Truth Reconciled

The concept of a spirit is a fundamental part of the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. According to scripture, all living things have spirits that were created by God. God also has a spirit, and he is the father of our spirits.

A spirit constitutes an eternal identity. A spirit is understood to be distinct from a physical body, but has the form and likeness of the body and can enter and influence a physical body. Your spirit existed before the creation of your physical body and will continue existing and living even after your physical body is dead.

Spirits have also been referred to as intelligences, or rather, organized intelligences. Intelligence is sometimes called the spirit element, because it existed before our spirits and was used to organize our spirits. Intelligence is defined in scripture as the “light of truth.” It is co-eternal with God and was not and cannot be created, but exists in and of itself.

The goal of this essay is to come to an understanding of intelligence and spirit. In this age of neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and a deep knowledge of physics that far exceeds what was ever known in the past, I wonder if our knowledge is advanced enough at this point to possibly comprehend what these words mean. The definitions should be consistent with all revealed truth, both religious and secular.

The explanations given in this article are my own personal opinion, and do not constitute official church doctrine nor the typical views of church members.

Intelligence

We will start with intelligence, because we already have a non-religious understanding of the word. Most dictionaries define intelligence as “the ability to learn or acquire knowledge,” or some variation of that definition.

I have some experience in creating artificial intelligence, in which a computer model is built with the ability to learn. In both biological and artificial intelligence, the learning process is similar: a complex network experiences inputs, creates output, and receives feedback that drives changes in the network. If the intelligence is organized well, this flow of experience will refine the network over time until the output is correct or as close to correct as possible. A network that has been refined in this way has now “discerned” the correct response to a particular input. It has acquired knowledge.

The scriptures define intelligence as the “light of truth,” which can be understood as the light that illuminates truth, causing it to be discerned or known. When truth is known, it becomes acquired knowledge. The light of truth thus makes truth known, which means it is synonymous with the ability to acquire knowledge, in perfect agreement with the secular definition.

Intelligence exists wherever there is anything that has the ability to adapt or be refined, because by adapting, it is learning. Intelligence thus fills all of existence, from the quantum realm all the way up to the astrophysical regime. In fact, based on my article The Origin of Physical Existence, intelligence could be considered the starting point of all existence, because the universe arises from a random sea of possibilities that has the ability to be refined.

Different orders of intelligence can exist. For example, the molecular world demonstrates intelligence as it learns how to combine atoms and molecules into the most successful self-preserving and self-replicating molecular networks. This natural molecular intelligence is of a higher order than the intelligence that created the self-consistent set of fundamental subatomic particles, but also is composed of it. Molecular intelligence was not created, it is simply a more complex organization of fundamental intelligence.

We then have cells and single-celled organisms, which are built from the most successful (or most intelligent) self-replicating molecular networks. Cells obtain a higher order of intelligence which allows them to learn how to create the most effective self-preserving cellular networks called multicellular organisms. We then arrive at animals and humans, which unlock yet another higher order of intelligence. This is reminiscent of my article A Pattern of Moral Refinement.

The scriptures say that “intelligence was not created or made, nor indeed can be” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:29).This implies that the intelligence of the higher orders was not created. Intelligence already existed and was simply organized into a more complex state. The organized state of intelligence is what we refer to as a spirit.

Spirits

In all cases that I can recall, the presence of a spirit is equivalent to a mood or a state of mind. It is always perceived in the mind, and is never detected in any physical way except through the actions of an individual that is psychologically influenced by it.

We know that God organized our spirits, which are particular organized configurations of intelligence. A spirit is therefore eternal because the configuration is abstract and exists outside of the physical universe. It is similar to a blueprint of a building, which contains all the information about the structure of the building, but is not the physical manifestation of it. Human spirits are unique in that we are made in the image of God, and he calls us his children, rather than simply his creation.

Joseph Smith said in a revelation that all spirit is matter. Does that mean it exists physically? I don’t think so. Every mention of spirit matter distinguishes it from physical matter. The same revelation says that spirit matter is more pure or refined than physical matter. In my opinion, spirit matter is analogous to simulated matter in a computer simulation. It is a non-physical, abstract concept of pure physical matter, but is not technically physical matter in and of itself.

Your spirit is the current configuration of the intelligence or matter of which your body is made. Your spirit exists eternally, in an abstract or “spiritual” sense, in every stage of your life. In theory, the version of you at any age could be recreated physically by reorganizing intelligence in the exact configuration of your spirit at that particular age.

The Spirit of God

The Spirit of God refers to the organization of intelligence that matches that of God. One who has the spirit of God will think and behave like God. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Truth, meaning that it always discerns the truth about everything. It represents the ideal human mind that always makes the correct decision in any situation.

There is not always only one correct choice in every situation, as discussed in my essays on morality. There are often equally good but distinct options that have equal or negligible effect on the future of goodness in general. It follows that there are many, if not infinite manifestations of the Spirit of Truth. Every person can connect to it, and everyone should strive to become the version of themselves that always aligns with this spirit.

When someone is “feeling the Spirit,” it means they are in a state of mind consistent with a proper understanding of truth and goodness. Prompting from the Holy Spirit are thoughts that come to your mind in this state. Any thought that increases your understanding and appreciation of eternal truth, or that drives you to do good, is considered inspiration from this Spirit.

Evil Spirits

Evil spirits are spirits that do not discern truth. Their perception of the world does not match reality and they make incorrect decisions. Any mental illness can be called an evil spirit, because mental illness always includes false beliefs. A bad mood is also an evil spirit, because it makes it hard to discern truth and make correct choices.

Evil spirits can be cast out by reconnecting to the Spirit of Truth, or the Spirit of God. It is hard, though not impossible, for someone possessed of an evil spirit to escape and reconnect with the Spirit of God on their own, because they are unable to think correctly in their current mental/spiritual state. But seeing the example and interacting with someone who already has that Spirit is likely a more effective way to escape.

An environment that stimulates thoughts of eternal truths will make it harder to fall into false thinking. On the other hand, an environment that treats lies as truth and glorifies that which has no eternal worth will give evil spirits an advantage in your mind. Your surroundings can be designed to trigger certain thoughts or states of mind. This explains how certain spirits seem to dwell in certain places.

Premortal Life

Did we have a past before birth? The scriptures clearly indicate that we did, but our memories of it are blocked by some kind of veil. Our spirits were organized by God, which means our premortal past should include memories of him.

The nature of a spirit, as defined here, is abstract and eternal, without beginning or end. Like a mathematical theorem, it transcends time and space and does not need to be built or created, but only comprehended. Perhaps the creation of a spirit is similar to the discovery of a theorem. It involves picturing it in your mind and comprehending it, and thus it becomes known for the first time. It seems to me that God “created” us when he comprehended us and thus made our existence known.

In this life, however, our physical existence begins in the womb, in a configuration of intelligence that is vastly different from our adult form. In what form did God first comprehend us? I imagine he would want to create us in a perfect form, such as to maximize our happiness. This would correspond to our fully developed adult form, after an eternity of improvement. Perhaps our true spirits can be considered perfect already, and our mission in life is to make our bodies become the physical actualization of our perfect spirits.

I don’t think the creation of a perfect spirit could simply happen in an instant. At least in my experience, a powerful artificial intelligence cannot simply be built in its fully developed form; it has to be trained. I imagine that our spirits were first created in an imperfect form and then trained and tested for what would seem eons before attaining perfection.

This experience was our premortal life. God created us and carried out the procedures that perfected our spirits. Your spirit is essentially the ideal version of you, the version of you that would think and act like you but would not make the mistakes that you make. You need to become that person. God knows who you are supposed to become, and I believe that much, if not all, of what happens in life is used to push you towards that goal.

Of course we can’t remember the premortal life of our spirit because our physical creation required a different development. Our mortal minds developed from a physical embryo, and thus our history is not one continuous timeliness. Perhaps after death, when we are perfected, we will be able to hold both histories in our minds, because both histories lead to the same perfected personality.

Life After Death

If a spirit is defined as a particular organization of intelligence, then your spirit will be present in any organization of matter that matches the spiritual blueprint. If your body is completely destroyed, you can be recreated by reorganizing intelligence/matter in the form of your spirit. In other words, you are defined by your eternal spirit, not by your physical body.

Suppose I die and then I am reorganized exactly as I was before death. I will be the same person that I was, with the same memories and the same behavior. But suppose I am recreated with modifications, improved to be my perfect self. In order to still be me, I would need to retain the memory of my life up to that point, so the changes would need to only add to what is there rather than edit my past. It follows that the post-mortem modifications to our spirit will feel like an addition to our life, equivalent to additional memories of a spiritual life between death and resurrection, and perhaps the recovery of earlier memories from our premortal training.

Perhaps this is the reason why the Resurrection could not come about until after the Atonement of Jesus Christ. God wanted us to be resurrected in an improved modified state, which would not be possible until it was known exactly how to improve us without damaging our spiritual identity. Because of the Atonement, Christ knows us perfectly and has the information necessary to carry out the improvements to our spirits. His Atonement made the Resurrection possible. Since Christ is the one who perfects our spirit, it follows that our new memories of the Spirit world between death and resurrection will involve interactions with him. This is a comforting thought. I expect death will feel like meeting Jesus.

Conclusion

I have described the religious concepts of intelligence and spirit in the context of modern scientific and philosophical knowledge. I cannot say with certainty that I have a correct understanding, but I can say that this understanding makes sense and leaves no room for contradictions between science and religion.

The definitions of intelligence and spirit presented here check all the necessary boxes. Intelligence fills all of existence and is the fundamental element of existence. It cannot be created but exists in and of itself. A spirit is a specific organization of intelligence which exists in an abstract sense, independent of the physical universe, and thus transcends time and space. Matter or intelligence can be organized in the form of a spirit to give that spirit the ability to exist physically.

The Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of Truth, represents the spirit that always has a correct understanding and always makes correct choices. God is perfectly in tune with this spirit, and we all need to become one with it as well.

Our spirits were created, or discovered, by God, and are variations of his image. Our creation likely involved much training to become the best version of ourselves, and this constitutes our premortal life. Our spirits will still exist abstractly after the death of our bodies, and Jesus Christ will complete the process of perfecting our spirit-body connection before we are resurrected.