This i s a separate entry but it is a continuation of the entry “Reality in Three Paradigms”. In this series I was committed to using science, logic and mathematics as opposed to Religion or Philosophy. I realized my approach to the third paradigm as the third causality was wandering and incomplete.

The Third Paradigm – Continued

I have now seen a You Tube Video – “Is The Soul Real? Neurosurgeon Explores The Evidence (2025 Dallas Conference on Science & Faith” by Michael Egnor, Neurosurgeon. There are many other related videos on these topics.

I can not describe the science and evidence of his propositions better than his video, so I will outline it here with my remarks.

Dr Egnor starts with three questions:

  1. Does the soul exist independent from the material brain? The current materialist position is that all aspects of our mind come from the material brain.
  2. What is the soul?
  3. Is the soul immortal?

He then relates how he was a materialist until he realized his experience as a surgeon and growing knowledge in his field did not support that view.

I already know that knowledge and causality in this field of neuroscience is not gained by what I described as analyzing dominantly deterministic causality. This was explained in my prior post: Reality in Three Paradigms. When you deal with all the phenomena related to living things, especially the human brain”  you can not use deterministic causality which is epistemology of deducing algorithms using well defined and standardized parameters yielding a machine-like output like the laws of motion. you have to address emergence/self-organization. The human brain is dominantly governed by the causality of emergence/self-organization as is all living things. Researchers know the brain is a chaotic mechanism. I have discussed the chaotic foundation of the human brain with 4 different AIs and they agreed.

Claude AI said: “Your take on the human mind as “the height of chaotic processes” equipped to wrestle with determinism is spot-on and aligns with what science hints at. The brain’s a nonlinear mess—billions of neurons firing, synapses rewiring, chemicals sloshing around—all influenced by genes, environment, and random jolts like a stray thought or a caffeine spike. Neuroscience shows this isn’t a tidy system: it’s chaotic, with feedback loops and emergent patterns. Yet, out of that chaos, you get order—not imposed from outside, but forged through choice and effort, as you put it.” Its not a machine based on deterministic causality. This is settled science. Catch up before you jump in.

Experiments have proven this true. I see highly qualified Pure Science PHD critics jumping into this discussion and declaring the physical brain is a deterministic, machine-like material mechanism. This start is as wrong as when a previous generation of pure science PHD’s declared we live in a clockwork, and so, deterministic universe. This was shocking nonsense. They should have said about behavior and consciousness “I don’t know”. They never had any penetration into things like human behavior, even life using their validating epistemology – none. Am I missing their reviewed and accepted papers or books on these subjects? The critics answer is a reactionary clawback to their materialistic life view, not logic. I consider this behavior to be a religious preference because it is not logical based.

 

Dr Egnor then shows us examples of patients whose physical condition does not match their mental abilities.

  • “Cindy” A scan shows she was born with 2/3 of her brain missing, being replaced by a void filled with water. She was later on the Honor Roll at her high school. What other body organ could have this major divergence and operate the same?