Neurosurgeon Provides Evidence Against Materialism

[Guard of Guardians]

I found this absolutely fascinating, and thought the various members would also love to hear this and talk about their own views. 




As a Christian, I am a mind-body dualist, and I am not a materialist.

What do you think?

[Peebothuhlu]

So... another person who's beliefs dictate thier thinking?

Dr Egnor is quite happy to ignore expertis in other firlds about things that conflict with his beliefs.

Why should I not think that his beliefs have skewed his thinking about things within his field?

I note he doesn't metnion the work at MRI-ing brains to actually see neurons firing as thoughts are being had/formed and that you can, indeed, see people 'thinking' about mathematics and such?

That he drags up 'Phrenology' to conflate it with the idea that internal areas of the brain might be 'localizing' thought spaces is.... telling.

It would be interesting to hear the good Doctor's thoughts on other Philosopher's works. Those such as Nagel's treaties "Whit it is to be a bat" and such.

Ah well. An interesting interlude.

Not at work.

[vulcanlogician]

Interesting video.

I'm about 10-ish minutes in. Right off the bat, he didn't give functionalism a fair shake. And he failed to mention biological naturalism as a modern theory of mind.

Also, there are some non sequiturs running about in his reasoning: especially the argument he gives 8 or 9 minutes in.

1. If the intellect were situated in the brain, we would expect people to have intellectual seizures.
2. People do not have intellectual seizures.
Therefore, the intellect is not situated in the brain.

There are all kinds of problems with this argument. First, it's a non sequitur. The first premise I'm going to assume is true (since I'm not a neuroscientist). But what about the second premise? Doesn't Paul's seizure on the road to Damascus count as an intellectual seizure? I mean, if a seizure causes you to have a mystical experience, I think that counts as an intellectual seizure.

---

Some other remarks...

--Patients in a vegetative state understanding things is not evidence for dualism.

--Libet's experiments are interesting. I'll give him that. We could talk about property dualism. To me, it can be considered a form of materialism. But that's a whole discussion of its own.

--Why can't material things have intentionality? Again, this is something that biological naturalism addresses (and IMO clarifies), but John Searle seems to have flown under this guy's radar.

--I actually liked his remarks concerning teleology as it pertains to intentionality in nature. It really doesn't have anything to do with dualism though. In fact, the materialist interpretation is much more profound.

--But then he errs by taking on Aristotle's misconceptions. "You can't understand a heart without knowing it pumps blood"... Well, yes you can. You could look at the heart strictly through the lens of chemistry and study only the chemical compounds that make it up. And you could learn a great deal by studying the heart through this mode. It's like saying, "You can't understand what a piece of paper is unless you understand that you are meant to write on it." You can understand that a piece of paper was made from a tree, sold to Walmart, and purchased by a consumer there, earning several parties profit along the way. He is saying that we ought to look at the universe with prejudices (much like Aristotle did). That is a way outdated mode of thinking.

--On his concluding remark: Aristotle's hylomorphism has been called "a polite form of materialism"... it doesn't lead to dualism. It's just that most hylomorphists tend to err on the side of dualism. I actually like hylomorphism, and I'd be happy to discuss that too.

Thanks for sharing the video.

[brewer]

Not wasting my time. RationalWiki pretty much sums it up: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Michael_Egnor

[Fireball]

I think that somebody didn't read the posting rules.

[Fake Messiah]

As a Christian, [...] I am not a materialist.

Really? Christians are not materialist? Since when?

[Sal]

That camera shaking. Use a camera stand ffs. I had to put the vid focus out of view to be able to follow the ideas put forward in the vid.

As another YT commentator noted, he puts only lack of evidence for dualism, meaning he "can't change the consciousness of the brain" as evidence for dualism which is the opposite of evidence.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I think that somebody didn't read the posting rules.

How so?  GoG has been a member for more than 30 days and has more than 30 posts.

Or were you thinking of something else?

Boru

[LastPoet]

Seems like a shit & run to me.

[Fireball]

I think that somebody didn't read the posting rules.

How so?  GoG has been a member for more than 30 days and has more than 30 posts.

Or were you thinking of something else?

Boru

[looks into coffee cup] My bad.

Apologies, GoG.