I think it's just a helpful way to frame it sometimes, 'cause you, you know, a lot of times people are like, "Well, you have it strictly disproven." Well, maybe we have it strictly disproven, but we've, we've certainly lent a lot of credence to an alternative hypothesis, right?

Well, I mean, there, there are two ways to disprove something.

You can disprove it deductively or inductively.

Uh, deductively disproving something that exists in the physical world, St. Thomas would say you can't do that deductively because deduction is independent of a physical thing.

Deduction is a logical sequence.

You can't prove or disprove the existence of a, of, of a thing by just deduction.

Um, induction, you know, the, the, the, the, the, uh, the recourse to the best ex- ex- explanation is, is the way science works.

Mm-hmm.

I think it's just a helpful way to frame it sometimes, 'cause you, you know, a lot of times people are like, "Well, you have it strictly disproven." Well, maybe we have it strictly disproven, but we've, we've certainly lent a lot of credence to an alternative hypothesis, right?

Well, I mean, there, there are two ways to disprove something.

You can disprove it deductively or inductively.

Uh, deductively disproving Something that exists in the physical world, St. Thomas would say you can't do that deductively because deduction is independent of a physical thing.

Deduction is a logical sequence.

You can't prove or disprove the existence of a, of, of a thing by just deduction.

Um, induction, you know, the, the, the, the, the, uh, the recourse to the best ex- ex- explanation is, is the way science works.

Mm-hmm.

What is the soul, and is the soul immortal? I very strongly believe that this is a question for neuroscience.

That is, it's-- o-obviously, there are theological answers to this, and there are philosophical answers to this.

But neuroscience also addresses these issues.

[soft music] There are three questions that I want to ask today about the human soul.

First of all, does the soul exist as something separate from the brain? The current materialist way of looking at things is that, uh, all of our mind is just from the brain.

Uh, and if it does so, then what is the soul, and is the soul immortal? I very strongly believe that this is a question for neuroscience.

But before that, Michael, for those not familiar with your work, Can you tell us briefly about your background as a neurosurgeon and how you became interested in the evidence for mind and soul?

Sure.

I'm a neurosurgeon.

I've been a professor of neurosurgery for about 35 years.

And I started out my life as an atheist and as a materialist.

I was raised in kind of a secular environment.

And I was fascinated by science as a child and almost worshipped science instead of God.

But terminal acidity, I think, can it's it's the surges do happen at the wrong time yeah and if there's a very strong and we talk about hours to 48 hours mismatch yeah um and so i i don't think it's usable it won't explain it it's not relevant in a way yeah

Explain that to me.

Well, um, as you noted, I started out a materialist, uh, and I believe that, uh, everything in the mind came from the brain.

Uh, Wilder Penfield, this, uh, uh, one of the pioneering neurosurgeons said the most important question in neuroscience is, "Does the brain explain the mind, uh, completely?" Uh, and I believe that it did.

But, uh, he changed his mind on that over his 40-year career, and I changed mine too.

Um, I've had a number of patients who were born with very incomplete brains.

I have a young lady who was missing probably two- two-thirds of- of her brain from, uh, from birth, and she's a completely normal person.

Uh, I have a number of other patients who have similar kinds of situations, and it's well-known in neurology and neurosurgery that there are patients out there who have very deficient brains who really have normal minds.

That's fascinating.