An excellent concise and accurate statement of the interactive dualism theory of mind

I know this debate has gone on to great length mainly on the esoteric philosophical aspects of the interactive dualism issue, but I just ran across a new article that reminded me of another relevant piece of evidence for interactive Dualism that has been covered before in this forum, the work of neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, who in forty years of experience in doing brain electrical stimulations during epilepsy surgery found much incontrovertible physical evidence for interactive Dualism. This evidence was strong enough that he was convinced and adopted Dualism as the correct philosophy of mind.

https://evolutionnews.org/2024/12/what-d...it-not-do/

Penfield could find no part of the brain that, when stimulated, caused patients to think abstractly — to reason, think logically, do mathematics or philosophy or exercise free will.

He noticed the same thing about epileptic seizures as about stimulation during surgery. Patients who were having seizures did all sorts of things — they jerked their muscles, they saw flashes of light or had unusual sensations on their skin. They even occasionally had specific memories and emotions. Then they fell unconscious.

But patients never had intellectual seizures. That is, they never had seizures that caused them to reason, think logically, or do mathematics or philosophy. There are no “calculus seizures” that cause them to uncontrollably take first derivatives. There are no philosophical seizures that cause them to uncontrollably contemplate Plato’s Republic.

Penfield asked the obvious question: why did brain stimulation only cause certain mental operations, like movement, perception, memory and emotion to happen, but not other ones, like abstract thought and free will? As Denyse O’Leary and I discuss in The Immortal Mind (Worthy June 3, 2025), he eventually came to the obvious conclusion: he couldn’t evoke abstract thought or free will by stimulating the brain because abstract thought and free will don’t come from the brain.

Penfield started out as a materialist, like most scientists do, but, as he learned more about the mind and the brain he became a dualist. He concluded in his book Mystery of the Mind (1975) that the mind is something separate from the brain, and that there are aspects of the mind that don’t come from the brain but are spiritual in nature. As he put it, “The mind must be viewed as a basic element in itself . . . That is to say, it has a continuing existence.” (p. xxi.)

Many other neuroscientists have followed in Penfield’s footsteps and their research points to the very same conclusion (though being materialists they automatically reject the obvious).

How does his work relate to the various philosophical arguments that have been made for Idealism and Monism? How can Idealism and/or Monism or some version of them accommodate and explain Penfield's results? Anyway, it seems to me that empirical evidence always trumps theory.

I know this debate has gone on to great length mainly on the esoteric philosophical aspects of the interactive dualism issue, but I just ran across a new article that reminded me of another relevant piece of evidence for interactive Dualism that has been covered before in this forum, the work of neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, who in forty years of experience in doing brain electrical stimulations during epilepsy surgery found much incontrovertible physical evidence for interactive Dualism. This evidence was strong enough that he was convinced and adopted Dualism as the correct philosophy of mind.

https://evolutionnews.org/2024/12/what-d...it-not-do/


How does his work relate to the various philosophical arguments that have been made for Idealism and Monism? How can Idealism and/or Monism or some version of them accommodate and explain Penfield's results? Anyway, it seems to me that empirical evidence always trumps theory.

So he saw distinction between the consensus experience of the "physical" and relaying of certain particular private mental experiences?

This seems like an argument for the falsity of Physicalism rather than advocacy of Dualism? Unless we're talking about Functional Dualism, where I think just about everyone would agree is the case even before looking at the paranormal?

IMO the issue is not the mental which any conscious entity knows intimately, the issue is whatever the "physical" is supposed to be. This isn't to say Idealism is true, just unclear to me why we need two substances distinct from each other when the "physical" is known by the "mental"...this is before one considers physical detection of apparitions or the motive power of PK.

A more credible Dualism, to me, is the divide between Experience and Experiencer. Whether that's two substances, or some dual-aspect of a singular substance seems up to interpretation. Maybe that's a Pluralism if we start separating fields from matter, and thoughts from feelings...this problem seems to compound if we separate whatever apparitions and ectoplasm are from the mundane material stuff...

I know this debate has gone on to great length mainly on the esoteric philosophical aspects of the interactive dualism issue, but I just ran across a new article that reminded me of another relevant piece of evidence for interactive Dualism that has been covered before in this forum, the work of neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, who in forty years of experience in doing brain electrical stimulations during epilepsy surgery found much incontrovertible physical evidence for interactive Dualism. This evidence was strong enough that he was convinced and adopted Dualism as the correct philosophy of mind.

https://evolutionnews.org/2024/12/what-d...it-not-do/


How does his work relate to the various philosophical arguments that have been made for Idealism and Monism? How can Idealism and/or Monism or some version of them accommodate and explain Penfield's results? Anyway, it seems to me that empirical evidence always trumps theory.

Well... the data itself cannot point to any particular metaphysic. Again, as I've stated previously, each metaphysic can and will interpret the data through their own lens and draw their own conclusions as to what the data can mean.

Stimulation on brains yielding results? For Idealism, brains are just mental stuff, so there's no conflict. For Neutral Monism, brains are just another physical form, arising from the ultimate substance, with spirit having the natural capability to manipulate any sort of form, as form originates from spirit. For Physicalism, it's just the meat twitching and triggering memories. For Dualism, well, that's covered. Panpsychism? The collective consciousness of the body and brain's molecular structure are being triggered.

Frankly, all of this misses something more important ~ why are there correlations between different parts of the brain and different memories? We can rule out Physicalism and Materialism, as there is no mechanism for storage of memories, or reading or writing.

Frankly, all of this misses something more important ~ why are there correlations between different parts of the brain and different memories? We can rule out Physicalism and Materialism, as there is no mechanism for storage of memories, or reading or writing.

Great point, there isn't any good explanation I know of for why structures (engrams in this case) are isomorphic to qualitative aspects of the mental (memories in this case).

It's sort of the reverse of PK, where a mind moves the material.

Either case points to a causal link between the "physical" and "mental". If this is due to bridge laws, this just leads to all the usual questions of why laws don't change and how something in what laws govern (mind & matter in this case) has to have a characteristic that is receptive to a law's control.

If we shave with Occam's Razor, feels like the best explanation is some originating substance. Now maybe one can say the Experiencer is always distinct from all that is Experienced, which again is a Dualism or Monism depending on how one makes the cut for distinction in substances.

Great point, there isn't any good explanation I know of for why structures (engrams in this case) are isomorphic to qualitative aspects of the mental (memories in this case).

It's sort of the reverse of PK, where a mind moves the material.

Indeed... I happen to think that it might come down, again, to resonance. Neurons are identical in physical structure, so there's nothing to differentiate them. It's the same thing with emotions and memories being linked to certain parts of the body ~ even the ghost of them, which explains personality changes in people who get heart transplants. So it's very much not limited to the brain.

Even energy healing systems have long recognized that emotions are linked to different areas of the body, such as Qi Gong. They have entire charts linking the different aspects together.

Either case points to a causal link between the "physical" and "mental". If this is due to bridge laws, this just leads to all the usual questions of why laws don't change and how something in what laws govern (mind & matter in this case) has to have a characteristic that is receptive to a law's control.

Indeed, though the causal link remains firmly out of reach... though I do have a much better picture now. Involving the energy field of the aura unconsciously organizing and link the physical matter that it... well, possesses, I guess. So, if physical form and the... auric form that corresponds to it are intrinsically linked, there must be some energetic resonance in the aura to links to memories and emotions.

None of this confirms any metaphysical theories ~ except explicitly denying Physicalism and Materialism. So even raw experience is no help for determining the metaphysical nature of reality...

If we shave with Occam's Razor, feels like the best explanation is some originating substance. Now maybe one can say the Experiencer is always distinct from all that is Experienced, which again is a Dualism or Monism depending on how one makes the cut for distinction in substances.

Maybe... though I find it, well, arbitrary, as it the Experiencer that decides what within Experience that it identifies with, and does not identify with. Physicalists and Materialists identify purely with their physical body, despite it being obviously qualitatively distinct in certain ways. So the distinctions are never really easy to pin down as actually existing objectively or being purely subjective.

Indeed... I happen to think that it might come down, again, to resonance. Neurons are identical in physical structure, so there's nothing to differentiate them. It's the same thing with emotions and memories being linked to certain parts of the body ~ even the ghost of them, which explains personality changes in people who get heart transplants. So it's very much not limited to the brain.

Even energy healing systems have long recognized that emotions are linked to different areas of the body, such as Qi Gong. They have entire charts linking the different aspects together.


Indeed, though the causal link remains firmly out of reach... though I do have a much better picture now. Involving the energy field of the aura unconsciously organizing and link the physical matter that it... well, possesses, I guess. So, if physical form and the... auric form that corresponds to it are intrinsically linked, there must be some energetic resonance in the aura to links to memories and emotions.

None of this confirms any metaphysical theories ~ except explicitly denying Physicalism and Materialism. So even raw experience is no help for determining the metaphysical nature of reality...


Maybe... though I find it, well, arbitrary, as it the Experiencer that decides what within Experience that it identifies with, and does not identify with. Physicalists and Materialists identify purely with their physical body, despite it being obviously qualitatively distinct in certain ways. So the distinctions are never really easy to pin down as actually existing objectively or being purely subjective.

I can see different realities, while sharing an underlying commonality - say Bohm's Implicate Order - having different rules. 

In some realities it seems possible you can have different mind-body correlations, along with different rules for the Experiencer manipulating what is Experienced. 

So different physics, different alchemy, different magic(k), etc.

I really like Faggin's idea in Irreducible, that "Seities" - conscious entities - are continually engaged in the creation of realities for other seities to explore. I'm not sure it's perfectly Good, or that we always have a choice as to where we incarnate, but I think this can at least explain why there seem to be so many afterlives and spiritual realities.

I can see different realities, while sharing an underlying commonality - say Bohm's Implicate Order - having different rules. 

In some realities it seems possible you can have different mind-body correlations, along with different rules for the Experiencer manipulating what is Experienced. 

So different physics, different alchemy, different magic(k), etc.

Indeed... in the different realities I've experienced, the physics all seemed the same. Explicit magic seemed to exist in only one, and even then it seemed to be some rare... divine thing that is poorly understood, even from my perceptions. Dragons exist, but they don't breath fire, even if they seemed otherwise similar to classic this-reality Western dragons. I just learned to not question it, because it just... was, and it was normal in that reality.

I really like Faggin's idea in Irreducible, that "Seities" - conscious entities - are continually engaged in the creation of realities for other seities to explore. I'm not sure it's perfectly Good, or that we always have a choice as to where we incarnate, but I think this can at least explain why there seem to be so many afterlives and spiritual realities.

It does. Though I'm not sure there are different afterlives, so much as different layers and aspects of the higher realities. Spiritual reality is... very strange in general, as it defies any and all of the logic we have down here. But then, this physical reality almost seems to be very rigid and structured in nature.

Earlier today I was consider the nature of the Imaginal, and a rather weird thought struck me ~ this physical reality... is it, in some sense, also perceived through the imagination, making it also Imaginal in some sense? I can sense the loong and tiger spirits with semi-stability, but they're as real on their spiritual plane as I am on this physical one... I just happen to be extremely attuned to this physical plane, having semi-stable sensing of very particular spiritual entities, but no others.

Well... the data itself cannot point to any particular metaphysic. Again, as I've stated previously, each metaphysic can and will interpret the data through their own lens and draw their own conclusions as to what the data can mean.

Stimulation on brains yielding results? For Idealism, brains are just mental stuff, so there's no conflict. For Neutral Monism, brains are just another physical form, arising from the ultimate substance, with spirit having the natural capability to manipulate any sort of form, as form originates from spirit. For Physicalism, it's just the meat twitching and triggering memories. For Dualism, well, that's covered. Panpsychism? The collective consciousness of the body and brain's molecular structure are being triggered.

Frankly, all of this misses something more important ~ why are there correlations between different parts of the brain and different memories? We can rule out Physicalism and Materialism, as there is no mechanism for storage of memories, or reading or writing.

I disagree. The data itself does clearly point to a particular metaphysic or philosophy of mind. This is mainly through the Occam's Razor principle of parsimony. Sure, for Idealism, brains are just mental essence, but for that to be true there have to be multiple auxiliary secondary hypotheses to detail out how the working out of that metaphysic results in the epilepsy brain stimulation data for instance, or the NDE OBE data. Whereas interactional Dualism is the obvious and simplest metaphysic since it directly predicts the observation data from its own metaphysical principles, with just one auxiliary hypothesis absolutely necessary - an explanation for the interactions in the brain between mind/spirit and brain matter that allow embodiment of the spirit (for which I have outlined one logical possibility). The same reasoning applies to Monism, except to an even greater degree. Panpsychism? Even more complicated, because you have to explain how and why each of the tiny bits of mind stuff making up the world spontaneously and collectively work together to form incredibly elaborate structures such as the human brain.

I think it is telling that Wilder Penfield was convinced of Dualism after witnessing and recording innumerable examples of the data we are talking about. It seemed obvious to him, and it does to me also.

I disagree. The data itself does clearly point to a particular metaphysic or philosophy of mind. This is mainly through the Occam's Razor principle of parsimony. Sure, for Idealism, brains are just mental essence, but for that to be true there have to be multiple auxiliary secondary hypotheses to detail out how the working out of that metaphysic results in the epilepsy brain stimulation data for instance, or the NDE OBE data. Whereas interactional Dualism is the obvious and simplest metaphysic since it directly predicts the observation data from its own metaphysical principles, with just one auxiliary hypothesis absolutely necessary - an explanation for the interactions in the brain between mind/spirit and brain matter that allow embodiment of the spirit (for which I have outlined one logical possibility). The same reasoning applies to Monism, except to an even greater degree. Panpsychism? Even more complicated, because you have to explain how and why each of the tiny bits of mind stuff making up the world spontaneously and collectively work together to form incredibly elaborate structures such as the human brain.

I think it is telling that Wilder Penfield was convinced of Dualism after witnessing and recording innumerable examples of the data we are talking about. It seemed obvious to him, and it does to me also.

I suspect Penfield thought there were two options, Dualism and Materialism. Perhaps I am wrong about this, but I haven’t seen anything suggesting he was even aware of other options or had considered the issues with Cartesian Dualism’s claim that mind has no extension. 

I think trying to explain those interactions you mention lead to all sorts of questions about what the “physical” is, especially if it includes apparitions and ectoplasm. Survival only challenges the Dualist further, rather than supporting their claim if one is a Cartesian Dualist.

PK also challenges a Dualist position, if one demarcates substances by causal interaction. Psychic healing, especially when it involves stuff like transferring sickness from a body to some other physical stuff, is another challenge as again you have causal continuity in need of explanation.

Dualism also seems to depend on Designers, who have to make a universe. So the interaction is not just the mind-matter of present, but the question of how the Designers were able to set up any parallelism because they must interact with both substances.

So if the argument is for Functional Dualism at this level of reality, or the duality between the Experiencer and what is Experienced, sure. 

If the argument is that there are two fundamentally distinct substances, I think this runs into varied questions and problems. Of course this all really depends on what one means by “substance” and how these are demarcated.

I disagree. The data itself does clearly point to a particular metaphysic or philosophy of mind. This is mainly through the Occam's Razor principle of parsimony.

There is nothing particularly... parsimonious for Dualism when it comes to explaining why mind and body interact so seamlessly and cleanly. There's no difficulty in interaction of mind and form resonate ~ mind takes on the shape of the form, and the form in some sense is that mind.

Sure, for Idealism, brains are just mental essence, but for that to be true there have to be multiple auxiliary secondary hypotheses to detail out how the working out of that metaphysic results in the epilepsy brain stimulation data for instance, or the NDE OBE data.

Either I have forgotten due to time, or you have never meaningfully explained what these apparently "multiple auxiliary secondary hypotheses" are. I merely observe that epilepsy brain stimulation seems to point to the similar ideas in Qi Gong and other energy healing systems that emotions, memories and such seem to be energetically linked to certain aspects of the the aura / energy body / astral body / what-have-you, and that this non-physical layer is somehow seamlessly connected to the physical form in a very direct way, as well as being directly connected to the mind in some way, explaining the peculiarities of sensation.

For Idealism, there is an interpretation that this is a form of mental stuff interacting with another form of mental stuff ~ all mental stuff, but not of the same... sort, explaining interaction and also the fact that this mental stuff doesn't look identical.

The Idealist notes that everything we consider "physical" is merely phenomena interpreted through the senses, so in that regard, it reduces to mental stuff, albeit of a different nature to thoughts, emotions, beliefs, sense of self, each of which are also considered to be different to each other, as we can distinguish them based on their different qualities.

Whereas interactional Dualism is the obvious and simplest metaphysic since it directly predicts the observation data from its own metaphysical principles, with just one auxiliary hypothesis absolutely necessary - an explanation for the interactions in the brain between mind/spirit and brain matter that allow embodiment of the spirit (for which I have outlined one logical possibility).

What you seem to handwave is what this explanation is, which I am still waiting on...

Dualism, as you present, has many hidden assumptions that are never properly dealt with, or are ad hoc explained away, leaving more questions...

Creation by divine fiat? Sure... but why do mind and matter have to be created external to God? It implies God not being infinite... God is a mind? If God is still infinite, what use is a mind? Does God have a body ~ then God is not infinite. Actually, why does God need a mind and a body? How does God make them interact? Where did God get a separate mind and body to begin with? What is God creating from? The void? Itself? Why does an infinite being just not create fully within itself? That's what the Hindu Brahman is ~ a transcendental cosmic principle that contains reality within.

The same reasoning applies to Monism, except to an even greater degree. Panpsychism? Even more complicated, because you have to explain how and why each of the tiny bits of mind stuff making up the world spontaneously and collectively work together to form incredibly elaborate structures such as the human brain.

Neutral Monism overcomes the need for auxiliary hypotheses by positing a singular base substance that can display any number of qualities ~ and because everything arises from the same base substance, interaction comes for free.

Panpsychism does have an issue of explaining how bits of mind stuff become more...

But my point is that each metaphysic is simply trying to interpret the same data through a different lens.

Reality is not a metaphysic ~ reality is reality, with the metaphysic being our subjective framing of reality, being always abstract, and thus, always inaccurate.

I think it is telling that Wilder Penfield was convinced of Dualism after witnessing and recording innumerable examples of the data we are talking about. It seemed obvious to him, and it does to me also.

Well... we can cherry-pick whoever we please to support our beliefs, but it doesn't mean that they believe exclusively in that. It may just happen to be what he knows, and so just uses what he knows in relation to the data he has.

So, it's not really... "obvious" to him, unless he says explicitly so, exploring other metaphysics while then choosing Dualism for stated reasons.