As Evidence of a Soul, Charles Murray and Steven Pinker Debate Terminal Lucidity

brain, Charles Murray, cognitive psychologists, Coming Apart, Faith & Science, Jesse Bering, materialism, modernism, Nancy Pearcey, Neuroscience & Mind, post-modernism, Richard Dawkins, soul, Steven Pinker, Taking Religion Seriously, terminal lucidity, Threshold, verbal communication, Wall Street Journal
Pinker himself is fresh from getting a book tour Canceled by a humanist group. He’s apparently not one of the atheist heroes any more. Source
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In Study of Human Psychology, the Power of “Maybe”

Antony Flew, artifacts, brain, cave art, death, dying, Gary Wenk, graveyard, human beings, Marilyn Mendoza, Michael Egnor, Neanderthals, near-death experiences, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, Ohio State University, paleontology, periaqueductal gray, presumption of atheism, pseudoscience, psychology, Psychology Today, The Immortal Mind, There Is a God
This is not science and is not a good look for a psychology that purports to have some relationship with science. Source
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One Reason Near-Death Experiences Are Hard to Study

Amanda Gefter, analytic idealists, Bernardo Kastrup, consciousness, database, dissociation, eliminative materialism, Faith & Science, idealism, Joshua Farris, Michael Egnor, near-death experiences, Neuroscience & Mind, physicalism, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, supernatural
When the mind is dissociated from the body briefly, it may acquire actual knowledge — as in NDEs where the knowledge acquired is later confirmed. Source
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John Searle (1932–2025): A Titan Passes

Baylor University, brain, ChatGPT, Chinese Room argument, computation, Computational Sciences, conscious states, Daniel Vanderveken, digestion, Discovery Institute Press, epistemic objectivity, Expression and Meaning, Foundations of Illocutionary Logic, John Searle, language, Minding the Brain, Neuroscience & Mind, ontic dualism, ontological idealism, ontology, philosophy, prose, qualitativeness, Science and Culture Today, scientism, Speech Acts, subjectivity, The Construction of Social Reality, The Nature of Nature, Unity, William Dembski
Searle’s most famous argument is undoubtedly the Chinese Room argument, first presented in his essay “Minds, Brains, and Programs” (1980). Source
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Even in Mice, Decision-Making Is More Complex than We Thought

brain, brain activity, brain regions, decision-making, hindbrain, human thinking, Life Sciences, Live Science, Matteo Carandini, midbrain, motor regions, mouse study, muscle responses, neurons, Neuroscience & Mind, pop psychology, processing, R. J. Mackenzie, textbooks, visual cortex
If it’s this complex in mice, what are we to make of simplistic representations of human thinking in pop psychology textbooks? Source
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Near-Death Experiences Fail to Confirm Any Single Belief System

After (book), Belief, Bruce Greyson, Buddhism, Christianity, Denyse O'Leary, divine truth, Faith & Science, folk belief, guardian angel, Jacob Vazquez, medical science, near-death experiences, Neuroscience & Mind, occult belief, The Immortal Mind, theology, Truthful Hope
People of different faiths tend to have experiences consistent with their culture. What does that say about the reality of the experiences? Source
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A Device to Read Minds? Not What Researchers Intended, But…

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Benyamin Meschede-Krasa, brain implant, brain-computer interfaces, BrainGate2, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, dissidents, English, Erin Kunz, ethics, Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, Francis Willett, government, Ian Fleming, inner speech, Jacques Vidal, Manhasset, monologue, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, new york, Rudy Molinek, Sarah Wandelt, Smithsonian Magazine, speech, Stanford University, stroke, Technology, UCLA
"There’s a voice inside most people’s minds that comes alive when they listen, read, or prepare to speak." Source
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