Evidence for the Mind

One of the areas I enjoy most is to study the Philosophy of Mind.  To me, it provides one of the most powerful cases for the existence of the supernatural (and, thus, the existence of God).  When we talk about the 'mind', that terminology is interchangeable with 'the soul'.  So when I say I enjoy the Philosophy of Mind, I mean that I enjoy seeing if there is evidence for the soul.

First, the mind is not simply another word for the brain.  Nor is the mind a by-product of the brain.  Skeptics sometimes talk about the mind as an epiphenomenon (big word) of the brain.  They mean that the brain produces the mind almost as a side effect.  Like a waterfall produces a rainbow.  And like the rainbow in relation to the waterfall, these skeptics will say that the mind has no causative relationship the brain (in other words, it can't cause anything)

The problem with the idea of the mind being an epiphenomenon of the brain is that the mind can definitely cause things in both the body and the brain.  Consider just a few:

• When we someone we care for, our heart may race, we may blush, our eyes dilate, etc.  This is the mind having a physical effect on the brain and body
• Consider the placebo effect, which is when someone receives a sugar pill with no actual medicinal qualities.  And yet, the person experiences some physical effect.  Symptoms go away, pain recedes, etc.

You may be saying "so what?".  But here's the point.  If the mind is only an epiphenomenon (and yes, I'm re-using that word a lot so you'll become familiar with it) of the brain, then IT CANNOT CAUSE ANYTHING.  It can't make the heart race or the eyes dilate.  And the Placebo Effect is an absolute impossibility.  In fact, I'll go so far as to say this...the mere fact that the Placebo Effect exists is powerful evidence that materialism (the view that there is nothing beyond the physical realm...no spiritual realm, no heaven, no God, etc.) is false.  Materialism is typically the worldview held by skeptics, and the simple evidence of The Placebo Effect is enough to bring their whole worldview crashing down (that doesn't mean they accept this, of course).

This is just the tiniest of slices of evidence within the study of the mind (aka the soul).  But I hope you see how powerful it is.  I'll write more about this later, but for now, here is something I wrote up as a reference list when people ask about evidence for the existence of the mind.  

Again, I am providing it without significant alterations from when I wrote it several years ago.

Evidence in support of an immaterial mind that exists separate from the brain, has the ability to affect the brain, and is not simply an epiphenomenon of the brain:

1. The Placebo Effect - This is the phenomenon by which an inert substance is administered to a patient (they THINK it is real medicine but it isn't), and the patient's symptoms improve even though the medicine had no impact...they merely believed it did. Doctors have known for a very long time that telling a patient they're taking powerful medicine has a curative effect even though the medicine does nothing. It's the belief of the patient that does the curing. If there is nothing physical at work, then there is nothing to impact the brain/body. Thus, the ONLY viable explanation is an immaterial component which is believing in the treatment and is telling the body it's cured. There simply is no other viable explanation.

2. Buddhist Monks - Buddhist monks can enter states of meditation in which they direct their bodies to do amazing things. They can slow their own heartbeats, or raise their body temperatures, etc. I saw a Buddhist monk one time go into a sub-freezing climate wearing only a very thin robe, proceed to douse a towel in cold water and place it on his head, then meditate and raise his own body temperature such that steam was coming off the towel. The purely naturalistic universe has no explanation for people's ability to consciously direct their body processes in this way. Only on the view that the immaterial mind is real can this be explained.

3. Multiple Personality Disorder - Coming from the psychology field myself, I have witnessed people with multiple personality disorder whose "alters" had different physical characteristics. There was one man who was violently allergic to orange juice (a purely physical reaction, obviously). But he had an alter who was a young boy that happened to love orange juice. When he was in the personality of this boy he could drink as much orange juice as he wanted and he would not suffer from the allergy. If there is nothing like an immaterial mind, then no matter which personality was dominant, the physical allergic reaction should have been identical. The fact that it wasn't can't be explained apart from the existence of an immaterial mind.

4. OCD and Neural Pathways - Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, in his book "The Mind and the Brain", showed how patients with severe Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) had certain neural pathways that had been activated in their brains. Through his studies, which involved intentional efforts to remap the patient's neural pathways, he was able to show that the brain was actually restructured based upon the intentional efforts of the patient. In a universe where there is no immaterial mind to remap these neural pathways, such a thing is impossible.

5. Near Death Experiences - Naturalists attempt to claim NDEs are nothing more than the electrical impulses of the dying brain, but this doesn't explain the other things reported by those experiencing NDEs. Namely, information about a female patient who was born blind and who was able to report seeing the features in the operating room while they were clinically dead. For the first time in this lady's life, she was able to see and describe the objects in the room, the faces of the people, etc. Others who experienced NDEs reported leaving the operating room and seeing family members in the waiting room. They reported accurately things that their family said during the time they were clinically dead, even though their bodies were nowhere near that conversation. Others reported things like a shoe hidden in a spot on the roof of the hospital that no one had access to. Later checking by the hospital confirmed the shoe to be in the exact spot that the "dead" person said. In a purely naturalistic universe, none of these should be possible.

Other things that are unexplainable given the Naturalistic worldview are:

- The 1st person perspective (the sense of "I" that we all feel)

- The experience of qualia (seeing colors, feeling pain, etc.  Nothing in the external world explains these phenomena, and yet their existence gravely undermines the Naturalistic worldview)

- Rational inference

- Libertarian Free Will

If any of these exist (as they surely do), they provide defeaters for the Naturalistic worldview and their arguments that there is no difference between the mind and the brain.