The Christian Scientific Society: The Truth, Wherever It Leads
Details for the Annual Meeting, April 17-18 in Pittsburgh here:
J.P. Moreland, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University
“The irrelevance of neuroscience for formulating and addressing the fundamental problems in philosophy/theology of mind.”
In the first part of my talk, I will lay out the autonomy and authority theses in philosophy and identify the central questions in the four key areas of the mind/body problem. In the second section, I will show why neuroscience cannot even formulate, much less address these central questions. I will also clarify what it means to say that two or more theories are empirically equivalent and go on to argue that when it comes to the neuroscience of mirror neurons, (1) strict physicalism (2) mere property dualism and (3) substance dualism are empirically equivalent treatments of the scientific data. And an appeal to theoretical simplicity does not favor strict physicalism.In the third section, I will show that a simple soul is, but a complex brain is not the sort of thing that can acomodate 3 things we know about ourselves: (1) we are possibly such that we can exist in a disembodied state after death and NDEs have made this beyond reasonable doubt; (2) we possess a fundamentally unified consciousness; (3) we are continuants even though our bodies and brains undergo severe part replacement. I will conclude by point out that while philosophy/theology does not need neuroscience to address its central issues the converse is not true. Neuroscience needs philosophy to do its work.
Michael Egnor, M.D., Professor of Neurosurgery and Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, Stony Brook University
“Misconceptions in modern neuroscience”
During the past century neuroscientists have have gained much understanding of molecular and cellular neurobiology. Yet a genuine scientific understanding of the biological basis for consciousness remains elusive. A primary reason for this is the materialist metaphysical predicate in which neuroscientific research is conducted. An understanding of this conceptual error, and replacement of materialist metaphysics with a hylemorphic metaphysical perspective, will deepen scientific insight into the mind and its biological substrate. More.