[Lal]

I just listened to the following podcast about the brain.

It seems that many neurosurgeons DO NOT believe that our thoughts originate in the brain.
– Instead, they believe in a separate “soul” or a “spirit” where thoughts originate.
– As we have discussed, the difference between a “soul” and “a gandhabba” in Buddha Dhamma is that a gandhabba lasts only for a given existence. When human existence is exhausted and that lifestream “switches over” to a Deva, then a NEW gandhabba (mental body) corresponding to that Deva bhava is created by kammic energy.

Anyway, there are several interesting observations from neurosurgery discussed here:
“MICHAEL EGNOR: IS THERE EVIDENCE FOR A SOUL?”

There is a related previous podcast:
“MICHAEL EGNOR: IS YOUR BRAIN THE SAME AS YOUR MIND?”

[Jay]

Just listened to the first podcast; it’s really quite good!

Here’s an interesting quote from the podcast, at 9:02, regarding Penfield’s first line of reasoning for dualism:

… but Penfield noted that in probably hundreds of thousands of different individual stimulations, he never once stimulated the power of reason, he never stimulated the intellect, he never stimulated a person to do calculus or to think of an abstract concept, like justice or mercy. All the stimulations were concrete things—move your arm or feel a tingling or even a concrete memory like you remember your grandmother’s face or something—but there was never any abstract thought stimulated. And Penfield said: “Hey, if the brain is the source of abstract thought, then once in a while, when I’m putting electrical current on some part of the cortex, I ought to get an abstract thought.” And he never, ever did. So he said: “Well, the obvious explanation for that was that an abstract thought doesn’t come from the brain.”

Note that despite Penfield’s perspective that this was evidence for dualism, it also supports a Buddhist perspective involving gandhabba.

[Lal]

Dr. Egnor (a neurosurgeon) has more videos on the subject:

“Michael Egnor: The Evidence against Materialism“

[Author]

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