Michael Egnor
How Can We Know If Patients With Split Brains Have a Single Mind?
Just ask themReaders have brought to my attention a review article on the effect of split-brain surgery on consciousness. “Split-Brain: What We Know Now and Why This is Important for Understanding Consciousness” (2020) by Yair Pinto and his colleagues is an interesting open-access article, well worth reading for anyone interested in the topic. From the abstract: [Split-brain surgery] leads to a broad breakdown of functional integration ranging from perception to attention. However, the breakdown is not absolute as several processes, such as action control, seem to remain unified. Disagreement exists about the responsible mechanisms for this remaining unity. The main issue concerns the first-person perspective of a split-brain patient. Does a split-brain harbor a split consciousness or is consciousness unified? The current Read More ›
Does Brain Surgery Prove That Free Will Isn’t Real?
My fellow neurosurgeon Theodore Schwartz is mistaken in thinking that free will is an illusion. It is quite real
Does Surgically Splitting the Brain Make One Person Into Two?
A prominent neurosurgeon writes of his “amazement” at discovering that the patient with a split brain is still a single individual
What, Exactly, Does Your Brain Do? What Can’t It Do?
A surprising result of pioneering neurosurgery was the discovery that some mental processes could be stimulated in the brain but others could not be
Alien Hand Syndrome? Relax. There Is No Alien Mind
The syndrome has been used to argue for the idea that split brain patients really have two separate minds and maybe wills afterward
Confronting IVF: Human Embryos Are Persons With a Right to Life
We humans are persons even when we are non-sentient and dependent on others
Are IVF Human Embryos “Children”? A Recent Court Decision
Neurologist Steven Novella claims that the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that they are “children” under the law “essentially referenced god”
Why Can’t Our Memories Be “Stored” in the Brain?
The image of storing and erasing memories is popular due to computer technology but it is not relevant to how the human mind works
Why Doesn’t God Just Do Something Dramatic to Prove He Exists?
The Divine Hiddenness argument for atheism, espoused by Matt Dillahunty, is that, if a perfectly loving God existed, reasonable unbelief would be impossible
My Reply to Free Will Deniers: Show Me
It is helpful to consider the question in this way—not “do we have free will?,” but rather “what does it mean to believe we don’t have free will?”
Where, Exactly, Is Memory Stored in the Brain?
The hippocampus of the brain is important for memory formation but memories are immaterial and are not really “stored” anywhere
What Christof Koch Misunderstands About the Mind and the Brain
In his revealing interview at Closer to Truth, the Allen Institute neuroscientist, though he doubts physicalism, attributed subjective experiences to “brains”
Leading Neuroscientist Wavers on Physical View of Consciousness
On Closer to Truth, Christof Koch said last month, “Consciousness cannot be explained only within the framework of space and time and energy, but we need to postulate something additional”
Why Free Will Denial is Self-Refuting
If free will deniers are right, their denial of free will is just a biological ink stain.
How Could Human Consciousness “Evolve”?
Human consciousness entails a unique human ability to think abstractly .
Israel, Free Will, and the Problem of Evil
If determinism is true, then we have no free will. We are nothing more than meat machines.The events of the past week in Israel have left the civilized world reeling. Hamas has killed more than 1,200 Jewish innocents in the most violent eruption of anti-Semitism since the Holocaust, and it seems likely a war will follow that will soon kill thousands more innocent people. As we ponder and pray over this mass slaughter, it is worthwhile to reflect for a moment on what these events tell us about the ideological and scientific dogmas of the 21st century — about atheism, determinism and Darwinism. Are these dogmas true, and do they provide a meaningful understanding of man and of moral action? If atheism is true and there is no God, there is no Moral Lawgiver. The concept of Read More ›
Kenneth Miller on Consciousness and Evolution
Despite Miller's claims, neither human reason nor free will evolved because neither are generated by material processesKenneth Miller is a biologist at Brown University who has been very active in his written and vocal support for Darwin’s theory of evolution. He’s neither a materialist nor an atheist – he is a Catholic, and in being one of the rare Darwinists who doesn’t subscribe wholeheartedly to the materialist/atheist paradigm, he allows himself to be used as a token theist by the Darwinists. It helps his career, no doubt, but doesn’t advance the truth. Not an admirable place to be. Miller’s New Book and What it Misses In his 2018 book The Human Instinct: How We Evolved To Have Reason, Consciousness, and Free Will, Miller manages a feat uncommon even for Darwinists – even the title of the Read More ›
Sean Carroll: “How Could an Immaterial Mind Affect the Body?”
The well known physicist thinks free will is nonsense. But has he investigated the classical understanding of causation?Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at Johns Hopkins University who takes an atheist and materialist philosophical perspective on nature and on science. I have disagreed with him often — I’m in no position to judge his scientific acumen, but his philosophical acumen leaves a lot to be desired. An example of this is a question he asks in a recent documentary about free will (which I haven’t watched yet). In the trailer for the movie, Carroll asks, How in the world does the immaterial mind affect the physical body? Carroll’s denial of libertarian free will is based on this question, and of course, he believes that the immaterial mind does not exist and, if it did exist, could not Read More ›
Mathematics Can Prove the Existence of God
Atheist biologist Jerry Coyne finds that difficult to believe but it’s really a matter of logicThis story was #3 in 2022 at Mind Matters News in terms of reader numbers. As we approach the New Year, we are rerunning the top ten stories of 2022, based on reader interest. In “Mathematics can prove the existence of God” (July 31, 2022), neurosurgeon Michael Egnor offers this thought: Because mathematics can show infinity, eternity, and omnipotence, it can only have proceeded from a mind with those characteristics. That’s God. In a recent post, atheist biologist Jerry Coyne takes issue with a commenter who asserts that God exists in the same sort of way mathematics exists. Here’s the analogy the commenter offered, as quoted by Coyne: Think of numbers for example, or mathematical equations, these are metaphysical things, Read More ›