I take it as a tribute to Jesus, to his genius, power and influence, that some folks still have to figuratively whack him off 2000 years after his death. It's pretty amazing.

I mean, have you ever heard anyone obsessing about whether Socrates or Buddha existed historically? Nobody seems to care about them... Why are the historical erasers not concerned about the Buddha's or Socrates' existence or lack thereof? Why is all the erasing attention going to that same guy Jesus, always, as if the Buddha or Socrates did not even not exist? That's not fair.

They got people to join their cult for the sport of persecuting them for being in it. — Cuthbert

Well I think it was more to do with empire building and the conquest and subtle subjugation of other peoples rather than 'persecution for sport' (but they did engage is this also). The Romans did not really care who their conquered masses wanted to worship. In fact, they would fully support and help you maintain your local gods. BUT you had to include a statue of the emperor and accept him as overlord.
The jews would not comply with this, no matter how often the Romans slaughtered their rebellious risings. They would rise again a generation later. So, a more subtle approach was needed, enter the traitor Josephus Flavius. The very rich, very powerful Egyptian 'Alexanders,' strong allies of Vespasian, Titus and Domitian Flavius and The family of the Herods who ruled Judea after the Greek seleucid's were kicked out by the rebellious Jewish Maccabees. Let's create a saviour mssiah we could use to pacify the jews and other rebel tribes, in line with the old testament stories and the prophecies of Daniel.

Why is all the erasing attention going to that same guy Jesus, always, as if the Buddha or Socrates did not even not exist? That's not fair. — Olivier5

Come to think of it, there are a few similar cases, such as Descartes. It always amazed me how much some philosophers bad-mouth Descartes, as if it was somehow required of them or appropriate. They still want to bury him centuries after his death. So I propose the following test of greatness in philosophy:

A great philosopher is one whose influence is so large that other, less gifted philosophers still try to nail his coffin for centuries after his death.

I mean, have you ever heard anyone obsessing about whether Socrates or Buddha existed historically? Nobody seems to care about them... Why are the historical erasers not concerned about the Buddha's or Socrates' existence or lack thereof? Why is all the erasing attention going to that same guy Jesus, always, as if the Buddha or Socrates did not even not exist? That's not fair — Olivier5

:rofl: It must seem that way to Christians. No, I for one would make similar arguments against other cults such as Mohamed and Islam or the Hindu pantheon or Odin or Zeus etc. It's just that Christianity and Islam have the biggest presence out there at the moment.
I also regularly comment about my concerns that the current way we do things is based on the historical writings of ancient Greco-roman musings. Regardless of whether or not a particular 'philosopher' existed. So I feel I am quite fair in the general hatred that I potentially attract from others but I don't feel alone. There is an 'atheist brother/sister/peoplehood' I can stand with.

Nobody seems to care about them... — Olivier5

There used to be a fashion for denying that Shakespeare existed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_question

BUT you had to include a statue of the emperor and accept him as overlord — universeness

Rather careless of them not to have included that in their cult. They could have saved a lot of bother with just one verse, e.g. "And the heavens were riven with angels singing: 'Don't forget to celebrate the Emperor's birthday and refer to him as 'Divine'. A little statue on the mantlepiece would be appreciated as well. Jus' sayin'."

I for one would make similar arguments against other cults such as Mohamed and Islam or the Hindu pantheon or Odin or Zeus etc. — universeness

What is your take on Judaism? I note that you don't mention it here. Is that an oversight or do you make an exception for Yahweh?

BTW, I'm one of your fraternal atheists.

There used to be a fashion for denying that Shakespeare existed. — Cuthbert

Good. I wouldn't want sweet baby Jesus to feel all alone in this....

Rather careless of them not to have included that in their cult. They could have saved a lot of bother with just one verse, e.g. "And the heavens were riven with angels singing: 'Don't forget to celebrate the Emperor's birthday and refer to him as 'Divine'. A little statue on the mantlepiece would be appreciated as well. Jus' sayin — Cuthbert

Would have certainly saved a lot of human lives but it's an old dilemma. Do what I say and live or go against me and take the risk that you, your loved ones and everything that's important to you will be utterly destroyed.

What is your take on Judaism? I note that you don't mention it here. Is that an oversight or do you make an exception for Yahweh?
BTW, I'm one of your brother atheists — Olivier5

Greetings brother!
I could chat for a long time on Judaism and its connection with Canaanite gods like El, Asherah, BAAL etc and Christianity.
How about the Judaic story of Lilith and her relationship with the garden of Eden 'snake' and its iconographic relationship with the 'flying snake' or dragon and Liliths' spat with Adam, way before Eve and her EVil and dEVil came on the scene.
All sorts of fascinating parallels in stories like the story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the Roman Mithratic cults, The classical pantheon etc.
Humans have an enormous historical tendency to create and tell stories based on some natural event they personally witnessed or heard about and did not understand (perhaps the sun going all dark and red for a period of time) etc. The Chinese whisper factor will do the rest to make Pinocchio a real boy who actually lived, especially if it helps those in power, opiate the masses.
Like Hollywood today, storytellers borrow from the stories already available, to make new stories.
If I was born in the very early days of human existence, I would have looked up at the big lights in the sky and all the rest that was happening around me and grunted a whole lot of WTF's! at my fellows.
I don't think it would have been too long before I started to be comforted by G....O.....D.
Great Omniscient Diety. I just made that up btw, so please no one respond with "that's not what God stands for!" :naughty:

Wasn't Judaism entirely made up by the Babylonians anyway? :-)

Wasn't Judaism entirely made up by the Babylonians? — Olivier5

"By the rivers of Babylon, where we sat down, oh yes we will, when we remember Zion"

The Babylonians contributed their stories to a section of early people who they enslaved from those who settled around the areas in Caanan and The Levant etc historically 'penciled in' as Judea and Israel.
The history is a patchwork of mainly chiseled sources and extant artifacts. I'm sure it's pretty close to actual events but if you demand the rigour of something like the scientific method then you must declare all such historical evidence as 'lacking' in the area of proof.

Paul seems to be thinking of, if not the same idea, something quite close.

Colossians 1:15-20

[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Of note, the word for "image" here can mean more "type" or "symbol." "Firstborn" can mean "has primary" as opposed to denoting creation. This seems like the same thread to me.

You're correct about the date of John, although it isn't totally clear which order the Gospels were written in, and Mark, Matthew, and Luke are thought to be more similar in part because they used the same source documents that were essentially notes taken on Jesus's sayings and doings, not because they are all earlier than John. John was perhaps written in multiple additions, and some scholars place it as far back as 55-60AD, earlier than other Gospels or Paul's death, but others have it being set down 30, even 50 years later.

Arguably, the non-Canonical Gospel of Thomas falls into this time period too, perhaps pre-dating all the other Gospels (this claim is based on the fact that 13 of its 16 parables are from the Synoptic Gospels, but they are all out of order, which might suggest having been copied from another source. Thomas is simply a list of sayings, not a narrative and is unfortunately lumped in with "Gnostic," which is misleading, although it also seems like Gnosticish sayings may have been added to the version of Thomas we have at a later date as well. What is of note is that some sayings are also more similar to John's more philosophical and mystical sayings. This makes sense either way, because the Gospels were clearly written for varying audiences originally.

It is possible none of the Gospels were written by the time Paul died. Mark is most likely to have been written earlier, but it would have been at the end of Paul's life.

This doesn't mean that much for theology because the NT is taken as a whole. Nor does it say much about Pauline theology for Paul, since he is obviously talking about something quite different from a physical death in sin here. It is a death of autonomy restored by Christ that allows his "inner self" to seek what he wants. Romans 8 goes into this in more detail, describing man and the world going through "labor pains" to give birth to a new form of man that lives in Christ and Spirit. If not the exact Logos concept of John, it would be close.

And while the Gospel of John might not have been set down in Paul's lifetime, John was around, as he is documented in the Synoptic Gospels and Book of Acts, and the opening of John shows remarkable similarities to the opening of Colossians. Even if John didn't write John, the fact that all the Gospels include him and were set down within a decade of Paul's death (for Mark at least), denotes that the role of John as an Apostle couldn't have just appeared and solidified in that short period. However, the epistles of John show as consistent Johnine take on Christianity, that suggests a standing tradition as far back as the very early church.

Which makes sense, since all documents of Christ's life have John there.

A person is most certainly a brain. You do realize that all functions you exhibit, including those which are subconscious, are produced by the brain? — Garrett Travers

Keep in mind that it is a brain that manufactures this idea. When I look around the world and I see brains and nervous systems, these are massive clusters of axonally connected nerve cells, which are, my that perceptive event, also just this. So if you want to reduce the affairs of being a person to what a brain is and does, then this reduction applies equally your own reduction. There is no finer definition of circular thinking.
ALL that you have before you is what is. You are not in an explanatory matrix like a laboratory looking for causal bases of things. Causal explanations say nothing about the ontology of a something in the world. E.g., you cannot explain pain by describing neuronal complexities.

This kind of reductive thinking is what happens when people think that since science can make a cell phone it can therefore do philosophy. Science needs to know its place

I don't regard "suffer and die" as what I am meant to do, or that human life and consciousness is to be relegated to such as the decree of anyone or anything other than myself. We suffer as a function produced by the brain, we die because bodies are made of organic materials and elements that expire over time. Like all things do — Garrett Travers

No, no. You don't understand the question, which is forgivable since you haven't been properly educated in such things (not meant to be a unkind here. But it is simply a fact that philosophy is entirely neglected our culture's curriculum).
The question is about suffering qua suffering. Look at it. Put a lighted match to your finger and observe, to be a good scientist. You will find something qualitatively different her from the facts science generally deals with. Suffering is not a "fact" in the Humean sense.

Religion and Jesus? You have to step out of your comfort to se this. There you are, fingers blackened with gangrene, your children the same, each waking a moment nightmarish suffering as you yield to the black death....and so on. This is, of course, no fiction. Perhaps you'll be burned at the stake tomorrow. You raise your fist to heaven to no avail. Then you plead and beg, to no avail. You conditions screams for deliverance.
This is what Jesus is about, on the negative end of what we are.

Great Omniscient Diety. I just made that up btw, so please no one respond with "that's not what God stands for!" :naughty: — universeness

But this has no analysis. Ask yourself, what is the existential foundation for these stories, that in the world that gives rise to them at all.

The Jesus of the Gospels seems disposable. Why do they bother with Jesus? This is my question. — Ciceronianus

Because they are Christians. There is no Christianity without Jesus _Christ_.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Keep in mind that it is a brain that manufactures this idea. When I look around the world and I see brains and nervous systems, these are massive clusters of axonally connected nerve cells, which are, my that perceptive event, also just this. So if you want to reduce the affairs of being a person to what a brain is and does, then this reduction applies equally your own reduction. There is no finer definition of circular thinking. — Astrophel

Man is an end in himself. Consciousness is self-producing and self-informing. This is what Hume didn't understand in his "Problem of Induction," or so called. The concept of 'circular argumentatin' can be applied to the human mind, no more than what it can be applied to the earth. Nor are humans an argument. We are conscious. The human brain developed and emerged out of the crucible of 3.5 bill years of evolution to provide us with the capacities you are using to read this now. If that is a reduction to you, as opposed to some mind-body mysticism you may be working with, then I don't know what can help you understand. There is NOTHING more complex or advanced in all the known universe than the human brain, and the consciousness it produces.

ALL that you have before you is what is. You are not in an explanatory matrix like a laboratory looking for causal bases of things. Causal explanations say nothing about the ontology of a something in the world. E.g., you cannot explain pain by describing neuronal complexities. — Astrophel

My brain - yours as well - is designed to retrieve data corresponding to reality, with it to build coherent neworks of data that inform rudimentary behaviors and thoughts, then when enough data has been gathered, use those networks of data to formulate concepts that inform future actions and behaviors as a metter of executive function, and using that data we formulate values which inform all data networks gatherd in a feedback loop of information exchange. The human is the definition of explanatory matrix, and the only one we know to ever exist. Ontology, as far as my interests go on the subject, and maybe I'll do some writings tonight, is self-explanatory in all things, one merely needs to know what its functions are. Properties of actions, properties of function, in the case of humans, thoughts, and the relation between them contained therein.

No, no. You don't understand the question, which is forgivable since you haven't been properly educated in such things (not meant to be a unkind here. But it is simply a fact that philosophy is entirely neglected our culture's curriculum).
The question is about suffering qua suffering. Look at it. Put a lighted match to your finger and observe, to be a good scientist. You will find something qualitatively different her from the facts science generally deals with. Suffering is not a "fact" in the Humean sense. — Astrophel

I'm going to forgive this kind of statement, as a starter. If it happens anymore I'm going to inundate you with the content of my extensive philosophical training, that is still on-going in professional academia, as well as private, everyday pursuit. As far as suffering qua suffering, you're going to have to be specific about the point of exploration you'd have me analyze, as you could be meaning several things. Because, as it currently stands, we know suffering to be a function of the brain used to reinforce certain types of thoughts, granted it's not entirely clear why certain suffering functions are distributed as they are, but neuroscience is still young. As far as it not being a fact, such a thing is going to have to be qualified. I would take a look at this and get back to me on that fact business: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5521249/

Religion and Jesus? You have to step out of your comfort to se this. There you are, fingers blackened with gangrene, your children the same, each waking a moment nightmarish suffering as you yield to the black death....and so on. This is, of course, no fiction. Perhaps you'll be burned at the stake tomorrow. You raise your fist to heaven to no avail. Then you plead and beg, to no avail. You conditions screams for deliverance.
This is what Jesus is about, on the negative end of what we are. — Astrophel

As a former, life-long Christian, I am aware. I am also aware that it is not something that provided me with enough verification to accept as anything other than great ancient literature, which it is, and imprtant to digest for both philosophical reasons, as well as psychological. But, the outline I provided above is accurate in what it provides its users in function. The rational mind does not accept this kind of story as fact without it being imparted to you by your family and surrounding influences.

But this has no analysis. Ask yourself, what is the existential foundation for these stories, that in the world that gives rise to them at all — Astrophel

Well not being a philosopher and lacking in any qualifications in the field, I am quite limited in the philosophical terminology that I can call upon.
I would say, from the evidence of observing human behavior in my own lifetime and from human behavior recorded in the books I have read etc. My interpretation of such evidence suggests to me that the 'existential foundation' I refer to is human fear of that which they do not understand and therefore conceive as a potential threat. A natural reaction to such fear in the long term is to try to learn more about the phenomenon but meantime seek protection from potential harm by engaging in tribal or/and biological support and psychologically attempting to establish further support from imagined benevolent supernatural forces. I think that's what humans do and I think there is a great deal of evidence for it, both current and historical.

As if there were a single uniform interpretation of the Christian gospel. History says otherwise. — Wayfarer

One has to maintain that there is a single uniform interpretation of this or that in religion/spirituality, otherwise one couldn't accuse others of having a "religious complex".
You yourself don't embrace the relativism that you espouse.

I think there is an important distinction between "a person is contained in or caused by," a brain and the idea that a person is a brain. Obviously a person, as a persistent entity through time cannot be defined as just the physical matter in their skull at any given time, since the composition of the matter, and its organization is constantly changing. In about a year, about 98% of the atoms in a human body are replaced. The fundemental parts that make up a brain have been parts of other brains before.

This is the old Theseus's ship issue.

Second, a brain doesn't exist without an enviornment. It needs a body, a body that is more bacterial cells than human ones. The brain can't live, and so can't think without these cells. Then you have the problem of how a person can come into being with no sensory input. I see no way for a person to not be caused by and emergent from a larger enviornment, not just the brain. Because if you look at the brain as an information storage and computational organ, what does it mean for it to have nothing to store and nothing to compute?

Information is isomorphic. If I am my thoughts and sensations, which are generated by the interaction of my brain and my environment, what does it mean that I can record these thoughts into language or images, and people can reconstruct them later? If a representation of thought isn't thought because it is made up of different material, what does it mean that a brain from six months ago isn't made up of the same material as it is today?

If a person is only a brain, how does it work that they can share, if only with the help of data compression, their experiences in a monologue, which can then be recorded as a sound wave on a magnetic tape, which can then be transformed into an MP3, which can then be transcribed into written script, which can then be written using DNA, since text and jpeg images have been stored using DNA? The protean nature of information seems to cause all sorts of issues for reduction to my mind, especially once you consider the view that fundemental physical entities (quarks, leptons, photons, etc.) can themselves be considered to be information (thus, "it from bit").

Not to mention the whole issue of Post-Kantian metaphysics and access to the noumenal, which I will ignore because I find it just leads to dead ends. Although, I think it is worth considering that the two value logic of correspondence definitions of truth that people utilize to support claims such as "a person is a brain," only work if there is someone to measure the correspondence.

Plus, if you can imagine that we could one day transport or at least clone conciousness into a machine, be it a fully digital one or a digital/organic hybrid, then a person can't be just a brain, a brain is just an instantiation of the information that makes up a person. They are an information process, but such processes are definitionally protean. They are made of physical elements, all information appears to be, but the exact composition isn't what matters.

By the same logic, people are already not only brains even in a reductive sense. The eyes are part of the brain. However, we have inorganic photoreceptors that can let blind people see (in a limited way), in which case, it appears we have something else becoming part of the brain. To argue against that, would be like saying an artificial heart valve, or a transplant from a pig, isn't part of the circulatory system once it is put into place.


+++++

On a totally unrelated note, if you want a weird Jesus take, I have been writing down notes in an idea that I believe is new:

The Trinity Reflects the Piercean Semiotic Triangle. Christ, the Logos, is a symbol. It proceeds from the Referent, which is the ground of being, the Father, which is the Object. The Holy Spirit is the Interpretant. Since being requires meaning, since pure unmitigated input is pure abstraction, which is no different from nothing (biting off Hegel here), it represents the essential requirement for being qua being.

I haven't shared any because I'm a little worried it will offend Christians, who aren't always kind to forms of Behemism, and because I haven't found a simple way to explain it. Also the exgesis on the Spirit part needs work.

I think you're right. They're an odd couple. It was a bad choice on my part.

Well not being a philosopher and lacking in any qualifications in the field, I am quite limited in the philosophical terminology that I can call upon.
I would say, from the evidence of observing human behavior in my own lifetime and from human behavior recorded in the books I have read etc. My interpretation of such evidence suggests to me that the 'existential foundation' I refer to is human fear of that which they do not understand and therefore conceive as a potential threat. A natural reaction to such fear in the long term is to try to learn more about the phenomenon but meantime seek protection from potential harm by engaging in tribal or/and biological support and psychologically attempting to establish further support from imagined benevolent supernatural forces. I think that's what humans do and I think there is a great deal of evidence for it, both current and historical. — universeness

Yes, and this is why there are so many of those ancient narratives: fear and hope. But take any narrative at all and you find it follows the rules of emplotment and development. There has to be dramatic content, jst as in life. A muthos is the memesis of a praxis (Aristotle). All eyes are on the actual human condition, therefore, the source of narrative content. One then asks, what is there in this one has to be afraid of, and hope for? Now we are talking philosophy.
What do you think it is?

Because they are Christians. There is no Christianity without Jesus _Christ_. — baker

One would think so. And the answer may be that they're "stuck" with him if they want to be known as Christians. But I think that the Jesus of the Gospels is largely ignored by them (just as the God of the Old Testament, that fractious fellow, is ignored). They just don't fit in the theology they construct, or if they fit do so awkwardly. They're embarrassing, in fact, if Scripture is is to be believed as it is written.

I think there is an important distinction between "a person is contained in or caused by," a brain and the idea that a person is a brain. Obviously a person, as a persistent entity through time cannot be defined as just the physical matter in their skull at any given time, since the composition of the matter, and its organization is constantly changing. In about a year, about 98% of the atoms in a human body are replaced. The fundemental parts that make up a brain have been parts of other brains before. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You're not defined by "just physical matter in their skull," the brain isn't just physical matter, it is a highly specific, highly structural, highly functional grouping of matter and chemicals that, not only regulates literally everything you do, but also produces consciousness that is capable of developing concepts to be used in behavioral mapping and value formulation. We quite literally are our brains, we just have other structures that correspond with it that comprise our entire system of sytems. A catena, of sorts. An interdependent system of systems with central control center that we call Human. As far as replication is concerned, this is true, we are replaced by cells with the same information contained in their DNA and different atoms, but those processes transfer over from one another. Theseus' ship is a good question to pose regarding humans, but the answer actually quite simple: no, we are not the same physical entity as previously seen in years prior, but yes all of the information contained in that matter has been transfered over to include one's thoughts, memories, behavioral inclination, and so forth. Theseus' ship, althought good philosophical exercise, does not apply to the human growth and regulatory cycle, as we are not mere matter, but living, self-perpetuating matter. Theseus' ship is broken by biology.

Information is isomorphic. If I am my thoughts and sensations, which are generated by the interaction of my brain and my environment, what does it mean that I can record these thoughts into language or images, and people can reconstruct them later. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It means that the function of consciousness has been instantiated within you to build concepts around data that the brain can use to inform future behaviors in association with experiential outcomes, and the values built over time through those networking experiences, memories, outcomes, and the emotions by which they are reinforced. No, information is not isomorphic for the human, information is ditributed across numerous domains of neural structures and cognition for analysis and integration. And as such, that data is never processed by two people at once in the same manner. I invite you, kindly, to look up some studies on neuroeconomics, the stuff will blow you away.

Not to mention the whole issue of Post-Kantian metaphysics and access to the noumenal, which I find just leads to dead ends. Although, I think it is worth considering that the two value logic of correspondence definitions of truth that people utilize to support claims such as "a person is a brain," only work if there is someone to measure the correspondence. — Count Timothy von Icarus

By "two value logic of correspondence definitions of truth that people utilize to support claims such as "a person is a brain," only work if there is someone to measure the correspondence." Do you mean to say correspondence is somehow negated by conducting research that..... builds correspondence? And another thing I might ask, because most people I know have never considered it: have you ever considered the idea that correspondence theory and coherence theory are not mutually exclusive, but mutually necessary? I ask because you seem to be under the impression that I've confined myself to one framework.

I think it's significant that Christianity as a religion is in great part the creation of a man who never knew Jesus, and who disagreed with James the Just, said to be one of the brothers of Jesus, in many respects.

Because they are Christians. There is no Christianity without Jesus _Christ_.
— baker

One would think so. And the answer may be that they're "stuck" with him if they want to be known as Christians. But I think that the Jesus of the Gospels is largely ignored by them (just as the God of the Old Testament, that fractious fellow, is ignored). They just don't fit in the theology they construct, or if they fit do so awkwardly. They're embarrassing, in fact, if Scripture is is to be believed as it is written. — Ciceronianus

They were first and foremost, Christians, and then they began concerning themselves with doctrinal issues, if at all.

First comes a generalized religious/spiritual identity, and then, if at all, a look at the doctrinal tenets of said religion/spirituality.

Sorry for the ramble, hopefully that made some sense. — Noble Dust

I think it does. But they go to such great lengths in their efforts to make of Christianity what they want it to be, what they find to be intellectually acceptable, that Jesus, as portrayed in Scripture, seems less and less recognizable.

I could chat for a long time on Judaism and its connection with Canaanite gods like El, Asherah, BAAL etc and Christianity.
How about the Judaic story of Lilith and her relationship with the garden of Eden 'snake' and its iconographic relationship with the 'flying snake' or dragon and Liliths' spat with Adam, way before Eve and her EVil and dEVil came on the scene.
All sorts of fascinating parallels in stories like the story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the Roman Mithratic cults, The classical pantheon etc. — universeness

I am reading "God: An Anatomy"
https://www.amazon.com/God-Anatomy-Francesca-Stavrakopoulou-ebook/dp/B08XB6JHQT/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=CjwKCAiA6Y2QBhAtEiwAGHybPZIObGlgCxmcjvsgjv3KuzVTFx7qS3i28pvBXlw_xwM3s9SLoR4BXRoCWi8QAvD_BwE&hvadid=526980182549&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9011457&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=16822304529601009289&hvtargid=kwd-1232133270691&hydadcr=7500_9612629&keywords=god+an+anatomy&qid=1644422251&sr=8-1

It is in line with what you say. Of course not everyone agrees with her, but even her critics cannot dismiss her scholarship.

No, information is not isomorphic for the human, information is ditributed across numerous domains of neural structures and cognition to for analysis and integration. And as such, that data is never processed by two people at once in the same manner. I invite you, kindly, to look up some studies on neuroeconomics, the stuff will blow you away.

Is the claim here that information in brains can't be replicated in the way that information in MP3s or DNA can because it is more complex?

I'm not sure if that appeal to complexity gets you very far. You're still talking about classical information, and classical information doesn't have a cap on complexity wherein it loses its isomorphic properties at a given scale (it only does so for practical purposes vis-á-vis applied science), only issues with incomputability.

Your example also doesn't seem unique to humans. A computer doesn't go through the exact same physical processes every time it completes a the same task. RAM and processor use will be different. Hard drive memory is more consistent than animal memory, but the physical location of stored memory relative to the whole system does change fairly regularly. Everytime you move a file, the index used to access it changes. Duplication will change the physical composition of the file. Defraging will move around the physical locations of storage all over the place. The same thing is true, different things are happening every time the same jpeg is loaded, but I think it's fair to say that it is the same picture in certain terms.

Nor are other networks particularly less complex than a brain. The Big Four tech companies store 1,200 petabytes of information on the internet versus around 2.5 petabytes per brain. Total computation per second is orders of magnitude higher. Human brains drive those computations, adding more complexity. Cloud hosting would be similar to your example in that the same exact process is never occuring in two places at once, and of course the human brain is part of the network.

Which is just an example, the bigger issue is why the laws of information science/physics vis-á-vis information would be different in a nervous system.

I wasn't assuming anything on the epistemological front, just listing other common objections to "people are brains," that I feel are less fruitful because they tend to become debates over ontology.

Did you really need to use the slur "Jesus Freaks"? What if someone came along and used the slur "Atheist Freaks". I think you could have gotten the point across without the slur, and it will would have been an interesting topic. — Philosophim

The Jesus Freaks were a thing. They may still be around. I think they even called themselves "Jesus Freaks." Even Elton John referred to them in Tiny Dancer ("Jesus freaks, Out in the street,
Handing tickets out for God"), so they must have existed.

One then asks, what is there in this one has to be afraid of, and hope for? Now we are talking philosophy.
What do you think it is — Astrophel

There is nothing in the empty void except that which we bring with us.
We have nothing to fear but fear itself. etc, etc.
All the horrible experiences the human race has memorialised since our civilisations began have surely screamed at us their main message:
THERE ARE NO GODS TO HELP YOU! HELP YOURSELVES OR PERISH!
We must accept this and build a fair, global civilisation with economic equality for all or perish as bad stewards of Earth.
Another species will emerge in time on Earth, if we cannot correct the historical
errors, which have led to our currently dangerous predicament.