It’s almost like the nervous system is software that was never used, but that raises Forbidden Ideas, doesn’t it?
Neuroscience
Michael Egnor talks with podcaster Lucas Skrobot about how we can know we are not zombies
Podcast More re zombie claims. Also: Egnor , a neurosurgeon, told Skrobot: “My wife jokes with me that meeting me is always the worst part of a person’s life.”
Does the difference between “I” and “me” shed light on consciousness?
The mystery of consciousness includes our constant awareness of both of these statuses, I and me.
Brains are “programmed”?
It’s almost like there are laws of what will work in biology; it’s not all just random after all.
At Mind Matters News: Brain activity can’t reveal our minds, it turns out
Our minds read things but it doesn’t follow that we can read our minds. We can’t even read brains. Which is not the same thing.
Michael Egnor: Atheist neuroscientist gets the brain wrong
Atheist neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran claims in a video at You Tube (Beyond Belief Conference, 2006) that brain hemispheres can have different opinions on the existence of God. Perhaps it is relevant, in assessing such a bizarre claim, that Dr. Ramachandran also makes a statement about brain surgery that is false.
Michael Egnor: Neuroscientists can’t dismiss near death experiences
Egnor: It’s sobering to note that neuroscience has utterly failed to explain how the brain and mind relate. It is as if cosmology had failed to tell us anything meaningful about the universe; or medical science failed to tell us anything about health and disease; or geology failed to tell us anything about rocks.
Jonathan Bartlett on Elon Musk’s myths of the mind
Bartlett: What I found most interesting about the conversation, however, is not the technology itself but the (secular) mythology embedded in Musk’s lengthy descriptions of what he thinks his device can do…
Finding: Language pathway in the brain is at least 25 million years old
But surely the most remarkable part of the story is that of all these life forms, only humans speak.
Michael Egnor: How Libet’s free will research is misrepresented
Sometimes, says Michael Egnor (below right), misrepresentation may be deliberate because Libet’s work doesn’t support a materialist perspective.
Michael Egnor: How a neuroscientist imaged free will (and “free won’t”)
At first, Libet thought that free will might not be real. Then he looked again…
Unexpected finding: Growth of brain cells and neurons is guided by a pattern
The researchers chose the flatworm, whch can grow a new head after amputation. They didn’t expect a pattern but they found “This unique arrangement means that no single neuron sits flush against its twin, while still allowing different types of complementary neurons to be close enough to work together to complete tasks.” “We surprised ourselves when we discovered there was, in fact, such a rule.” You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet, folks.
How did “wanting” things evolve?
We take the fact that life forms seek things for granted. We don’t ask why. Agency (“wanting” or “deciding” things) is as hard a problem in physics as consciousness.
Michael Egnor:Why the human mind is the opposite of a computer
Egnor: Mental activity always has meaning—every thought is about something. Computation always lacks meaning in itself. A word processing program doesn’t care about the opinion that you’re expressing when you use it.
The “connectome” means we may never “understand” the brain
In the sense of “There. That’s that.” It’s just too big. Machine learning might help but machines don’t explain their decisions very well. If the brain is immensely complex, it may elude complete understanding in detail. Deep Learning may survey it but that won’t convey understanding to us. We may need to look at more comprehensive ways of knowing