Early neuroscientists and dualism

Idealism and panpsychism are apparently having a sort of resurgence today amongst at least a few science practitioners, but interactive dualism is still shied away from like the plague since it is supremely politically incorrect in academia. I think the hands-on research experience of some of the early pioneer neuroscientists should be strongly considered in the philosophical debate. Based on their research experience with the intricacies of the brain they became passionate dualists, convinced that the mind is ultimately separate from the brain though closely intertwined with it during life. 

They evidently lived in a time before the paradigm police became so powerful that they could completely enforce materialism in medical research. Today the reigning materialist mind-brain paradigm is totally dominant, with the experience and views of the pioneers conveniently swept under the rug.

The most prominent of these was Wilder Penfield, the pioneer in open-brain conscious patient brain surgery for epilepsy. He conducted at least a thousand operations in which the patient could (since he remained conscious and felt no pain) report on his experiences as Penfield stimulated various points. The primary goal of the operations was to excise the area of the brain that was causing the epilectic seizures, but Penfield could also research the brain-mind issue by stimulation and observational procedures.

Penfield’s clinical research-based lines of reasoning for dualism were as follows: (1) his inability to stimulate intellectual thought, (2) the inability of seizures to cause intellectual thought, and (3) his inability to stimulate the will or intentionality. He was able to generate various other phenomena like memories and involuntary limb movements, but never even once the intellect, abstract thoughts and intentional acts of will despite stimulating myriads of different spots and structures. The patient always knew when Penfield was producing the effects versus their being acts of will by the patient.

So Penfield concluded that the intellect and the will are not from the brain.

Other prominent dualist neuroscientists were Nobelists Sherrington and Eccles.

I think that this early research probably has a lot more validity in the mind-brain debate over consciousness than most of the philosophical arguments.

I don't think it is a matter of political correctness? I think dualism suffers from the idea that two distinct substances interact**...which isn't necessarily for transmission/filter models or really even a body/soul distinction.

Dualism as a term, and as conceived by Descartes, is a non-starter even among many proponents. I also don't think most of our ancestors were thinking of distinct substances in a philosophical sense - they were, it seems to me, thinking of a body and soul. 

All that said there is the New Dualism website which is a great resource.

**Of course how things of the same substance interact is also a mystery, and it seems odd to consider forces / Laws of Nature / matter / fields to all be the same substance under Physicalism...

I don't think it is a matter of political correctness? I think dualism suffers from the idea that two distinct substances interact**...which isn't necessarily for transmission/filter models or really even a body/soul distinction.

Dualism as a term, and as conceived by Descartes, is a non-starter even among many proponents. I also don't think most of our ancestors were thinking of distinct substances in a philosophical sense - they were, it seems to me, thinking of a body and soul. 

All that said there is the New Dualism website which is a great resource.

**Of course how things of the same substance interact is also a mystery, and it seems odd to consider forces / Laws of Nature / matter / fields to all be the same substance under Physicalism...

Please explain. Thanks.

Please explain. Thanks.

Well there only needs to be a single underlying substance - for example some esoteric traditions think there is only a kind of Living/Conscious matter/energy/light/something that has gradations of "subtlety".

Eric Weiss gets deep into this with his idea of a Transphysical Person whose soul-body governs the flesh body from a higher level of reality. I think this is what most people think is going with a soul and body whereas philosophers are talking about two substances - usually only one of which has spatial extension.

That's why people think no Dualism means Materialism is true.

Well there only needs to be a single underlying substance - for example some esoteric traditions think there is only a kind of Living/Conscious matter/energy/light/something that has gradations of "subtlety".

Eric Weiss gets deep into this with his idea of a Transphysical Person whose soul-body governs the flesh body from a higher level of reality. I think this is what most people think is going with a soul and body whereas philosophers are talking about two substances - usually only one of which has spatial extension.

That's why people think no Dualism means Materialism is true.

I guess it boils down to how evidence like veridical NDEs and Wilder Penfield's observations during brain surgery is interpreted. It seems to me the most direct inference from this empirical evidence is that the mind is ultimately separate from the physical brain, though closely intertwined with it during life. It seems to me this points to the mind being ultimately a mobile center of consciousness that can interpenetrate and pass through matter, evidently separate from physical matter and energy, but still somehow interact with at least the matter of the neuronal structure of the brain. Separate substances that can still interact under certain special circumstances. Maybe it's a matter of semantics, and perhaps this evidence can also be interpreted along the lines of monism and other concepts. These other concepts just don't seem to me to be as direct inferences from the empirical evidence.

I guess it boils down to how evidence like veridical NDEs and Wilder Penfield's observations during brain surgery is interpreted. It seems to me the most direct inference from this empirical evidence is that the mind is ultimately separate from the physical brain, though closely intertwined with it during life. It seems to me this points to the mind being ultimately a mobile center of consciousness that can interpenetrate and pass through matter, evidently separate from physical matter and energy, but still somehow interact with at least the matter of the neuronal structure of the brain. Separate substances that can still interact under certain special circumstances. Maybe it's a matter of semantics, and perhaps this evidence can also be interpreted along the lines of monism and other concepts. These other concepts just don't seem to me to be as direct inferences from the empirical evidence.

Yeah I don't know if it would mean much in terms of accurately describing what is occurring, just that Descartes idea that the soul - Res Cogitans - has no spatial extension is a barrier to advancing parapsychology.

The Interaction Problem gets mentioned a lot as a reason to not even worry about the soul existing in certain circles.

Yeah I don't know if it would mean much in terms of accurately describing what is occurring, just that Descartes idea that the soul - Res Cogitans - has no spatial extension is a barrier to advancing parapsychology.

The Interaction Problem gets mentioned a lot as a reason to not even worry about the soul existing in certain circles.

Some NDE accounts describe the great difficulty of returning to the physical body. It involved being crushed and squeezed in order to fit inside such a tiny container. That implies the part which goes on the NDE journey is larger than the body.

Personally I tend to feel our consciousness does not have the same boundary as the extent of our body, but if can expand beyond it, even in ordinary life. For example there are some small social gatherings I go to and it sometimes seems as though we merge to some degree into a pooled group with blurred boundaries. We each retain our individuality but are also reaching out and blending into something larger than the physical container.

I think we had a discussion somewhere back about Penfield's observations. Two I remember well are that he stimulated those regions of the brain (with his electrode prodder) which he'd determined were the source of the epilepsy and this  occasionally produced a certain (forgotten?) memory. When he then removed that area, the patient could still remember the same events. So losing the brain tissue didn't affect memory.

Other patients (under the same stimulation) were taken back to real time events like they were really there and could see/hear the shouts, noises, smells etc but at the same time, their presence (conscious presence) was still in the room and able to discus it with Penfield. I think this was why he determined that mind and brain are separate.

The trouble is, Penfield came up with the wrong answers. They didn't want to hear that, so his book was largely ignored.

How a Neurosurgeon Showed That Abstract Thought Is Immaterial

Michael Egnor

The reader writes:

Every task involves activation in a network of multiple local brain areas. The idea that one could activate such networks through stimulation with a single electrode is little short of absurd, although the possible existence of specific local network trigger points is suggested by the fact that Penfield could stimulate complex memories in only about 5% of cases.

I reply:

The lasting importance of Penfield’s work is underestimated. I’ve performed awake brain surgery, and I understand the logistics of such procedures. Penfield performed 1100 awake brain operations, each lasting roughly 8 hours, consisting of roughly 2 stimulations per minute, which is almost 1000 stimulations per patient and 1,100,000 stimulations over his career.

Not a single one of his 1.1 million brain stimulations in awake patients evoked what he called “mind action”, by which he meant abstract thought. How many brain stimulations that do not evoke abstract thought are necessary before we can draw the scientific inference that abstract thought does not come from the brain?

Personally I think the case against Physicalism is more based on philosophical argument, but the evidence is nonetheless interesting.

I've not looked deeply into this work so I can't tell you if some newer research falsifies the claim...

How a Neurosurgeon Showed That Abstract Thought Is Immaterial

Michael Egnor



Personally I think the case against Physicalism is more based on philosophical argument, but the evidence is nonetheless interesting.

I've not looked deeply into this work so I can't tell you if some newer research falsifies the claim...

Some NDE accounts describe the great difficulty of returning to the physical body. It involved being crushed and squeezed in order to fit inside such a tiny container. That implies the part which goes on the NDE journey is larger than the body.

Rereading your post it calls to mind Faggin, in his recent argument that Persons are "Seities" (immortal quantum fields), has also suggested the field's attention is narrowed into the biological body.

Which also matches Sheldrake's ideas that the soul is vaster than the biological body. 

I do suspect that parapsychology and more mainstream science will converge around the concept of field, but only time will tell.