A Neurosurgeon Argues That Mind Functions Are Immaterial. Badly. (Pt. 2)

This is the second in a series of posts discussing claims by Michael Egnor, a neurosurgeon and member of the creationist organization the Discovery Institute, that recent (and not so recent) neuroscientific research demonstrates that some mental functions cannot be accounted for by physical brain processes and, instead, point to the existence of some immaterial forces or processes at work. The first post can be found here.

His argument is summarized in this video. However, as before, it is not necessary to watch the video in order to understand this post. I am just providing it for reference.

I criticized this video on the forum Peaceful Science, and this prompted Egnor to write a series of three articles on his blog responding to my criticisms. The second and third of these largely cover the same ground, so I will respond to them both in this post. Here are links to Egnor’s articles:

Do Epileptic Seizures Cause Abstract Thoughts?

Do “forced thinking” seizures show that abstract thought is a material thing?

Egnor’s argument can be summarized as follows: While some sensory and motor functions can be precisely localized to areas of the cerebral cortex of the brain, higher cognitive functions such as abstract thought cannot be so localized. From this he concludes that these functions are not produced solely by the brain, but require some unspecified immaterial processes or entities.

My initial response to his position was “Egnor’s argument errs in failing to appreciate the neurological complexity involved in complex abstract thoughts…. (H)e seems to believe that there is a single point in the brain that, when stimulated, should cause someone to understand the Pythagorean theorem or make an argument in favour of a flat tax rate. By the same token, you don’t just stimulate a tiny point in the brain and cause someone to brush his teeth.” (In retrospect, it would have been more precise if I had written “He seems to believe that, if materialism is true, there is a single point in the brain….”

Egnor’s response:

True. There is no “single point” or points in the brain that, when stimulated, evoke abstract thought. That was neurosurgery pioneer Wilder Penfield’s observation. It’s my own observation and the experience of all neurologists and neurosurgeons who treat epilepsy. There has never been a report of an abstract thought caused by a seizure

Egnor’s mention of the pioneering neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield may ring bells for Canadian readers. Penfield was the subject of an infamous Heritage Minute (which, for the benefit of non-Canadians, is a short TV spot dramatizing important events in Canadian history) that made the phrase “Doctor, I smell burnt toast!” a national meme:

But I digress. I think the logical flaw in Egnor’s argument is fairly plain, but I will spell it out nonetheless: That complex abstract thoughts cannot be elicited by stimulation of a single point of the cortex does not necessarily mean that their source lies somewhere other than the brain. It is at least as likely that they require a complex set of specific interactions between multiple loci within the brain, which cannot be replicated by randomly sticking a couple probes into the brain and seeing what happens.

Egnor makes another argument that is, in a sense, the opposite of the one just mentioned:

Nearly all seizures are generalized tonic-clonic, with complete loss of motor control and consciousness, focal seizures with involuntary twitching of a body part, or petit mal seizures that involve brief loss of mental awareness and inattention. This is despite the fact that the association areas of the cerebral cortex—to which materialists attribute abstract thought—are very large, and are generally considered (depending on the definition of “association area”) to constitute most of the cortical surface area.

If the association areas of the brain gave rise to abstract thought, and epileptic foci are distributed in proportion to area (which is a reasonable approximation), we would expect most seizures that arise in the cortex to be intellectual seizures. In fact, none are

I’m sorry, but this betrays an almost complete incomprehension of even basic neuroscience. No knowledgeable person expects a random, massive, disorganized discharge of large parts of the cerebral cortex to result in a precise and specific intellectual idea. That’s just not how this works, and Egnor should know this. If his first argument is the equivalent of expecting to sit at a piano and play Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto by randomly jabbing at two keys at a time with the index fingers, this second argument is the equivalent of expecting to accomplish the task by bashing on all the keys at once with a two-by-four. Neither approach is going to get the job done. What is needed is a trained concert pianist and, in this field, that role is played by the neuroscientists who produce research like this:

The global landscape of cognition: hierarchical aggregation as an organizational principle of human cortical networks and functions

I am not claiming to completely understand this paper, nor am I expecting readers to. I am simply providing it as an example of the complexity of the research involved in trying to elucidate the brain mechanisms that may be responsible for higher cognitive functions.

Michael Egnor gives no signs of having engaged with this research in any depth at all. He simply hand waves it away as attempts by “materialists” to deny what he thinks is obvious. If Egnor has his way, brain research would consist of randomly jabbing a couple probes into a handful of spots in the brain, then throwing up one’s hands and saying. “I give up. Let’s just say God did it.”

Thankfully, there are many dedicated researchers who are not going to give up quite so easily.

(Part 3 of this article can be read here.)