Neuroscience and Hylomorphism

R.R. Reno, features editor at First Things, has a fine essay on the mind-brain problem that addresses many of the issues that Steven Novella and I have been debating over the past year or so. The substance of my arguments against Dr. Novella’s dogmatic materialism and his astonishing hubris regarding the application of neuroscience to the mind brain problem (“Every single prediction of materialism has been proven…”) has been twofold. First, I assert that the materialistic understanding of the mind isn’t even logically coherent. The salient characteristics of the mind, such as intentionality, qualia, free will, restricted access, continuity of self through time, incorrigibility, and unity of consciousness are not properties of matter, and there are very strong philosophical and Read More ›

What is PalMD Ashamed Of?

In a recent post, I pointed out the obvious — that traditional allopathic medical practice is capable of causing considerable harm to patients, and I appealed to some of the particularly nasty critics of alternative medicine to back off with the venom directed against practitioners and ordinary people who have experienced benefit from alternative medicine or who are concerned about the risks associated with vaccinations. We doctors have our hands full protecting patients from our own mistakes, without spending our time excoriating accupuncturists. A little perspective is in order. So why are these particular bloggers so obsessed with hatred for people who question medical or scientific orthodoxy? Most of these arrogant critics are atheist/materialist physicians, and their anger is fueled Read More ›

My Challenge to Dr. Novella: The Materialist Color Tutor’s Dilemma.

Dr. Steven Novela believes that the brain (matter) entirely explains the mind. I challenge him to answer the question raised by this thought problem: Imagine a tutor who specializes in teaching children about color. He’s a materialist, named…Steve. He knows all that is known about color. He knows the physics, the optics, the chemistry, the neurobiology, everything. A family retains him to teach their child, a prodigy, all that can be known about color.

SICI: The Search for Intracellular Intelligence

Steven Novella has a recent post on SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Like many of us, Dr. Novella is fascinated by the prospect of finding evidence for intelligent alien life in outer space. Dr. Novella: I am a strong supporter of SETI – the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. To me this is a fascinating scientific endeavor with a potentially huge payoff… Dr. Novella defends SETI against the claims by some that it is not real science:

Dr. Novella’s Evasion Is an “Emergent Phenomenon”

Dr. Steven Novella is a Yale neurologist with whom I have been having a blog debate about the mind-brain question. Dr. Novella asserts that neuroscience has proven the strict materialistic understanding of the mind — that the mind is caused entirely by the brain, and reducible entirely to it — is true. I disagree. Although the mind and brain correlate to a high degree, the mind is ontologically irreducible to the brain. I believe that some form of dualism is necessary for a satisfactory explanation of the mind. I have written several posts about qualia, which is the subjective nature of sensory experiences, such the experience of the color red, or the smell of coffee, or the ‘hurt’ of pain. Read More ›