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Comment by xnickb | Hacker News Reader

Religious people claim it's merely a communication device, and the computer is elsewhere.

Clearly one's interpretation is a function of the paradigm one exists in.

> Religious people claim it's merely a communication device, and the computer is elsewhere.

No, that is a seriously weird and imaginary perversion that you've invented, unless you have some citation to a doctrine. Christians do not consider body organs as "devices" nor do our churches teach doctrine on "external computers", if you refer to the Holy Trinity as such? Are you thinking of Latter-Day Saints mythology, or Scientology?

Your description is quite reductive in many aspects, including temporality and misuse of technical nomenclature. Thanks for telling religious people what we think and claim, though, and thanks for the amazing overgeneralized blanket dismissal.

In fact, humans used to be called "Computers" in terms of their job roles, that is, a human in an office was given math/physics problems to solve, and they'd use tools such as slide rule, paper and pencil to "compute" those problems and solve them.

There was more than one example of a fantasy "panopticon" by which a central observer or observers could watch everything going on, for example in a prison facility, and those observers could report findings to human computers, who would process the data and submit it up to the authorities, for meta-analysis and taking action on new developments or trends.

Not to put words in the parent’s mouth, but I think they were pointing to the idea of the soul or consciousness, concepts that mean very different things in religious vs. scientific contexts. One sees it as an immaterial essence; the other as an emergent property of the brain.

I believe they are referring to the soul. The soul according to doctrine does not exist inside the body for it can exist after the body's destruction.

> does not exist inside the body

Uh okay but let us not be reductive, because again you are confusing physicality and temporal space with spiritual reality, which is nuanced. A Christian would never say that “the soul [never] exists inside the body” because what do you mean by “inside”? That begs the question. Look up hylomorphism:

https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/i...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylomorphism

While the soul, in death, can indeed exist apart from the body, even after the destruction of the physical human body, the soul is immortal, and lives on, in anticipation of its reuniting with that body. Whether in Heaven or Hell, the soul and body shall be reunited.

Even if the body is “destroyed” by physical means, that is a subjective judgement by human senses, and that glorified body will be reconstituted by Almighty God for everlasting unity with the soul.

> emergent property of the brain

Unfortunately, even this scientific definition is reductive. It ignores the theology of the Soul as an animating principle of everything that is created. Animals have souls [thus their name derived from “anima”]; rocks and stones have souls; trees have souls rivers have souls: everything that we can detect in this world, and every invisible thing, possesses a soul.

The difference with human souls regards their essence and immortality. But material souls are likewise considered souls in orthodox theology, and this should be considered by scientists.

Even in an “eternal death” in Hell, the body and the soul will be reunited there for eternal torture, body and soul.

Lets fast forward this conversation to its conclusion of “its open to interpretation”

and Christianity doesn't have a monopoly on religion or the fungible and unquantifiable soul concept

Thank you for this comment. You have expressed this far more eloquently and magnanimously this I would have.

So the Internet is basically a series of tubes, and http packets are like mustard and ketchup that you pop into the tube, and it zooms along with air-pressure determined by the Chinese government. and then your bank puts dollar bills into the tubes on the Internet, and those tubes connect to vaults and safes underground, and that is how money gets into your account. Money doesn't come out of your account; it's just converted into dogecoin and then every User Interface automatically converts Dogecoin figures into USD before you can read it.

Also your computer is like a car. Your car works because there's a hamster or three in there and they keep them well-fed. Your computer also has a hamster, or a guinea pig sometimes. And your computer sends http packets over next door by means of carrier pigeons, or sometimes by semaphore.

Also men enjoy action-adventure films. Men enjoy films with lots of shooting. All men enjoy films with loud noises and special effects. Men like rock music with distorted guitars and loud drums. Men like loud soundsin general; that's why men are soldiers because we can blow stuff up and we listen to it.

sure - and

"The Unicorn is most particular in its affections and has a fondness for beautiful virgins..."

https://medium.com/luminasticity/meditation-on-the-unicorn-d...

inside is a reference to a physical property, the brain is an organ that exists inside the body, we can discern which part of the body is brain and which is not, the soul evidently has never been so identified, although there have been conjectures throughout history that various body parts were the seat of the soul.

Thin client theory?

It's more of a hypothesis in this case. And some are clearly thicker than others. But that's details.

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