc. are formed before we have the ability to take control. Aristotle said, “Give me a boy until he is seven and I will show you the man.” The evidence goes back a long way. The problem shows up in unexpected ways. As I said about Nathan, we become upset when we find that the world doesn’t match our programming. An upset with my wife is a great example.

I was in my 60s. I thought that I was getting control of my brain. I was teaching then what I’m teaching now. I was up early one morning working on my computer. It was winter and still dark outside. My wife came out and opened the blinds. I was upset and said something stupid that I immediately regretted. She ignored me or didn’t hear me. Either way was a perfect response.

In those days, I was taking a bus to work. I got on the bus and realized that I was still upset. Why am I still upset? As I sat down, I got the memory of being about six years old and my mother teaching me to close the blinds. She said, “We close the blinds when we turn on the lights so people can’t see in.” Wow! I’m upset with my wife because she isn’t following my mother’s rules. The realization made me smile. The next day I opened the blinds for my wife.

What if I had not done the introspection? What if I had not asked myself, why am I still upset? Isn’t it possible that I would still be upset today? What caused me to question myself? The answer may go back to the fourth grade.

I still remember my fourth-grade teacher explaining color vision. It made sense. It wasn’t the same as what I thought I had learned in third grade. I wasn’t upset. I was a little startled. I realized that I couldn’t believe everything my teachers told me. That is the beginning of taking control of our bio computer brain. I started in fourth grade. Some don’t get it until much later. I think there is evidence that many never get it.

You see it is natural for people to look for evidence to support their previous beliefs. Psychologists call it cognitive bias. An example for me is looking for evidence for God. That could explain why I was struck by John Gribbin’s sentence about the question physicists have been ducking.

In my spiritual search, I have experienced talking with spirit guides. I have experienced mental telepathy. I have experienced energy healing through Reiki. I have experienced hypnosis. I found that when I returned to The Bible, I saw things differently. Much of what has been taught as Christianity is disproven by careful reading of The Bible.

In closing, the spiritual section is about you and me as spirits running our bio computer brains. We can be the operator by choosing what programs we wish to run. We can be the programmer by looking for evidence that our programming is not true and updating our beliefs. This is not a section to support or advocate a particular religion.

We must question our assumptions and pursue truth. As we do that, I believe we are going beyond our programming. As we do that, we are spirits. We are closest to God.

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