Neuroscience And The Soul by Reed Smith

[Thews40]

One of the most distinguished neuroscientists of the 20th Century was the Canadian Wilder Penfield (1891-1976). Among other things, Penfield is credited for establishing the first neural map of the sensory and motor cortices of the human brain, identifying parts of the brain that are associated with certain mental and motor events. While performing multiple brain surgeries using local anesthesia, Penfield stimulated specific brain regions with an electrode while asking his patients what they felt and observing their behavior. Using this information, he then created a map of the brain indicating in general what parts of the brain controlled what parts of the body. In 1951 he and his colleague, Herbert Jasper, published a landmark work in neuroscience, called Epilepsy and the Functional Anatomy of the Human Brain. Penfield’s map is still used and discussed by neuroscientists today. During his lifetime, according to Wikipedia.org, Penfield was called “the greatest living Canadian.” You literally cannot pick up abook on neuroscience without finding his name mentioned with great esteem.

 

Throughout his life, and studies as a neuroscientist, Penfield was preoccupied with the question of whether there was a scientific basis for the existence of the soul. In 1975, just a year before his death, Penfield published his book, The Mystery of the Mind. Here Penfield discusses his view of the so-called mind-body problem, and particularly his dualistic view of the mind. (Basically the idea that the mind is in some sense independent of the body) His view is interesting and important—especially for those who are inclined to summarily dismiss dualism or the idea of the soul simply because such beliefs are contrary to the now popular intellectual culture that often finds such views preposterous—often for anti-religion reasons, rather than well thought out argument. So what did Penfield have to say about dualism and the idea of the soul? And is it relevant today? After acknowledging the obvious correlates between brain and mind, Penfield states:

 

“Inasmuch as the brain is a place for newly acquired automatic mechanisms, it is a computer. To be useful, any computer must be programmed and operated by an external agent. Suppose an individual decides to turn his attention to a certain matter. This decision, I suppose, is an act on the part of the mind.”

 

So far, the above comments are quite intuitive. The fact that the mind can initiate brain activity to determine what enters into the stream of consciousness seems obvious, and is denied by only the most desperate of materialists. It is simply a fact that I can choose to look to my right or left, quite randomly, and affect thereby my stream of consciousness, i.e. my phenomenal experience. Now, here is the rub. Penfield then states:

 

“If decisions as to the target of conscious attention are made by the mind, then the mind it is that directs the programming of all the mechanisms within the brain. A man’s mind, one might say, is the person. He walks about the world, depending always upon his private computer, which he programs continuously to suit his ever-changing purposes and interest.”

 

Now we should state that Penfield clearly overstates his point when he claims that the mind “directs the programming of all the mechanisms within the brain.” As I’m sure Penfield was well aware, most of the mechanisms in the brain are performed quite unconsciously, without the need of the conscious mind. But the point is not lost. If the mind controls and directs any brain activities, the mind is in some sense independent of the brain. This is the basis for Penfield’s dualism. When challenged, Penfield clarified his position as follows:

 

“As a matter of fact all through my experimental and exploratory career, I adopted the assumption that you [directed to a colleague, Sir Charles Symonds] accept: ‘that activities of the highest centers [in the brain] and of mental states are one and the same thing.’ That is the correct scientific approach for a neurophysiologist: to try to prove that the brain explains the mind and that mind is no more than a function of the brain. But during this time of analysis, I found no suggestion of action by a brain-mechanism that accounts for mind-action. That is in spite of the fact that there is a highest brain-mechanism and that is seems to awaken the mind, as though it gave it energy, and seems itself to be used in turn by the mind as ‘messenger.’ Since I cannot explain the mind on the basis of your ‘assumption,’ I conclude that one must consider a second hypothesis” that man’s being is to be explained by two fundamental elements.” [i.e. matter and mind]

 

Now, lets take an even closer look at what Penfield is saying. First he does what nearly all neuroscientists do, compare the brain to a computer. The standard explanation it that the brain computes information received from the senses, which results in conscious experience [somehow] and appropriate [or inappropriate] behavior, with a lot of processing going on in the middle, all explainable, at least in principle, by the operation of neurons, circuits, and systems in the brain. These micro and macro aspects of brain processing are shaped by both genetic factors and the environment. Consciousness, and mentality itself are merely “properties” of the brain that emerged [somehow] through ordinary, evolutionary processes, presumably involving natural selection. This is the standard line, with some variation as to the details.

 

What Penfield reminded us of is that the brain is nothing more than hardware. This means there is no “representation” in the brain absent an interpreter, i.e. mind. The brain does not “see,” smell, or “hear” anything. Language has no meaning to the brain. Moreover, nothing in the brain “represents” the world. It is only a “computer” with causes and effects. To make a computer meaningful, there must be a programmer who controls the input, and an interpreter, who assesses and provides meaning to the output. Without these participants, the computer is completely meaningless and non-functional. The same is exactly true of the brain. Without the mind to interpret, the brain is simply a hunk of gray matter, interacting with other body parts and the evironment only by cause and effect.

 

Now here is the hard part. Materialist neuroscientists and neuro-philosophers know all of the above. They realize that they not only must tie the brain to mind through correlations, they must insist that the brain magically “creates” the mind, including the individual self. It is as if you could take a computer, and add a high degree of complexity, and presto a conscious mind would emerge. (It is amusing to say the least that such people often accuse dualists of “magical thinking.”) Note, however, that no one has the slightest clue either how this happened, or how it is even possible. Neuroscientists and others have no idea what the mind is or how it emerges. They can only produce unfounded speculations, affirming that it must have happened in some natural way, without satisfactorily addressing the profound philosophical difficulties entailed by taking mind seriously.

 

It is exactly the above puzzle that led the astute philosopher Daniel Dennett, and others, to simply deny that the mental exists. The problem is that there is no coherent account of the mind, one that takes the mind seriously, that does not entail some form of dualism. Since, according to Dennett dualism is obviously false, we therefore must think of mind in a different way—i.e. that it is an illusion. Many philosophers have chided Dennett for such a ludicrous proposition, but they have not been able to appreciate that this conclusion was inevitable if one insisted upon a rejection of dualism.

 

In any event, Penfield’s acknowledgement of dualism, at a time when it was already very much intellectually out of favor, was quite brave. And it should be remembered that his dualism was based upon years of experience as a neuroscientist. He simply could not find a brain mechanism that accounted for the obvious fact that the mind often controls the brain, rather than the brain always controlling the mind.

 

Of course, dualism, and taking the mind seriously, does not necessarily imply the existence of the soul, but it does lay the groundwork for such belief. Moreover, it suggests that phenomena like near death experiences and past life reports perhaps ought to be taken seriously. Certainly, when someone suggests on neurological grounds that dualism and related mental phenomena are intellectual fantasies, akin to “young earth” science, it should be questioned whether they have done their homework, or if they are just echoing the rhetoric of misinformed intellectual friends with fancy resumes.

[westvirginia]

Go fornicate with shxg and pick on a mormon...