Yesterday, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, first author of The Immortal Mind (Worthy, June 3, 2025), taped a discussion with skeptical commentator Michael Shermer and prominent neuroscientist Christof Koch.

The discussion will likely air sometime next week (we’ll keep you posted) but Egnor described it to Mind Matters News as quite stimulating:

Our discussion ranged from a recounting of my 40-year experience as a clinical neurosurgeon and my understanding that the answer to Wilder Penfield’s question “Does the brain explain the mind completely?” is no, it doesn’t.

Specifically, the intellect and will are immaterial powers of the soul for which brain activity is ordinarily necessary, but not sufficient, for normal function.

Christof recounted his similar decades-long experience as a neuroscientist, and he believes that integrated information in the human brain can and does account for all mental activity.

It was a spirited and cordial discussion, drawing on the extensive experience and knowledge of the participants. Our discussion ranged from the neuroscience of consciousness to philosophy of mind to detailed discussion of seminal research by Wilder Penfield (1891–1976) on brain mapping to research on split brain patients. We also discussed the neuroscientific and metaphysical aspects of near death experiences as well as the metaphysics of quantum mechanics.

The participants were well-matched

Michael Egnor is, of course, one of our fine writers here at Mind Matters News and the other two are sure to make for a great discussion:

Readers may know of Michael Shermer through TED talks like “Why people believe weird things,” debate positions like “God does not exist” or books like Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022). He has edited Skeptic magazine and he wrote a Skeptic column for Scientific American for many years.

Allen Institute neuroscientist Christof Koch. also hit the headlines in recent years — both for fortunate and unfortunate reasons.

The fortunate…

He is the best-known proponent of Giulio Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of consciousness, one of two leading theories. The other is Global Workspace Theory (GWT). The two theories were chosen for a widely publicized multi-year test, which concluded earlier this month.

Briefly, neither theory came out on top. But a surprising finding was that the much-celebrated prefrontal cortex — thought by many to be the seat of humanness — was not observed to play much of a role in consciousness.

The not-so-fortunate…

Koch and his theory also became the targets of a 2023 Cancel letter signed by 124 colleagues, including leading neuroscientists and philosophers of mind.

The letter seems to have been triggered when philosopher of mind David Chalmers won a 25-year wager with Koch earlier that year — over a case of fine wine — that no “consciousness spot” would be found in the brain during that entire period (1998–2023).

Dualist philosopher Chalmers — offering a bottle of his prize wine on stage to Koch — emphasized that he did not think that consciousness research was a waste of time. His point was rather that a strong materialist bias might lead to disappointing results.

But some colleagues were apparently not satisfied with a truce on those terms. Their letter made clear that Koch’s theory’s panpsychist leanings were their real target:

According to IIT, an inactive grid of connected logic gates that are not performing any useful computation can be conscious—possibly even more so than humans; organoids created out of petri-dishes, as well as human fetuses at very early stages of development, are likely conscious according to the theory; on some interpretations, even plants may be conscious. These claims have been widely considered untestable, unscientific, ‘magicalist’, or a ‘departure from science as we know it’. Given its panpsychist commitments, until the theory as a whole—not just some hand-picked auxiliary components trivially shared by many others or already known to be true—is empirically testable, we feel that the pseudoscience label should indeed apply. Regrettably, given the recent events and heightened public interest, it has become especially necessary to rectify this matter.

If IIT is either proven or perceived by the public as such, it will not only have a direct impact on clinical practice concerning coma patients, but also a wide array of ethical issues ranging from current debates on AI sentience and its regulation, to stem cell research, animal and organoid testing, and abortion. [Numerous footnotes have been omitted for ease of reading.]

In short, no theory — however well demonstrated — should even be discussed if its effect might threaten social policies based on hardcore materialism…

Not surprisingly, other researchers were quick to see that the witch hunt was making their discipline look like the Grade Nine Mean Girls.

Indeed, as we’ve said here earlier, the fate of the discipline of consciousness studies may depend on how committed researchers are to finding the facts vs. how committed they are to protecting a materialist view of consciousness (the mind is just what the brain does).

Egnor told Mind Matters News that he was impressed with the friendly and insightful way that both Shermer and Koch discussed that central mystery of our humanity — human consciousness.

We’ll certainly let readers know when the show runs.