Science News Magazine February 3, 2018, “People tend to think of memories as ephemeral, deeply personal possessions: bits of emotion, words, colors, and smells sewn into our unique neural tapestries as life progresses.” One of the most well-established explanations today 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 Journal Science concluded that “the memory was stored in something unrelated to the strength of the synapses.” “The cellular machines that are required to retrieve memories are not necessarily the same machines that store memories.” Ryan, Tonegawa, and Glanzman (leading 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.

If we look 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 in consciousness, but not for storing them, and that memory is not only not stored in the brain, but may not be stored in the body. So where is memory stored? This is the question I address in this article.

Look around the room you’re 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 rapidly, that any part of your body immediately altered to store that glimpse and all the glimpses and senses you’ve ever experienced? 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 the search for 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 can be true. I don’t think mathematics will help us find a proof. I draw my theory from the revelations of the Christian Bible and from personal experience because it is only through revelation and personal experience that the 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 obvious 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 increased energy we experience is the result of chemicals in the brain reacting as a result of information received by the brain from spirit. 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 spirit and we can detect this through emotion, a direct link between spirit and cognition.

We know of the Human Spirit from Revelation: I propose that each 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 resemble 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 “begotten” by two humans and has his own physical body and, furthermore according to my theory, a human spirit from 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 of us is the result of the combination of the physical and spiritual “DNA” of our parents. This human spirit feeds your consciousness and you have the free will to seek God or turn 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 egg to form a physical person. According to this theory, the two spirits (that of God and that of the individual) become a spiritual embryo and are finally born as a spiritual person, a son 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 (NASB)

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 to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.

Jesus only had half of 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 of Mary’s human spirit and the full Spirit of God within her miraculously conceived human body. He was tempted and felt pain showing half of Mary, but overcame his human desires by the Holy Spirit of God. He had both a physical and a Holy Spirit 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 of your memories, skills, and abilities still in a recognizable spirit body. As Paul says in Romans 8 Verse 23, we now only have the firstfruits of the Spirit and we are awaiting our full adoption/birth as children of God. These firsts include all of our memory. This makes us spiritual embryos throughout our physical lives 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 it did with Mary and creates a spiritual embryo uniting our human spirit and the Holy Spirit. In this way, God creates a true loving spiritual family understood as “children of God” who truly love him. And, Jesus is the firstfruit, 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. A perishable body is sown, an imperishable body is raised;

43 it is sown in dishonor, it will be raised in glory; he is down in weakness, he is up in power;

44 natural body is born, spiritual body is resurrected. 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 (NASB)

14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

15 Because you have not received a spirit of servitude that makes you fear again, but you have received a 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 also may be glorified with him.

We will be born again as children of God.

Our spirit in the above quote is our human spirit which contains the seat of our memory throughout our lives before and after our death. Memories are retrieved by the brain.