In his chapter of a new anthology, The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos (2021), neurosurgeon Michael Egnor looks at the growing evidence that the mind is not simply what the brain does and defends a dualist view.
Tag: materialism
At Mind Matters News: Philosopher: Panpsychism is not in conflict with physics at all
Remember Egnor ’s Principle: If your hypothesis is that your mind is an illusion, then you do not have a hypothesis. The panpsychists want to have a hypothesis. They want to include consciousness as a real fact in nature while avoiding dualism.
At Mind Matters News: Epilepsy: If you follow the science, materialism is dead
Egnor: on the issue of intellectual seizures, the fact that there has not been a single seizure in recorded medical history out of 250 million seizures, a quarter of a billion seizures, that has evoked abstract intellectual content, Maybe the next one will, but I’m not going to bet on it…
At Mind Matters News: How did Descartes come to make such a mess of dualism?
After Descartes started the idea that only minds have experiences, materialist philosophers dispensed with mind, then puzzled over how matter has experiences.
Michael Egnor: Materialist science is like driving with the parking brake on
Egnor: None of the good philosophy being done today is being done by any materialist. That is that whatever good philosophy is being done, and there is some, is being done by people who at least in part reject materialism. The good part of their philosophy is the part that rejects materialism.
At Evolution News: Is the universe “causally closed”?
Egnor explains why not and goes on to cite the Big Bang, singularities in black holes, and the field equations of curved space-time, quantum entanglement, and — of course — the immaterial mind.
Is panpsychism replacing materialism?
Panpsychism, in the form of Integrated Information Theory (IIT), is a much more serious competitor to dualism and idealism than materialism could hope to be. Panpsychists are not trying to claim that consciousness is merely an illusion. They may be wrong but they aren’t ridiculous.
Bernardo Kastrup: There is an “impassable explanatory gap between material quantities and experiential qualities.”
Kastrup: Even the output of measurement instruments is only accessible to us insofar as it is mentally perceived.
Response to Redwave: Can Mental Reality Theory Reduce Human Suffering?
Redwave posted a question in another thread about whether or not MRT would or could cause less suffering than ERT models, most significantly materialist philosophy. To respond, let’s first identify what exactly we’re talking about recognizes the distinction between MRT actually being true, and those who believe it to be true. Obviously, if MRT is Read More…
“Superhuman:” Mind Blowing Documentary
If you want to have your mind blown, I suggest watching the documentary available on Amazon or iTunes titled “Superhuman.” It demonstrates amazing psi capacity, including teaching the blind to see and read with their minds, telekinesis, etc. The documentary shows just the tip of the iceberg of what is scientifically achievable once it is Read More…
The Immense Negative Impact of External Physical World Theory
[ETA: The OMG TOO LONG I don’t know if I wanna read all that teaser: I have said before it’s impossible to deny the value of the external physical world theory. In one sense it’s true – we have made a lot of scientific progress under that model. However, in comparison to what MRT could Read More…
Simple, Unambigous Evidence We Do Not Live In An Objective, External Material World
When how I choose to observe a photon at a particular time and place can (1) instantaneously affect a photon a billion light years away and (2) retroactively changes the history of that photon (delayed choice quantum eraser), and when we have searched far, wide and deep and have not found any “matter,” we have Read More…
Computer scientist asks: Why would philosophers deny that consciousness is real?
Because, says computer scientist and philosopher Bernardo Kastrup, the materialism they are committed to makes no sense and that’s the best they can do
Astrophysicist Adam Frank: Materialism is on shaky ground
Frank is an expert on the final stages of evolution of stars like the sun. His computational research group has developed advanced supercomputer tools in order to study how stars form and die. So he would incline to a materialist view, surely? But no, he says, quantum physics blew all that away. And some neuroscientists just haven’t caught up.
Can a simple triangle disprove materialism?
Edward Feser: When we grasp that formal nature of being a triangle, we are grasping something that is totally abstract. It applies to every single triangle that has existed, does exist, will exist or, for that matter, could exist, whether it is a triangle drawn in ink, whether it is a triangle drawn in sand, whether it is a triangle you construct by putting three sticks together, whether it is a triangle formed by the side of a pyramid, the idea or the concept is entirely abstract.