Michael Egnor: The fact that the universe is tuned — that is, the fact there is any consistency at all in the laws of physics — demonstrates God’s existence. This is Aquinas’ Fifth Way, which is the proof from design.
Tag: Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor on why we don’t live in a multiverse
Egnor: The problem is, to make their claim credible, [Novella and Goff] must show that there actually are localities in the universe in which the laws of physics differ in a way that would make fine tuning likely by chance.
At Mind Matters News: A reader asks: Is it true that there is no self?
Michael Egnor replies, “The assertion that self is an illusion is not even wrong — it’s self-refuting, like saying “I don’t exist” or “Misery is green”
Michael Egnor asks if materialist neuroscience is an unwitting Sokal hoax
Egnor thinks that while physicist Alan Sokal hoaxed postmodern journals (the famous Sokal hoax. of 1996), materialists like Francis Crick (1916–2004) seem to hoax themselves.
Michael Egnor: Materialists misrepresent Libet’s research on free will
Egnor is responding to a reader’s question about whether neuroscience has disproven free will.
Avi Loeb suggests that the design of life might have been a black hole. Michael Egnor responds
Michael Egnor: Both an intelligent designer (assuming we’re talking about God) and a black hole are supernatural, in the sense that they are not objects in the natural world. This may not surprise you about God, but it is also true of black holes.
Is “consciousness” a useless concept? Michael Egnor makes the case
Egnor: Our mental life is a composite of abilities — arousal, sensation, perception, locomotion, reason, etc., and these abilities appear to subsist in modified form despite dramatic changes in the body and brain.
Michael Egnor: The mind refutes materialism in a rather straightforward way
Egnor: I agree that design in nature is an effective challenge to materialism. But I also believe that the mind refutes materialism in a rather straightforward way—and in much the same way that evidence of intelligent design in biology refutes materialism…
Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor challenges neurologist Steven Novella to prove that the mind is just what the brain does
Novella has said that a recent study of mice disproves mind-body dualism.
Is Jerry Coyne undercutting his own argument against free will?
Michael Egnor: “Except for action of any quantum events”? I challenge Coyne: What in nature isn’t the action of quantum events? Certainly, every event in the brain is quantum in nature—every brain state, every action potential, every secretion of a neurotransmitter, every bit of protein synthesis or ion flow—is the consequence of quantum events.
Why, as a neurosurgeon, Michael Egnor believes in free will
Egnor: “An intellectual seizure would be a seizure that caused abstract thought, such as logic, or reasoning, or mathematics. People never have, for example, mathematics seizures—seizures in which they involuntarily do calculus or arithmetic. This observation, which is as true today as it was in Penfield’s time nearly a century ago, begs for explanation.” He offers an argument for the immaterial powers of the mind.
Michael Egnor addresses an objection to free will raised here at Uncommon Descent
Egnor: [fMRI isn’t decisive.] But fMRI is worthless in the neuroscience of free will. To understand why, note that fMRI has very poor temporal resolution. fMRI measures changes in blood flow in the brain in response to activity of neurons, and these changes lag neuronal activity by at least several seconds.
Free will makes more sense of our world than determinism—and science certainly allows for it
Scientists weigh in on both sides but accepting free will allows us to avoid some serious problems around logic and personal freedom.
Mike Egnor on why Coyne and Hossenfelder are wrong to deny free will
Egnor: Now let’s get to the neuroscience. Neuroscience has a lot to contribute to the debate over free will and all of it supports the reality of free will. There isn’t a shred of neuroscientific evidence that contradicts the reality of free will.
Can logic or evidence help you decide if you are not the only human who has ever existed?
We must believe – take on faith – that the universe is a certain sort of universe for logic to make sense to us.