ID the Future Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast
Topic

Neurology

mystic brain
Illusion of Mind

Into the Mystic with a Neurosurgeon and a Neurotheologian

Today’s ID the Future continues the conversation between neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and neurotheologian Andrew Newberg. In this second and concluding part of their discussion, they further explore what experiments using brain scans reveal about how the brain is affected by meditation and mystical experiences, including near-death experiences. Also, what parts of the brain light up, and what parts go dormant, when someone is “speaking in tongues,” and how does someone who has this experience describe it, and does that description mesh with or clash with what turns up on the brain scans? Tune in to hear Newberg’s answer to this and other issues related to the mind-brain problem and the mystical. This interview is posted here by permission of Mind Matters and the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.

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Michael Egnor on What the Craniopagus Twins Tells Us about Mind and Brain

On this episode of ID The Future, neurosurgery professor Michael Egnor explores the case of Tatiana and Krista, the “Craniopagus Twins.” Their condition, he says, provides evidence against strict materialism.  Tatiana and Krista are connected at the thalamus (which controls such things as wakefulness, motor function and vision) through a structure called a thalamic bridge. This bridge enables them to see through each other’s eyes to and control each other’s limbs. Egnor explains how their separate personalities and thoughts nevertheless show that there is something about the mind not reducible to the brain. Egnor also goes through the mind-brain research of Roger Sperry, Benjamin Libet and Wilder Penfield.

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Michael Egnor: Experiments Show that Mind is More Than Brain

On this episode of ID The Future, host Ray Bohlin talks with Michael Egnor, a pediatric neurosurgeon and professor of neurosurgery at State University of New York Stony Brook about ways modern science validates the idea that the mind is not reducible to the brain. They delve into oddities of neuroscience that indicate that there is more going on in the brain than mere chemistry, and, in particular, walk through the seminal work of Adrian Owen on MRIs and what it reveals.

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