Brain and Mind Archives - Better Right Than Happy

J.P. Moreland tries to defend substance dualism – and anti-gay bigotry.

In the above video from Peaceful Science, philosopher JP Moreland argues for the existence of immaterial souls and minds, and is challenged by the scientists S. Joshua Swamidass, a Christian, and Nathan Lents, an atheist. Despite the fact that all three participants hold quite different views on the subject, the discussion is respectful and collegial. And I’m not entirely sure it should have been.

Is panpsychism as crazy as it sounds?

Panpsychism is the idea that mental properties are not restricted to humans and other organisms with highly developed nervous systems, nor even to living things. Rather, according to panpsychism consciousness is a property of everything in the natural world. That is to say, in addition to possessing physical properties such as mass, energy and charge, every constituent of the natural world also possesses mental properties.

Michael Egnor gets neuroscience wrong again.

Yes, I know. Not him again. But I’ll make it quick this time. Michael Egnor, neurosurgeon and apologist for the creationist Discovery Institute, has taken umbrage with Jerry Coyne’s interpretation of split brain research. On the DI’s “Mind Matters”blog, Egnor writes:

An Attempt to Solve the Dualist Problem of Interaction.

Substance dualism is the philosophical position that the mind is composed of a fundamentally different substance than is the body, and therefore the functioning of the mind cannot be explained or understood in terms of physical entities and processes. While it has roots going as least as far back as classical philosophers like Plato, it is probably most strongly associated with Rene Descartes. Today, the position is a decidedly minority one among philosophers of mind and neuroscientists. In large part, this is simply a reflection of the prevailing attitude, particularly in intellectual and academic circles, which does not take seriously claims of the immaterial and supernatural. But there are also specific problems with substance dualism that, while long recognized, remain insuperable.

Michael Gazzaniga on What We Are

As a corrective to that rather disappointing lecture discussed in my last post, I offer this series of lectures by Michael Gazzaniga, one of the major figures in cognitive neuroscience. In fact, he coined the very term “cognitive neuroscience”, and is responsible for much of the well-known split- brain research that has been instrumental in demonstrating the neuroanatomical localization of specific cognitive functions, and the degree to which cognitive processing occurs at the sub-conscious level.

Another Failed Attempt to Promote Supernatural Neuroscience

Over on the Discovery Institute’s “Mind Matters” website, my arch-nemesis ( 🙂 ) Michael Egnor recently posted a lecture which he describes as “a fascinating overview of neuroscience and the philosophy of mind (which) explains the fallacies of materialism and the logical and scientific strengths of dualism”. I thought I would give it a look and see if I agreed. The lecture is by Dr. Sharon Dirckx, who holds the positions of “senior tutor at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics (OCCA) and… RZIM (Ravi Zacharias International Ministries) apologist.”

I’m Not a Neuroscientist (And Neither is Michael Egnor)

I promise, I do not intend for this blog to become “The Michael Egnor Show”, but the creationist neurosurgeon keeps writing stuff about me to which I feel compelled to respond. His latest missive, via the Discovery Institute’s “Mind Matters” blog, can be found here. (My earlier articles in this discussion can be found through this link.)

Why I Am Not a Materialist

There is a rumor going around the internet that I am a “materialist”. This seems to have started with David Klinghoffer, a senior fellow with the creationist organization the Discovery Institute. On their website “Evolution News” (which generally contains very little actual news about evolution), he writes in reference to my ongoing debate with Michael Egnor, “(T)he question before the (sic) Faizal Ali and Michael Egnor is whether the mind, with its power of abstract thought, can be fully accounted for just with reference to a physical organ, the brain. Ali thinks so — as a materialist, he would have to do so….” And in a more recent article he continues to imply that my disagreement with Egnor is motivated by a prior commitment to “materialism” (though I will say that his analysis of the reasoning behind my choice of banner art is bang on.)

A Primer on Brain Connectivity: My (latest) Response to Michael Egnor

I’ve been having an interesting discussion with Michael Egnor, a neurosurgeon and member of the creationist organization the Discovery Institute, over the question of whether the mind can be explained as arising purely from physical processes of the brain. Egnor does not believe it can be, and claims that neuroscientific research supports his position. My position has been that he fails to understand this research and there remains no evidence that some functions of the mind can only be explained by “immaterial” processes or entities. The most recent of my articles on this subject, as well as links to the first two, can be found here. Egnor has now responded to my articles via the Discovery Institute’s “Mind Matters” blog, so let’s have a look at what he has to say.

A Neurosurgeon Argues That Mind Functions Are Immaterial. Badly. (Pt. 3)

This is my final post discussing creationist neurosurgeon Michael Egnor’s attempts to demonstrate that certain mental functions cannot be accounted for solely by the brain and, instead, indicate the involvement of some unspecified “immaterial” processes or entities. The first two posts in the series can be found here and here.

As before, I am including the video in which he makes his arguments, but it should not be necessary to watch the entire video in order to understand this post.