CategoryNeuroscience
Near-Death Experiences Are More Real Than Some of the Research
At Scientific American, we learn of an analysis that tries to link them to recreational drug highs, based only on language useThe scientific “method” of inferring a common biological cause of the experiences by analyzing the language used to describe them is junk science. One may as well infer that lung cancer and tuberculosis have a common cause because sufferers from both diseases report cough, shortness of breath, chest pain, and weight loss.
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Tibetan Monks Can Change Their Metabolism
Far from disproving it, science has documented itFor decades, a default assumption was that claims that meditating monks in the Buddhist tradition could greatly raise their temperature or slow their metabolism were assumed to be exaggerations that would yield to a scientific explanation. The scientific explanation turned out to be that they can do exactly that.
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Do We Actually Remember Everything?
Neuroscience evidence suggests that our real problem isn’t with remembering things but finding our memories when we need themOne of a pioneer neurosurgeon’s cases featured a patient who could, unaccountably, speak ancient Greek. The explanation was not occult but it was surely remarkable for what it shows about memory.
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Was famous old evidence against free will just debunked?
The pattern that was thought to prove free will an illusion may have been noiseThe participants in the experiment did not sense that their decision about flexing their fingers mattered, so they went with the flow. But, according to more recent research, the subjective experience of making a decision is not an illusion at all.
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Aging brains need exercise, not sofas for neurons
Neuroscientist Yuri Danilov reassures seniors, we do not lose neurons as we ageMaking a serious effort to learn keeps neurons healthy. That’s neuroplasticity.
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Dolphinese: The Idea That Animals Think As We Do Dies Hard
But first it can lead us down strange paths
A simple triangle can disprove materialism
Conventional descriptions of material processes do not help much when we are trying to account for abstract thought
Why Some Scientists Believe the Universe Is Conscious
They’re not mystics. But materialism is not giving good answers so they are looking aroundThese prominent thinkers are driven to panpsychism because materialism about the mind doesn’t really work. So if panpsychism ends up seeming absurd, dualism—there really is an immaterial world—is also worth considering.
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High Tech Can Help the Blind See and Amputees Feel
It’s not a miracle; the human nervous system can work with electronic informationThe electronic devices communicate directly with sensory areas of the brain, bypassing damaged or destroyed eyes and limbs.
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A Materialist Neuroscientist Continues the Argument with Himself
On the topic of “intellectual seizures,” he seems committed to both points of viewI assert that intellectual seizures do not exist. Dr. Ali asserts that they do exist and that they do not. The difference between their existence and their non-existence seems to be Dr. Ali’s rhetorical needs of the moment.
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We went back to visit Gödel, Escher, and Bach…
Forty years after publication, how has a big explain-the-mind book withstood the test of time?Is there evidence that human minds function like computers and can soon be reproduced in software, as Hofstadter believed?
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Can Materialism Explain Abstract Thought? Part II
Now Dr. Ali argues with Dr. AliI know of no report in medical history of an abstract thought evoked by a seizure or by brain stimulation. Which is odd, if the brain causes abstract thought.
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Up! Up! Up! Keep Those Hippocampi Up!
The lighter side of neurobabble about our brains and ourselvesNeurobabble is a full-employment campaign for neuroscientists. Recast obvious social or psychological facts as brain events and you’ll never be out of work.
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Scientists Hone In On Why Some Robots Feel Creepy
It’s called the Uncanny Valley. “Almost” human feels much creepier than machines doThe study found that our dislike of almost-human bots is a “hardwired” natural reaction to something that doesn’t seem quite right.
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J. P. Moreland’s Model of the Human Self Survived the Ultimate Field Test
Could the Christian philosopher rely on his model to help himself heal from psychiatric disorder?
Tales of the Mind: A Neurologist Encounters the House of Mirrors
Materialism is an intellectual trap, out of which neuroscience needs to climbYale University neurologist Steven Novella posted recently on the science of growing brain tissue in the lab. It’s interesting stuff, but then we come to the jumbled metaphysical musings that conclude his post: There is a layer of weirdness to the very idea of brain tissue in a vat, because I think we are naturally uncomfortable with the very notion that our consciousness is the result of a clump of tissue shuttling ions around. It breaks the illusion that our brains evolved to have, a very compelling and persistent illusion – namely that the reality we perceive is real, rather than a constructed representation. That internal representation has a strong relationship to physical reality, but the two are not the…
Four Researchers Whose Work Sheds Light on the Reality of the Mind
The brain can be cut in half, but the intellect and will cannot, says Michael Egnor. The intellect and will are metaphysically simpleNeurosurgeon Michael Egnor was featured in a short film as a supplement to the Science Uprising series. There, he mentions four researchers who have shed light on the non-material mind nature of our minds: Wilder Penfield (1891–1976): Some of the earliest evidence came from neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, who was the pioneer in epilepsy surgery in the mid 20th century. Penfield operated on over a thousand epilepsy patients while they were awake (under local anesthesia), and he stimulated their brains with electrodes in order to identify epileptic regions for surgical resection. He carefully recorded their responses to stimulation. In his book Mystery of the Mind, (1975) Penfield noted: “When I have caused a conscious patient to move his hand by applying…
Do “forced thinking” seizures show that abstract thought is a material thing?
Epilepsy suppresses abstract thought, it does not evoke it
Do Epileptic Seizures Cause Abstract Thoughts?
A psychiatrist argues that “intellectual seizures” can occurSeizures never evoke abstract thought. That is, if a seizure causes you to think about a triangle, it always causes you to imagine a particular triangle, not to define triangles abstractly.
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