Are “Mind” and “Brain” the Same Thing?

Angus Menuge, animals, Artificial Intelligence, bacon, Benjamin Libet, brain, C. elegans, ChatGPT, computer, Denyse O'Leary, determinism, Dogs, free will, free won't, human exceptionalism, Humanize, large language models, machines, Medicine, Michael Egnor, mind, Minding the Brain, neural mechanisms, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, philosophy, Podcast, The Immortal Mind, totalitarianism, Wesley J. Smith
Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor passionately argues that denying free will undermines moral responsibility and paves the way for totalitarian ideologies. Source
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Faith, Reason, and the Search for Truth: Stephen Meyer and Michael Shermer

Brian Keating, Bryan Callen, complex life, consciousness, Energy, Faith & Science, faith and science, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, mathematics, matter, Michael Shermer, mind, origin of life, Podcast, Skeptic Magazine, skepticism, Stephen Meyer, The Bryan Callen Show, truth, UC San Diego, universe
Dr. Meyer calls math mind-independent. We discover it, we don’t invent it. And it’s conceptual, not a physical material thing. Why is that Important? Source
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Brain Imaging Shows Intelligence Uses the Whole Brain

brain, brain imaging, cerebellum, coordination, fMRI, Kirsten Hilger, Medicine, Michael Egnor, mind, movement, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, neurosurgeons, PNAS Nexus, strokes, textbooks, The Immortal Mind, thinking, tumors
A focus on specific regions like the prefrontal cortex can mislead. When we are thinking, we use brain-wide connections between many parts of the brain at once. Source
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Decade-Long Study of Water Fleas Found No Evidence of Darwinian Evolution

"survival of the fittest", amoebas, Arizona State University, Complexity, Culture, Daniel Dennett, Daphnia, Daphnia pulex, Darwinian evolution, environment, Evolution, genetic drift, genome, humans, Intelligent Design, Michael Lynch, microcrustaceans, mind, natural selection, random mutations, school systems, subtlety, water fleas
After many generations, water fleas showed no evidence of changing genetically to adapt to their environment, as the theory would predict. Source
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Challenges to the Evolutionary Origins of the Glycolytic Pathway

adenosine triphosphate, amino acids, ATP, biochemical pathway, causal circularity, cellular respiration, citric acid cycle, Complexity, condensation reaction, electron transport chain, Engineering, enzymes, Evolution, fructose, glycolysis, glycolytic pathway, hexokinase, hinge, Intelligent Design, Keith Webster, mind, oxidative phosphorylation, oxygen, phosphofructokinase, pyruvate, unguided evolution, universal common ancestor, water
The complexity and engineering sophistication comport much better with the hypothesis of design. Source
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What 1,000+ Brain Surgeries Taught About the Mind

brain, Christof Koch, consciousness circuit, David Chalmers, epilepsy, materialism, mathematics, Medicine, Michael Egnor, mind, music, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, neurosurgery, Pat Flynn, philosophy, promissory materialism, seizures, Stony Brook University, Wilder Penfield
Michael Egnor continues his discussion with Pat Flynn, noting that neither seizures nor Penfield’s brain stimulation provoked abstract thought. Source
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Consciousness BEFORE Life? These Scientists Say Yes

Alexander Oparin, Anirban Bandyopadhyay, asteroids, Bennu, brains, consciousness, Dante Lauretta, Darwinian materialists, Evolution, genes, Institute for Arts and Ideas, mind, Murchison meteorite, Neuroscience & Mind, philosophers, quantum collapse, quantum superpositions, Roger Penrose, scientists, solar system, Stuart Hameroff, wave function
One key way life differs from non-life is that life forms have goals. For example, the amoeba seeks to protect itself. Source
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Do Fungi Have Free-Will?

agency, automaton, biology, Chemistry, Complexity, consciousness, decision-making, Evidence, Evolution, free will, fungal mind, genetics, human behavior, hyphae, imago Dei, intelligence, Intelligent Design, Internet, Judeo-Christian tradition, learning, Life Sciences, materialism, memory, Miami University, mind, mycelium, mycology, Neuroscience & Mind, Nicholas P. Money, Ohio, physics, randomness, science writers, scientists, sensitivity
Whenever a new hypothesis like this is published and calmly debated in scientific journals without arousing any furor, your first instinct may be to scoff. Source
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