The discussion this week between Stony Brook neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor and Concordia Philosophy Chair Dr. Angus Menuge on Mind Matters News explores the mind-brain problem, examining the relationship between consciousness and the physical brain. They analyze various philosophical and scientific perspectives, challenging materialist explanations while exploring alternative models that address subjective experience, intentionality, reasoning, and free will. Their conversation also highlights how neuroscience, quantum mechanics, and information theory contribute to this debate.

The discussion centers on Menuge’s contribution to the book Minding the Brain.

Critique of Materialism

Materialism (or physicalism) asserts that the mind can be fully explained by physical processes, just as we explain other natural phenomena through physics and chemistry. This perspective dominated psychology and neuroscience in the early-to-mid 20th century. However, Menuge and Egnor argue that materialism is self-refuting and conceptually incoherent because it denies the very existence of subjective mental states, even though human experience is built upon them.

One major problem with materialism is that mental properties, such as intentionality (the mind’s ability to think about things), subjective experience, and abstract reasoning, do not resemble any known physical processes. Unlike neurons, which can be measured and located in the brain, thoughts themselves have no physical properties. If materialism were true, subjective experiences — such as pain, love, or reasoning — should be reducible to mere brain activity, but such reductions consistently fail to capture their first-person, qualitative nature.

Additionally, materialism cannot account for the fact that we know the mind directly (through experience), whereas we only know physical objects indirectly (through perception). Yet, materialists attempt to explain away the most immediate and certain aspect of human experience — the mind — while elevating less directly known physical structures as primary reality.

Alternatives to Materialism

Menuge outlines multiple non-materialist perspectives, including dualism, idealism, and panpsychism, which offer alternative models of consciousness.

1. Cartesian Dualism

René Descartes (1596–1650) famously argued that the mind and the body are two fundamentally different substances: the res cogitans (thinking substance) and the res extensa (extended substance). This view emphasizes the unity of consciousness, as mental states cannot be divided into parts like physical objects. However, Cartesian dualism faces the interaction problem — if the mind is immaterial and the brain is material, how do they interact?

2. Thomistic (Hylomorphic) Dualism

The Thomistic (Aristotelian) model, embraced by Egnor, argues that the soul is the form of the body rather than a separate substance. This means the mind is not an independent entity but an organizing principle of the body. Unlike Descartes, Thomas Aquinas saw the human being as a single, unified substance, composed of both matter and form. This view aligns with neuroscience because it acknowledges the dependence of certain mental functions on the brain while maintaining that abstract reasoning and free will transcend physical processes.

3. Idealism

Idealists like George Berkeley (1685–1753) propose an even more radical view: matter does not exist independently of the mind. Instead, all of reality consists of thoughts and perceptions within minds — both human and divine. Quantum mechanics provides potential support for this view, as subatomic particles behave more like mathematical probabilities than solid objects, suggesting that physical reality itself may be more conceptual than material.

4. Emergentism and Panpsychism

Another alternative is emergentism, which suggests that consciousness emerges from complex physical interactions but possesses independent properties. This view attempts to reconcile materialism with mental causation but often slips into dualism by attributing causal power to the mind. A more radical alternative is panpsychism, which posits that all matter contains some level of consciousness, eliminating the sharp divide between physical and mental phenomena.

Neuroscientific Challenges to Materialism

The conversation between Egnor and Menuge also covers empirical research that contradicts a purely materialist view of consciousness.

1. Benjamin Libet’s Free Will and Sensory Studies

Nobel Prize winner neuroscientist Benjamin Libet (1916–2007) conducted studies on free will and sensory perception. One striking finding was that pain is felt in the body before the brain registers it, suggesting that consciousness is not entirely dependent on the brain. His free will experiments also hinted that conscious decision-making may not be fully explained by neural activity.

2. Split-Brain Experiments and the Binding Problem

Studies on split-brain patients — individuals who had their brain hemispheres surgically separated — show that conscious unity persists despite the brain being divided. Some experiments demonstrate that each hemisphere processes information separately, yet the individual still acts as a unified self, suggesting that consciousness cannot be entirely localized in neural structures.

3. Near-Death Experiences (NDEs)

Near-death experiences (NDEs) provide further challenges to materialism. Many NDE reports contain verifiable details that individuals could not have perceived through normal sensory means, such as reading numbers on hidden machines or describing events that occurred while they were clinically dead. These findings, seriously considered, suggest that consciousness can persist without brain activity, contradicting materialist assumptions.

The Role of Information and Conceptual Hygiene

The discussion also explores the idea of informational realism, proposed by William Dembski. Information, rather than matter, may be the fundamental building block of reality. This approach is valuable because both materialists and dualists rely on information theory to explain cognition. If the mind is best understood in terms of information processing, rather than as a byproduct of brain activity, this new understanding could reshape the debate.

Additionally, neuroscientists often misuse language, creating conceptual confusion. Neuroscientist M. R. Bennett and philosopher P. M. S. Hacker argue in Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Wiley-Blackwell 2003) that attributing mental properties to the brain (e.g., “the brain thinks”) is a category error. While the brain enables thought, thinking itself is an action of the person, not the brain. This problem of conceptual hygiene is crucial to advancing our understanding of consciousness.

Takeaways

The conversation between Egnor and Menuge challenges the materialist paradigm, arguing that consciousness cannot be fully explained by physical processes alone. Instead, alternative frameworks — including dualism, idealism, and information realism — provide more coherent explanations of subjective experience, reasoning, and intentionality.

Materialism’s failure to account for the richness of mental life — from unity of consciousness to abstract reasoning — suggests the need for rejecting a purely naturalistic model of the human mind. Neuroscientific evidence, particularly split-brain experiments and NDEs, further indicates that consciousness may exist independently of brain processes.

Ultimately, the discussion calls for greater intellectual openness and philosophical rigor in studying the mind‒brain relationship. Whether through Thomistic dualism, idealism, or information theory, reductionist materialism cannot be the final answer to the profound mystery of consciousness.