S1: Hi friend, thank you so much for downloading this podcast
S1: and I truly hope you hear something that edifies encourage, equips, enlightens,
S1: and then gets you out there in the marketplace of ideas.
S1: But before you go, I want to tell you about
S1: this month's truth tool. It's called Have You Ever Wondered?
S1: And I absolutely love this topic because if you're like me,
S1: going out into the night sky and looking up and
S1: seeing a million stars, don't you just stop and think
S1: about God? And are you not in a moment of
S1: awe and wonder or looking out over the vast expanse
S1: of an ocean and you start thinking, what is man,
S1: that thou art mindful of him? And it makes you
S1: wonder about the magnificence of God? I think that sense
S1: of wonder was put there on purpose, and this wonderful
S1: book includes a composite of multiple authors who have written
S1: from their perspective as a scientist, or a historian, or
S1: a mathematician or an artist, on why they all have
S1: this sense of awe through the work that they do.
S1: In other words, the heavens declare the glory. And as
S1: it tells us in Romans, we are really without excuse
S1: because his handiwork is everywhere, and this book invites you
S1: to walk through the chapters written by people who all
S1: have a sense of awe and wonder when it comes
S1: to God through their various disciplines in life. It's an
S1: amazing book and it's yours. For a gift of any amount.
S1: Just call 877 Janet 58. That's 877 Janet 58. Ask
S1: for a copy of Have You Ever Wondered? And we'll
S1: send it right off to you as my way of
S1: saying thank you, because we are listener supported radio. Or
S1: you can go online to in the market with Janet
S1: Parshall and you're also on the website. Consider becoming a
S1: partial partner. Those are people who give every single month
S1: at a level of their own choosing. You always get
S1: the truth tool, but in addition to that, you get
S1: a weekly newsletter that includes my writing and an audio
S1: piece just for my partial partner. So 877 Janet 58
S1: or the website in the market with Janet parshall.org consider
S1: becoming a partial partner or asking for this month's truth tool.
S1: Have you ever wondered? And now please enjoy the broadcast.
S2: Here are some of the news headlines we're watching.
S3: The conference was over. The president won a pledge.
S4: Americans worshiping government over God.
S3: Extremely rare safety move by a major 17 years.
S4: The Palestinians and Israelis negotiated.
S1: Hi, friends. Welcome to In the Market with Janet Parshall.
S1: I am so excited about spending the next hour with you.
S1: How often on this program do I remind you that
S1: one of the purpose of this broadcast is to help
S1: us think critically and biblically? And how often do I
S1: say after I made that statement, that's not an either
S1: or proposition. It is a both. And how do I
S1: know that? Well, let's start with Scripture. The Bible says
S1: we come to faith in Christ and our heart is transformed,
S1: but our mind is renewed. And you really do start
S1: looking around at the world in a markedly different way
S1: with clarity. It's like The Wizard of Oz when you
S1: go from the black and white part of the movie
S1: to it's all Technicolor. And so we really and truly
S1: see things a little bit differently when we have, if
S1: I can put it this way, a biblio centric worldview.
S1: One of the reasons I also challenge us to be
S1: thinking critically in biblically is because it's about tearing down
S1: a lot of mythology that's out there, promulgated by people
S1: who have a worldview that might be the antithesis of
S1: a biblical worldview. It might come from the real animus
S1: toward a biblical worldview. Ideas like, for example, that science
S1: and religion are at war with one another. We've done
S1: so many programs on that where history says, sorry, that's
S1: simply not the case. In fact, the greatest scientists of
S1: all times were people who believed, sorry, there's just too
S1: much order and form and purpose here has to be
S1: a divine creator, has to be an intelligent design behind
S1: all of this. The idea, too, that it's either faith
S1: or reason, but that the two are mutually exclusive. Now
S1: I'm coming to you from Washington, D.C. let me tell you,
S1: that's an idea that's prevalent in this town. We have
S1: more PhDs per capita in the city than in any
S1: other city in the United States of America. And there
S1: really is this idea that somehow when you come to
S1: faith in Jesus Christ, you put your brains in a shoebox,
S1: you slip them under the bed, and you never use
S1: them again. Absolutely not true. Some of the greatest thinkers
S1: out there are people who, again, recognize the fact that
S1: God set everything in motion, that he is the great Creator,
S1: and that there is purpose and form and substance and
S1: a love that is almost incomprehensible in the universe today.
S1: So we're about to engage in a fascinating conversation. I
S1: quite literally could not put this book down. I mean,
S1: let me give you the title and ask you without
S1: even knowing what's in it yet. If you could put
S1: it down, it's called the Immortal Mind, a Neurosurgeon's case
S1: for the existence of the soul. Now, immediately you have
S1: that intersection between science and faith, and our teacher is
S1: going to be a man who's got a lot of
S1: years of experience in this area. Doctor Michael Egnor is
S1: with us. He's the professor of neurosurgery and pediatrics at
S1: the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. He
S1: received his medical degree from the College of Physicians and
S1: Surgeons at Columbia University. Trained in neurosurgery at the University
S1: of Miami. He's been on the faculty at Stony Brook
S1: since 1991. He's the neurosurgery residency director and has served
S1: as the director of pediatric neurosurgery and as a vice
S1: chairman of neurosurgery at Stony Brook medicine. In addition to
S1: a full time neurosurgical practice, he directs. He directs currently
S1: a research program on intracranial dynamics, cerebral blood flow hydrocephalus,
S1: and has lectured at scientific meetings and worldwide, and published
S1: and at scientific meetings worldwide, and has published in leading
S1: medical journals journals including the Journal of Neurosurgery and the
S1: Cerebral Cerebrospinal Fluid Research. I know the doctors have long words.
S1: A lot of it comes from the Latin, I get it,
S1: and he has a very keen mind. He's interested in
S1: the intersection of faith and science. He was named, by
S1: the way, one of New York's best doctors by New
S1: York Magazine in Seen in 2005, and he is the
S1: author of the book we're about to discuss again, The
S1: Immortal Mind A Neurosurgeon's case for the existence of the soul. Michael,
S1: I am thrilled. Can I just say on a personal level,
S1: thank you for a most interesting and intriguing book. It's
S1: the kind that for those of us who have faith,
S1: it just confirms what we know. And for those who don't,
S1: this is a marvelous way to start sifting and weighing
S1: the evidence out there and see if there isn't something more.
S1: You draw a distinction early on in the book, and
S1: I think it's important for the listeners now who are
S1: talking or hearing us all across the country, a distinction
S1: between the brain and the mind. From a neurosurgeon's perspective,
S1: talk to me about that.
S5: Thank you Janet. I started out my career as a
S5: materialist and an atheist, and I thought that everything in
S5: the mind came from the brain. I fell in love
S5: with neuroscience. I decided to become a neurosurgeon, to study
S5: the brain and the mind more closely. And I found
S5: as my training and experience went on that there is
S5: a much less of a linkage between the way the
S5: brain works and the way the mind works than we
S5: commonly believe. I have patients who are missing major parts
S5: of their brains who really are perfectly okay or doing very,
S5: very well. What brought this to a head was many
S5: years ago, I was operating on a woman who had
S5: a brain tumor in her left frontal lobe, and the
S5: tumor had infiltrated a an important part of her brain.
S5: And it was next to her speech area. So I
S5: had to operate on her with with her awake so
S5: I could map the area of her brain that controlled
S5: her speech so that I wouldn't damage it. And we
S5: use local anesthesia. So she felt no pain. And as
S5: I was operating and removing the tumor and the part
S5: of the brain that the tumor had infiltrated, I was
S5: talking with her. We had a conversation. We we talked
S5: for hours about, um, her family, about the weather, about
S5: the lunch and the hospital cafeteria. And she never turned
S5: to hair. She was perfectly normal through all the time
S5: that I was taking out a major part of the
S5: left frontal lobe of her brain. And none of my
S5: textbooks in medical school had predicted that. And that's a
S5: common experience with, with neurosurgeons that you can remove major
S5: parts of the brain and people are perfectly normal afterwards.
S5: So I began reading more about the neuroscience and about
S5: the philosophy that guides the neuroscience. And I discovered things
S5: that I hadn't expected.
S1: Wow. And you talk about that in the book, by
S1: the way, and just give a standard in the law
S1: as the preponderance of evidence, there really is something greater
S1: than us. There really is a sense of immortality. Yeah,
S1: I'm coming up to a break, and I don't want
S1: to interrupt your story, so if I can, I'm going
S1: to ask Steven if we can take a break early.
S1: And when we come back, Michael, I think it would
S1: be wonderful because you talk about having a materialistic worldview.
S1: Science was something that you wanted to pursue. You write
S1: in the book, by the way, that you had to
S1: go back and forth with deciding between being in neurology
S1: or cardiology. And the more you study and looked at
S1: the brain, the more fascinated you became. And the rest
S1: is history. But you did change not just your discipline
S1: from going from wanting to pursue cardiology to pursuing neurology.
S1: But you changed because you no longer had a materialistic view.
S1: After a seminal moment on the floor of a chapel.
S1: I want to tell that story when we come back.
S1: It is an absolutely riveting book. You will not be
S1: able to put it down. It is so much evidence
S1: and that just affirms again how great God is, how
S1: fearfully and wonderfully made we are. And when God places
S1: eternity in our hearts, he says it in His Word.
S1: He really means it, and science can substantiate it back
S1: after this. So many in our culture today are spiritually
S1: curious but hesitant about religion. That's why I've chosen. Have
S1: you ever wondered, is this month's truth tool explore how
S1: everyday experiences might be the signpost pointing to deeper biblical truths.
S1: As for your copy of have You ever wondered when
S1: you give a gift of any amount to in the market,
S1: call eight 7758, that's eight 7758 or go to in
S1: the market with Janet Parshall. We are spending the hour
S1: with Doctor Michael Egnor, who is the professor of neurosurgery
S1: and pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook.
S1: He's also the author of the book The Immortal Mind
S1: A Neurosurgeon's Case for the existence of the soul. Absolutely
S1: fascinating read. So, if I may, let me go back
S1: to this moment, because this is how you start the book,
S1: because I and I thank you for that, because it
S1: takes us into your personal journey of how there was
S1: a seismic shift in the way in which you saw
S1: the world around you, particularly how you saw science going
S1: forward after that experience in the chapel. So if you'd
S1: be so kind, what happened?
S5: Well, I as I had mentioned, I started my life
S5: out as an atheist and as a materialist and I,
S5: I didn't, uh, dislike Christianity. I was not an angry atheist.
S5: I actually thought Christians were really nice people, and I
S5: thought Christianity was was a very beautiful thing. I just
S5: thought it was a myth. Um, and, uh, science was
S5: what I worshipped and what I loved. And I still
S5: love science. I don't, I don't worship it. But I
S5: found that as I was, um, practicing and I was
S5: as I was learning, I would get what I called hauntings,
S5: which were these times when I would be struck with
S5: a thought that, you know, I don't know where I
S5: came from or why I'm here, or why anything exists
S5: or where I'm going. And in the daily, um, hustle
S5: and bustle of life, we kind of forget those questions.
S5: And they, they were they were eerie. And, um, when
S5: my youngest son was born, um, we noticed in the
S5: first few months of life that he wasn't making eye
S5: contact with us. He wasn't smiling, and he wasn't really
S5: interacting with us as people. He was more interacting with
S5: us as like objects. And I was very concerned that
S5: he might have a disability, that it might be a
S5: severe form form of autism. So I was terrified of that.
S5: And we took him to a doctor to have him examined.
S5: And the doctor said, it's really too early to know.
S5: We can't be sure. So one night I was seeing
S5: a patient in a Catholic hospital near where my main
S5: hospital is, and I was really this was weighing heavily
S5: on me. So as I was leaving the hospital, there
S5: was a chapel there. So I stopped in the chapel
S5: late at night, and I got down in front of
S5: the altar and I prayed to God. I said, God,
S5: I don't know if you exist. I'd rather doubt that
S5: you do, but I have no other options right now.
S5: I don't want my son not to know me, not
S5: to love me. And that's tearing me apart. So please
S5: take this away from me. And I heard a voice.
S5: The only time in my life I've ever heard. A
S5: voice that wasn't my own. And the voice said. But
S5: that's what you're doing to me. And I realized, um,
S5: that he was showing me what he felt. Um, by
S5: my not knowing him and loving him. And, um. So
S5: I collapsed and I said, well, I won't do it
S5: to you anymore. Um. And please, please help my son.
S5: And so I the next morning, I called up the
S5: church and I said, I'd like to get baptized because
S5: I hadn't been baptized as a kid. Like, get my
S5: family baptized. And, um, a couple of days later with
S5: my son's six month birthday, and, um, he was completely normal.
S5: He was smiling and interacting in a perfectly normal child. Um,
S5: and it radically changed the way I came to see science.
S5: I came to understand that, um, that the world is
S5: intelligently designed. The world comes from a mind, from a powerful,
S5: powerful mind and a very loving mind. And that we
S5: can't do good science unless we acknowledge, um, where the
S5: world really comes from. You can't do science with blinders on.
S5: You've got to understand the truth. And the truth is God.
S5: So I think it's helped my science a lot. It's
S5: helped my understanding of the mind and brain relationship. It
S5: has helped even my basic research. My research mainly is
S5: on blood flow to the brain, and understanding that it's
S5: a design system made by an intelligent agent has been
S5: enormously helpful in understanding how blood flow to the brain works.
S1: Wow. Wow. I got tears in my eyes when I
S1: read that part about God saying, but that's what you're
S1: doing to me. And I thought how often were like that?
S1: We're like autistic children that don't make contact with God,
S1: and yet he loved us so much he sent his
S1: son to die for us. And so that intimacy is
S1: he's waiting. He's just waiting for us to come to him,
S1: which I think is so profound and so precious and
S1: so almost incomprehensible. As a physician, how did it change
S1: the way you treated patients when you went from a
S1: materialistic to a biblical worldview?
S5: Well, I as I said, I always thought that the
S5: Christians were quite nice. So I was always nice to
S5: my patients. But I came to, I would speak to
S5: them more about God and about faith, if that's what
S5: they wanted. And I, many of my patients have have
S5: deep faith. And I came to see I came to
S5: see that people of deep faith seem to deal better
S5: with the very difficult things that neurosurgical patients face, that
S5: they face brain injury, they face, brain tumors, strokes, all
S5: kinds of horrible, horrible things. And people of faith seem
S5: to have a deeper well of resilience in dealing with
S5: that kind of thing. And that also impressed me.
S1: Wow. Wow. Amazing. Let me talk about epilepsy because you
S1: write about this in the book. And you define it
S1: as a doorway to the human mind. And you tell
S1: us the story of a patient you call Sam. Talk
S1: to me about how this began to open the door
S1: for so many things that you discovered.
S5: Back in the 1940s. It was discovered that a certain
S5: kind of seizure could be stopped by cutting the brain
S5: in half, basically. It sounds like a crazy radical idea,
S5: but there's a bundle of fibers called the corpus callosum
S5: that connects the two brain hemispheres. It's got about two
S5: 2 billion fibers in it. Um, and the, um, seizures
S5: pass across that connection. And if you go in and
S5: cut that connection, it prevents the propagation of seizures and
S5: people do much better. Um, most seizures can be controlled
S5: with medication, but there are some that you need to
S5: do that that operation and was found that it worked very,
S5: very well. So from about 1940 on, there have been
S5: thousands of patients who've had that surgery. And I've done
S5: the surgery. And what I found remarkable about it is
S5: that you can disconnect the hemispheres of the brain, and
S5: people are really normal. That is, they don't feel like
S5: two people. Uh, it would be the same thing as
S5: if you took a chainsaw and you cut your computer
S5: in half, and it still worked just fine. It's a
S5: very odd thing to have somebody whose brain has been
S5: functionally disconnected side to side who really feels it perfectly
S5: integrated person and so on. So I began looking into
S5: the scientific research on this. And, um, there's a doctor
S5: named Roger Sperry. He's a scientist who won the Nobel
S5: Prize studying these patients. And what he found, which many
S5: other scientists have found. The same thing, is that cutting
S5: the brain in half with that operation does give people
S5: very subtle perceptual disabilities. Um, and you can, for example,
S5: show an object to one hemisphere of the brain, another
S5: object to another hemisphere of the brain, and the person
S5: has a restricted experience of those two different hemispheres. But
S5: there is no disconnection of consciousness, and there's no disconnection
S5: of the ability to form concepts and to use reason.
S5: So there's a part of the mind that is not
S5: cut by cutting the brain, although there's also a part
S5: of the mind that is cut by cutting the brain.
S5: And so it's a dramatic finding.
S1: Unbelievable. As you were talking again, it just gives such
S1: depth of meaning to the Psalmist's declaration that we're fearfully
S1: and wonderfully made. The mystery and the majesty of the brain.
S1: Doctor Michael Egner is with us. He's an award winning
S1: brain surgeon and author of the new book, The Immortal
S1: Mind A Neurosurgeon's case for the existence of the soul.
S1: There's so much in the book, and it is magnificent
S1: back after this. The Immortal Mind A neurosurgeons case for
S1: the existence of the soul. That is the new book
S1: by Doctor Michael Egnor, who's professor of neurosurgery and pediatrics
S1: at State University of New York, Stony Brook. I want
S1: to go to this idea of lucidity in a minute,
S1: but I want to remind our friends that you write
S1: early on in the book that the mind is defined
S1: as our perceptions, emotions, memories, thoughts, capacity for reason, our
S1: free will, and so on. The brain, a £3 organ
S1: in our skull that generates electrical signals and neurochemicals. So
S1: I want to do that because what I'm going to
S1: ask you now speaks to where again, this distinction starts
S1: to become more and more clear vis a vis your
S1: observations and your practice. So you talk about terminal lucidity
S1: and paradoxical lucidity. What is that?
S5: Um, lucidity, uh, either paradoxical or terminal, refers to a
S5: rather common occurrence in people who have, uh, severe brain problems,
S5: particularly in Alzheimer's disease, in which they will be in
S5: a very bad way. Uh non-communicative. Um, really, you know,
S5: out of it and then for a brief period of time,
S5: commonly half hour, 45 minutes will wake up and be
S5: very interactive and in many ways be their old self again.
S5: And then they slip back into the unresponsive state. Um,
S5: this has been called terminal lucidity because it not uncommonly happens, uh,
S5: within a day or even a few hours of death. However, um,
S5: it really can happen any time. It's not necessarily a
S5: sign of impending death, and it's very well documented. I
S5: have a colleague here at Stony Brook, Steven Post, who's
S5: written a book about it. It's fairly well studied and
S5: it's quite real. And Denise O'Leary, who's my co-author on
S5: this book, Denise is a science journalist from Canada. Um,
S5: saw an episode of Paradoxical Lucidity with, uh, her father, uh,
S5: who was in the advanced stages of, uh, brain disease.
S1: Wow. You know, when I read this part of the book,
S1: I thought, Michael, this reminds me of the movie awakenings
S1: with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. And I thought,
S1: I think that's the lucidity that you were talking about.
S5: Yes, yes. People can just just wake up and be
S5: their old self. After years of, um, problems with memory
S5: and dementia from things like Alzheimer's.
S1: Wow. So let me just ask a question from your
S1: peers in the scientific community. You had an awakening, no
S1: pun intended, where you suddenly realized that there is a
S1: sense of immortality Brutality, and you were beginning to see
S1: the handiwork of God as you were treating your patients.
S1: But to your peers in the scientific community who are
S1: not yet there, do they draw a distinction between the
S1: mind and the brain, or are they one and the same?
S5: There are many different theories about how the mind relates
S5: to the brain. Um, probably the two most common theories
S5: nowadays among neuroscientists are both materialist theories of sorts. One
S5: is called functionalism, and the idea is that the brain
S5: is like the hardware and a computer, and the mind
S5: is like the software in a computer. Uh, the other
S5: theory is called eliminative materialism. And eliminative materialism is a
S5: theory that we don't have minds, that actually the only
S5: thing we have is brain processes, and that it's just
S5: a confusion of language when we're talking about a thought
S5: or a feeling, what we're really just talking about is
S5: a state of the brain and the original mind involved.
S5: I think both of those theories are wrong. Um, and um,
S5: but those those are the two common materialist theories. Most materialists.
S5: I'm sorry. Most, um, neuroscientists, uh, don't embrace dualism, don't
S5: embrace the existence of the soul. Although historically there have
S5: been many neuroscientists who who have. Uh, Charles Sherrington, the
S5: pioneer in neuroscience, was. I was a dualist. Wilder Penfield,
S5: a pioneering neurosurgeon, was a dualist. Uh, got him. Eccles,
S5: who won the Nobel Prize for neuroscience in the 1960s,
S5: was a dualist. A number of neuroscientists have been dualists,
S5: but nowadays most neuroscientists are materialists.
S1: Hmm. Fascinating. So that. And you write about this in
S1: the book. There's so many angles on this book that
S1: I just found intriguing, and each one of them deserves
S1: a one hour conversation on their own. But in light
S1: of what you just shared, let me talk about if
S1: you if you are a dualist, it makes sense. If
S1: you're not. What do you do with the whole concept
S1: of free will?
S5: Uh, free, free will has been a tremendous problem. Um,
S5: and it's, uh, for, for, uh, materialists. It's not a
S5: problem for dualists, or at least not in the same way, um,
S5: materialists have really struggled with explaining how free will could
S5: be possible if everything that we do is a result
S5: of material processes in the brain. Um, there are, um,
S5: materialists who are what are called compatibilists, who believe that
S5: everything is determined by the brain, but you can still
S5: have something that's like free will. Uh, and there are
S5: materialists who are incompatibilists who believe that free will simply
S5: doesn't exist. Um, I think they're both wrong. Um, and
S5: they're wrong for, for several reasons. Um, the most obvious
S5: reason is that everybody in the world actually believes in
S5: free will, because we live our lives that way. Uh,
S5: we we we all have, you know, moral feelings. We
S5: hold ourselves and other people accountable and so on. And
S5: you wouldn't do that if you didn't, on some level,
S5: believe that free will was real. Uh, the other problem
S5: is that denial of free will is self-refuting. That is,
S5: if you say you're just a meat machine with no
S5: ability to to to choose rationally, then why would we
S5: listen to what you have to say? Why would we
S5: pay any attention to what you're saying? Um, the third
S5: reason of free will is real is that, um, there
S5: is room for it in science. That is that determinism
S5: in physics, the idea that everything that happens in a
S5: physical world is completely determined by material things that just
S5: precede it, has been shown to be basically wrong, at
S5: least in the main theory of quantum mechanics. And the
S5: fourth reason of free will, I think, is real is
S5: that the neuroscience supports that view.
S1: And tell me why you think neuroscience supports it. Well,
S1: there's the music, there's the music. So forgive me. That's
S1: that was rude on my part. I want to give
S1: you enough time to answer, Michael. So I don't want
S1: to have to rush you through the break. Let me
S1: leave that last one hanging evidence, by the way, you
S1: just gave for you. You do an expansive coverage on
S1: this in the book The Immortal Mind. The fact that
S1: we all behave as if free will is real. Evidence
S1: from logic. evidence from physics and evidence from neuroscientists. So
S1: I want to go to that last one when we
S1: come back. The book is called The Immortal Mind A
S1: Neurosurgeon's case for the existence of the soul. So often
S1: we say in this program, isn't it marvelous when you
S1: see science affirming what God has already told us to
S1: be true, fearfully and wonderfully made? And if God has
S1: placed eternity in our hearts, and the word says that
S1: that's the case, then there has to be something more.
S1: And does science substantiate that? That's what this book is
S1: really all about. More with Doctor Michael Egnor after this egnor.
S1: If what you hear on In the market with Janet
S1: Parshall encourages you, enlightens you, engages you, and equips you,
S1: I want to ask you to become a partial partner today.
S1: This program depends on the faithful and ongoing support of
S1: listeners just like you. By supporting this program on a regular,
S1: ongoing monthly basis, you'll receive several benefits that only my
S1: partners receive. So please call today 877 1877 Janet 58
S1: or go online to In the market with Janet Parshall.
S1: Award winning brain surgeon Doctor Michael Egnor is our guest.
S1: He's professor of neurosurgery and pediatrics at the Renaissance School
S1: of Medicine at Stony Brook University. He received his medical
S1: degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University,
S1: and trained in neurosurgery at the University of Miami. He's
S1: been on the faculty, by the way, at Stony Brook
S1: since 1991. So he has a lot of experience and
S1: thousands of procedures under his belt. So when he writes
S1: the book The Immortal Mind A Neurosurgeons Case for the
S1: existence of the soul. Well, in the law you'd say
S1: this is your expert witness. And I think the jury
S1: would be impressed with the credentials that Doctor Egnor brings
S1: to the table. So we were just talking about the
S1: fact that free will is a reality. And you gave
S1: us four areas and you expand on this. As I
S1: noted earlier in the book, the fact that we all
S1: behave like we have free will, there's evidence from logic,
S1: there's evidence from physics, and then there's evidence from neuroscience,
S1: which really kind of an unfair question, Michael, because that's
S1: the primary thesis of the book. But tell me some
S1: more about why we can say neuroscience points to the
S1: existence of free will.
S5: Sure. Um, some of the original neuroscience research on free
S5: wills was done by Wilder Penfield. Uh, Doctor Penfield was
S5: a pioneer in neurosurgery back in the middle of the
S5: 20th century in Montreal. And he, um, was especially interested
S5: in understanding epilepsy. So he did, um, about 1100 brain
S5: operations with the patients awake. I mentioned earlier in this
S5: hour that I've operated on people awake during their surgery,
S5: and he did it 1100 times. And what he would
S5: do is map their brains. He used local anesthesia so
S5: they didn't feel any pain. And he mapped their brains
S5: with an electrical stimulator to find out what parts of
S5: the brain were safe to, um, to remove if they
S5: were causing seizures and what parts were not safe. And
S5: he had to leave alone. So one of his experiments
S5: was he could make people's limbs move by stimulating the
S5: part of the brain that makes the limbs move. And
S5: he told the patients who were under surgical drapes and
S5: couldn't see what he was doing, and they couldn't feel
S5: what he was doing, either, because the brain has no
S5: sense of touch. Um, he said, I want you to
S5: occasionally raise your arm, and I'll occasionally make your arm
S5: raise by by stimulating your brain. And I want you
S5: to tell me when you have willed your arm to
S5: raise and when I make your arm raise. So he
S5: did it, you know, thousands and thousands of times on
S5: a whole spectrum of patients. And they always got it right.
S5: They always knew when when they raised their arm, the
S5: patient would say, no, I raise my arm that time,
S5: or Penfield would make their arm raise and the patient
S5: would say, I didn't. Will that you did it to me.
S5: He could never find the will area in the brain.
S5: And he said, the obvious explanation for that is, is
S5: that will doesn't come from the brain, that it's free,
S5: that that it's a spiritual power. It's not a physical power. Um,
S5: the other research that's been done on free will was
S5: done by Benjamin Libet, who is a neuroscientist from California
S5: back in the mid 20th century, um, who was a
S5: wonderful neuroscientist and did fascinating experiments in which he would
S5: ask people to decide to do something like push a button.
S5: And they had a clock in front of them with
S5: a sweep hand that would allow them to time the
S5: moment the decision entered their mind, the moment they said,
S5: I'm going to push the button to with like to
S5: within like 20 milliseconds of the time they had that thought.
S5: And what he found was that for push, like pushing
S5: a button, um, about half a second before you push
S5: a button, there's a spike in your brain, um, that
S5: your brain sort of says it's time to push the button,
S5: but you're not consciously aware of that until after the spike.
S5: So it looked as though we didn't really have the
S5: free will to push the buttons that the brain was
S5: forcing it, and we just happened to think we were free.
S5: But what Libet did was he asked the people occasionally
S5: to veto their decision to push the button so they
S5: would get this urge to push the button. They note
S5: the time they would go to push the button and
S5: then they'd say, nope, I'm not going to do it.
S5: I'm going to stop. And he found that the veto
S5: was not associated with any new brainwave. So he said
S5: that we are tempted by what the brain gives us,
S5: and that's preconscious. We're not fully conscious of it, but
S5: we get these temptations, but we can choose freely to
S5: accept or not accept it. He says that's where free
S5: will is. And he said, in a sense, it's free
S5: won't that is, that we can choose not to do
S5: it if it's if it's a bad, bad temptation. So
S5: there have been a lot of people who followed up
S5: on Penfield's research, not not Penfield's Libet's research. And, um,
S5: although his research is often interpreted as showing that we
S5: don't have free will, it actually showed the opposite. And
S5: Libert was a strong believer in the reality of free will.
S1: Wow. Absolutely fascinating. In deference to time, let me move
S1: to another topic. And by the way, you expand on
S1: all of this in your new book, The Immortal Mind.
S1: And I want our friends to know if this is
S1: a conversation that's getting you curious, then I will have
S1: done my job. I want you to get excited about
S1: this book so you'll pick up your own copy. I've
S1: talked to many a theologian about near-death experiences, but Michael,
S1: I don't know how many neurosurgeons I've talked to, and
S1: I'm fascinated by getting your vantage point on this. You know,
S1: some people dismiss it outright. There are all kinds of
S1: theories about what actually causes this. But you identified this
S1: as someone who's medically dead but has a spiritual experience.
S1: Talk to me about this.
S5: Well, um, there are a number of people. The estimates
S5: are about 9 million people in the in the United
S5: States have had some kind of near-death experience or out-of-body
S5: experience associated with being very sick. So it actually has
S5: happened to millions of people in this country right now,
S5: and it's relatively common. Um, and um, there are four
S5: characteristics of near-death experiences that really point to their reality.
S5: First of all, they're very usually very highly organized. They're
S5: very clear. There's often a life review. There's often a
S5: conscious decision to to return to one's body. Um, it's
S5: not like a hallucination. It's not like, uh, if you
S5: have a lack of oxygen, it's very clear. The second
S5: characteristic is that people see what's going on in the
S5: room around them. That is, even when their brain is dead,
S5: when it's not functioning, they can see the names on
S5: people's name tags. They can see. They can hear what
S5: people are talking about in the room. They see things
S5: like up near the ceiling of the room that they
S5: couldn't see from their vantage point. Um, so there's a
S5: there's a lot of corroboration that that goes on. The
S5: third thing is that as far as I know, there's
S5: never been a report in the scientific literature, and there
S5: are thousands of reports in the scientific literature of near-death
S5: experiences where people at the other end of the tunnel,
S5: they often have a tunnel that leads them into heaven,
S5: where people have seen any living people, that is. We
S5: only encounter dead people in near-death experiences, which of course
S5: makes sense because these experiences are real. And the fourth
S5: characteristic is that they're transformative. People very often radically change
S5: their lives based on these experiences. Um, the most dramatic
S5: near-death experience, I think, actually happened to a neurosurgical patient
S5: in 1991 named Pam Reynolds. She had an aneurysm at
S5: the base of her brain and needed a radical operation
S5: done in Phoenix by Robert Spetzler, who was a famous neurosurgeon. Um,
S5: and what Doctor Spetzler had to do was cool her
S5: body down to about 60°F, stop her heart, drain the
S5: blood out of her brain, fix the aneurysm. It was
S5: a blood vessel problem, and then restart her heart and
S5: allow the blood to go back into her brain. So
S5: for 30 minutes, she was absolutely brain dead during that time.
S5: She left her body. She floated up to the ceiling.
S5: She watched the whole operation. She understood the conversations that
S5: people had in the operating room. She described the instruments
S5: and detail that were being used. She went down a
S5: tunnel she encountered. She encountered her grandmother and some relatives
S5: who told her that she wasn't ready to die yet.
S5: She had to go back and raise her children. She
S5: came back down the tunnel and she said that entering
S5: her body again was like diving into a pool of
S5: ice water, which is real because her body temperature was
S5: 60 degrees, actually.
S1: Right.
S5: So near-death experiences are very well documented in the medical literature,
S5: and I believe that, um, many of them are very real,
S5: real experiences. Um, so they're they're quite true. Um.
S1: Wow. So let me ask you, as a Christian now, again,
S1: because you had that epiphany and the floor of the chapel,
S1: and now you look at things markedly different. What do
S1: you think when you see these experiences again over and over?
S1: I'm staggered by the numbers. When you talk about millions
S1: of people, this can't be a one off. You know,
S1: and there are all kinds of conversations and theories out
S1: there about this is just chemicals going off in the brain. And,
S1: I mean, there's a myriad of other things, but you
S1: have a different perspective on this from where you sit.
S1: It's inarguable that these are legitimate. So why? I mean,
S1: how do we drop that into a scientific. Yeah, I
S1: can't I can't put this in a laboratory and in
S1: a petri dish, and yet it happens. So how do
S1: we handle this?
S5: Well, um, it can be scientifically affirmed in various ways.
S5: One is that there is corroboration. About 20% of near-death
S5: experiences have things that the patient sees in their environment
S5: when they're brain dead. So you can prove it. I mean,
S5: it's it's clear, um, and, um, uh, again, they only
S5: see dead people on the, on the other side of
S5: the experience. And people's subjective experience can be a part
S5: of science. The whole science of psychology is people's subjective experiences.
S5: So we can't discount, at least 9 million people who've
S5: had these life transforming events. Um, and science needs to
S5: let go of their materialist ideology, their materialist bias, and
S5: understand that this stuff is real.
S1: Wow. You report that Pam's story was told on CBS's
S1: 48 hours, and also there was a BBC documentary entitled
S1: The Day I died that tells her story as well again.
S1: So let me ask you, for those who don't yet
S1: have a dualist perspective, who don't yet believe in the
S1: immortal mind, and we pray someday that they do come
S1: to that realization. So how do they handle these things?
S5: Well, I just ask them to please follow the evidence
S5: that is that don't let your bias, don't let your
S5: ideology get in the way of the truth. Um, so
S5: just look at look at the evidence and look at
S5: it as objectively as possible. And um, at so many
S5: of these examples of scientific evidence, near-death experiences, um, experiences
S5: with stimulating the brain in surgery, their experiences with free will.
S5: If you just step back and look at it objectively,
S5: we obviously have souls and we obviously have spiritual souls
S5: where there's an aspect of our soul that is not material,
S5: that's not just part of the brain.
S1: This coming from a neurosurgeon. I tell you, this book
S1: is fascinating. The Immortal mind, a neurosurgeons case for the
S1: existence of the soul. By the way, if you go
S1: to our information page, there's a link to the book
S1: you can click on through so that you can get
S1: your own copy. It is one of those books. It's
S1: written for the layman, by the way, even though this
S1: is an award winning brain surgeon, but it's written for
S1: you and me so you can understand exactly what's going on.
S1: Share it with someone who still doesn't believe in the
S1: idea that we are bodies that have a spirit, but
S1: we're really spirits in a body. Share this book with them.
S1: It will open their eyes back after this. Doctor Michael
S1: Egnor is with us, professor of neurosurgery and pediatrics at
S1: State University of New York, Stony Brook. He served as
S1: the director of pediatric neurosurgery, and again, he is an
S1: award winning brain surgeon. His new book, absolutely fascinating. It's
S1: called The Immortal Mind A Neurosurgeons Case for the existence
S1: of the soul. By the way, if you have a
S1: friend who's struggling, who really does think that there is
S1: this ongoing conflict between science and faith, this is a
S1: wonderful book to share with them, to really understand that
S1: there's evidence in science that affirms the reality of a
S1: creator and our intelligent designer in such intelligence. I imagine
S1: when you look at the brain, Michael, more and more
S1: of his greatness is revealed all the time. I was
S1: fascinated that you took up the subject of AI, because
S1: you think of ones and zeros and nuts and bolts
S1: and motherboards and diodes and all of that kind of stuff.
S1: And you think, well, how in the world does that
S1: enter into the world of neurosurgery? But it really does
S1: speak to the transcendence of the discipline that you're in,
S1: which is the idea that somehow we can subscribe humanness
S1: to a machine. I chafe and will never use pronouns
S1: when talking about a machine, so I won't call Sophia,
S1: she or Amaka, she their machines and if they want
S1: to try to make them in the image of a
S1: human being, they don't realize that they're hinting at something
S1: greater that they don't yet understand. Which is the whole
S1: idea of Imago Dei. Can we ever make a machine
S1: that is sentient? Can we ever make a machine? From
S1: your vantage point, that would have a soul?
S5: No, no, the idea is, is not only scientifically wrong,
S5: it's nonsense. It just doesn't even make any sense. Um, the, um,
S5: in the 19th century, um, there is a, um. A
S5: thread in philosophy, um, that, um, pointed out that, um,
S5: the fundamental thing about a, a thought that distinguishes it
S5: from a physical thing is called intentionality, which means that
S5: all thoughts have meaning. Um, if you think about it,
S5: everything you think about in some way means something. You
S5: think about things. You think about dinner. You think about
S5: your spouse. You think about Washington, D.C., but physical things
S5: don't have meaning. That is that a brick or a
S5: rock or a pencil doesn't have intrinsic meaning itself. We
S5: can ascribe meaning to them, but they don't have meaning
S5: of their own. Um, computation on, on the other hand,
S5: is always blind to meaning. Computation is just moving electrons around.
S5: And so computation is the process of taking an input,
S5: having a set of rules, and getting an output. But
S5: the output, the input and the output have have no
S5: meaning in themselves. So computers can't think. And in fact
S5: computation is the opposite of thought. Thought always has meaning
S5: and computation never has meaning. If you think about it, um,
S5: if computation did have meaning, it would be very impractical
S5: because it would mean that, say for example, you're typing
S5: an essay and expressing an opinion on your on your
S5: word processor. If your word processor, word processor itself had thoughts.
S5: It might disagree with you. It might not let you type.
S5: But so just the fact that we can use the
S5: computer to to express anything we want implies that the
S5: computer itself adds no thoughts to it. A computer, or
S5: even the most sophisticated AI, is no more capable of
S5: consciousness or of thought than my watch is capable of.
S5: Knowing what time it is, or a thermometer is capable
S5: of knowing what the temperature is. They're all tools. They're
S5: tools that help us think. But the tool can't think.
S1: Wow. Again, so important coming from you, a neurosurgeon. Because
S1: I will hear tech creators say we're teaching computers how
S1: to think. Now, I want to underscore a word that
S1: you just used. They can compute, but that is a distinction.
S1: Is it not, between thinking. And if you can think,
S1: therefore you can create. And we've got creators of AI
S1: that are telling us, well, if you put in enough information,
S1: they'll start teaching themselves again. We take these human words
S1: and superimpose them on a machine. They'll teach themselves how
S1: to think and create. That's I think it's it's wordsmithing,
S1: is it not? Because it's not a reality.
S5: Yes, yes. It's using words in the wrong context. Every
S5: bit of thought that is represented in a computer came
S5: from a human being. Computers simply leverage our thoughts. That is,
S5: their ways of expressing our thoughts. Just like a book
S5: is a way of expressing thoughts, or speech is a
S5: way of expressing thoughts. Um, now, AI is an extremely
S5: powerful thing and has enormous capacity for both good and evil. Um,
S5: but every bit of thought in AI is human thought,
S5: and AI leverages leverages our thoughts. I think in some
S5: ways that we don't fully understand yet. I mean, it's
S5: a very complex matter, but everything in there is us.
S5: AI is us, and the computer is just It's just
S5: the instrument. It's the tool.
S1: You talk about chat bots hallucinating. Talk to me about
S1: what that means.
S5: Well, there's a bizarre phenomenon that has been noticed that
S5: I can at times, um, when it when it mimics
S5: human speech, uh, just say nonsensical things. It can be
S5: talking about mathematics or philosophy and then suddenly start talking
S5: about rabbits, like, like it has a hallucination. Um, there,
S5: you know, there are all kinds of glitches that can
S5: happen in, in computers. Computers can freeze, computers can do
S5: weird things. Um, it's of course not a real hallucination. Um,
S5: a real hallucination is something a person has, but it's
S5: a glitch in the in the process of computation that
S5: can give you bizarre results. And it's another example of
S5: how we really have to get smart about what AI
S5: is and understand how it works. And as long as
S5: we think that AI is thinking, then we're not smart
S5: about what I really is.
S1: Oh well said. Thank you for that. You make this
S1: declarative statement. You say the human mind does require a soul. Why?
S5: The soul really is, um, according to Thomas Aquinas, is
S5: the principle of life in a human being. That is
S5: everything that makes you alive. Everything that makes you different
S5: from a dead body is your soul. So it's not
S5: a particularly mysterious thing. It's not like Casper the Ghost
S5: or this translucent thing that sort of is like your shape.
S5: You can see through it. That's not the soul we're
S5: talking about. The soul we're talking about is just all
S5: the stuff we do that makes us alive. And the
S5: mind is, of course, part of how we express ourselves
S5: as living, as living things. And so the mind is
S5: part of our soul.
S1: Well, Michael, you end the book so profoundly you say
S1: we cannot enter eternity justified by our own lives. I
S1: have not lived a single day that I would that
S1: would make me proud before God. So many of us
S1: can say that, by the way, with you the immortality
S1: of my soul and the eternal consequences of my life
S1: mean that I need to be forgiven. I need to
S1: place my trust in someone capital S who bore my sins,
S1: and I need to accept his grace. Scripture, self-reflection, and
S1: science all point to this reality about us. We are
S1: embodied spirits who need God's love and forgiveness now and
S1: in eternity. This from an award winning brain surgeon, Michael.
S1: Absolutely fascinating book. May God fling wide open the doors
S1: of opportunity for you to spread this message and create
S1: a robust, fruitful conversation within the scientific community. For those
S1: who do not yet know that profound truth you wrote
S1: about at the end of your book, it is fabulous.
S1: Thank you for the gift of this conversation and your book. Again,
S1: it's called The Immortal Mind A Neurosurgeon's case for the
S1: existence of the soul. I've got it on my information page.
S1: Check it out. Read it and then share it with
S1: a friend, won't you? Thanks for joining us, friends. We'll
S1: see you next time on In the Market with Janet Parshall.