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.
Tag: Michael Egnor
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.
Does a cosmopsychist believe in life after death?
Bernardo Kastrup: I certainly believe in consciousness after death. I believe that our core subjectivity, that implicit, innate sense of “I”-ness, remains undifferentiated. That’s the reason you still think you are the same person you were when you were five years old even though everything about you has changed.
A cosmopsychist talks about the universe, God, and free will
Bernardo Kastrup: Well, there certainly is something out there that is independent of all of us as individual minds, and which seems to hold the state of the world when nobody is looking at the world.
Michael Egnor: Philosopher’s claim that split brain surgery shows that we have no real identity is wrong
(As a neurosurgeon) I’ve done that operation so let me explain why they mislead us.
A Universal Mind is a reasonable idea, says Bernardo Kastrup
One reason that science media are respectful of cosmopsychism may be growing awareness of the problems with strict materialism, naturalism, or physicalism: As Michael Egnor has noted, “How can you have a proposition that the mind doesn’t exist? That means propositions don’t exist and that means that you don’t have a proposition.”
Michael Egnor and Bernardo Kastrup: Why consciousness couldn’t just evolve from the mud
Kastrup, a philosopher and computer scientist, does not accept a Darwinian account of the evolution of consciousness and is is also sympathetic to the basic intuitions behind the idea that there is design in nature (intelligent design theory).
Michael Egnor: Why the mind can’t just be the brain
Thinking it through carefully, the idea doesn’t even make sense.
Mike Egnor on what to do when the Woke come for you
It works well when dealing with Darwinists, too, he thinks.
Michael Egnor skewers claim that there is no continuity of the human self
Egnor: if Blackmore is not the same person now that she was a moment ago, then it makes no sense to call the YouTube video above an interview with Susan Blackmore. Perhaps it should be called interviews with Susan Blackmores or interviews with countless women, one of whom was Susan Blackmore. Or interviews with women formerly known as Susan Blackmore…
Michael Egnor on the relationship between Darwinism and totalitarianism
Egnor: Philosopher Hannah Arendt is, in my view, the most perceptive analyst of totalitarianism. In her magnum opus, The Origins of Totalitarianism, she points out that Darwinism played an essential role in the rise of totalitarian governments in the 20th century.