What is Intelligence?

Last night I was reading in Carl Sagan's Cosmos, and in his Chapter XI, "Persistence of Memory," he made an interesting statement.

... there is no evidence that [the brain's] functioning is due to anything more than the 10¹⁴ neural connections that build an elegant architecture of consciousness.

From a scientific standpoint, Carl Sagan is correct. There exists no experiment that proves that all our thoughts, emotions, memories, ambitions, desires, and intelligence exist anywhere else other than in our brains. The idea is that our brains are so complex, they can handle and store all of these artifacts. And as of yet, we humans have not been able to build something complex enough to actually create a living intelligence. This also means that when we die, our brains cease to function and then nothing is left. Nothing of us continues on to any next life.

But yet why does this seem contrary to what I feel is correct deep down? When I think of my existence, I see something unique -- a kind of essence that feels separate from my physical body. It feels immortal -- as if I've always existed and that I will continue to exist. It's just very difficult to imagine myself not existing anymore. And what about the people I know who have died? Why do I feel that they continue to exist outside of their bodies?

One may answer that it's because I've been raised to have these silly beliefs. When someone dies, we want to remember them and we'll refuse to believe they're permanently gone, so we create a fairy tale that they're still alive, and it gives us comfort.

But then again -- why should we even exist at all?

My church teaches a unique doctrine that I think does not exist in other churches. This is the concept of intelligence, and how it relates to our spirit and our bodies. By the way, this doctrine comes mainly from later sections of the Doctrine & Covenants, The Book of Abraham, and teachings of Joseph Smith -- further clarified and confirmed by Brigham Young and other successive prophets. For a collection of these ideas and where they come, this site from BYU gives a good summary.

Many religions believe in a dual nature: our physical bodies are the parts we can touch. And our spirit, or soul, makes up the parts of us that can't be touched -- our thoughts, desires, memories, ambitions, etc. Carl Sagan above says the "spiritual" is entirely contained in our brains. Yet others (as in Yoga) claim that our souls exist in our heart, or somehow behind the heart in a "bosom" area -- the "center" of our torso.

My church teaches that in the beginning, God created our spiritual bodies (our souls) having no corporeal form. Then at our birth, the spirit body is merged with a new physical body. So, in our current state, we have our dual nature -- our physical body, and our spiritual body. A physical body can't survive or move on its own without a spirit to move it.

At death, our spirit body leaves the physical body behind and continues to exist, along with our thoughts, ambitions, emotions, memories, etc. At some future time, at the Resurrection, the spirits will then be merged back together with perfect immortal physical bodies.

A lot of these same aspects may exist in the doctrine of other churches, but then comes the concept of intelligence. This is something eternal -- something that was not created, and cannot be destroyed. It is -- basically -- the pure essence of our spirits. When God created our spirit bodies, he used some of this eternal intelligence -- something that was already in existence but not yet merged with spirit.

Armed with this knowledge, it then becomes much easier to see our divine importance -- how the worth of even one soul is great. We are all unique and eternal -- we all have an essence that has always existed and cannot be destroyed. God gave us the form in which we could live and flourish.

This may sound crazy to some of my readers, but it actually makes sense to me. It answers many questions, while raising some new questions, but it's all consistent with what I witness independently in my interactions with other people. I can see that spark in practically everyone I've met. It may also explain why all of our attempts to create life with our own devices fail.

Anyway -- I thought you'd all find this interesting.