A Neurosurgeon’s Proof of an Immortal Soul

American Thought Leaders-The Epoch Times ^ | 11/12/25 | Dr. Michael Egnor

[Eleutheria5]

Very interesting.

[crusty old prospector]

“But stoopid.”

[Eleutheria5]

He’s a neurosurgeon. Anything other than stoopid.

[sauropod]

.

[SaxxonWoods]

“Soul” is just a word, some of its connotations don’t fit but we don’t have a term that fits better. Eastern Masters refer to a “Universal Lifestream” that runs just above us 24/7. They say it’s all of our brain outputs flowing by together.

This is an area that is hard to even discuss given our language constraints.

[reasonisfaith]

Don’t forget the fact that all our physical material—molecules/atoms—are replaced every few years. Yet, the person remains.

This tells us we are not our body.

[SaxxonWoods]

Great point, agreed. We are not our bodies, they are just our “vehicle” for interacting on the physical plane.

[Jamestown1630]

This is where a lot of the misalignment problem in AI is going to come. We can build really useful, very smart machines - intelligent in terms of sheer knowledge, powerful in terms of speed, highly capable of selection and prediction; but it’s not going to have the full ability to *understand* and weigh things on the many levels that humans do. There’s just that “something” that can’t be built into an AI or prompted to develop there.

(One useful outcome may be that AI causes us to question the materialist bias in our science, and pursue some new ideas and possibilities. While scientists are generally less ‘believing’ than the general public, at least half of them do believe in some kind of higher or universal spirit or power.)

[No.6]

>given our language constraints.

Yes. English ‘soul’ comes from older English equivalents and potentially back to a bunch of Germanic roots overlapping; a faint connection to a Germanic base as ‘sea’ with (very speculative) idea that souls come from and return to the sea; personally I think this is an attempt by 20th century people to force a bridge to this Eastern concept.

People often almost use ‘spirit’ interchangeably although ‘spirit’ means ‘breath’ as does the Hebrew ‘naphesh’ which gets translated ‘soul’ in most Bibles.

Either way you’re right; languages have a bunch of terms which inadequately capture one or another version of meaning that people are not just their mechanical bodies. (Contrarily the WEF globalist types absolutely *insist* that people are just machines and that this is why and how they must and will control everyone. They are of course wrong on both counts but they seek to gaslight enough people into believing them).

[TexasGator]

“all our physical material”

There is no physical material. Only energy fields.

[cgbg]

“all our physical material—molecules/atoms—are replaced every few years. Yet, the person remains.

This tells us we are not our body.”

Excellent post—nailed it.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Summary of the Interview: Dr. Michael Egnor on "American Thought Leaders" with Jan Jekielek

Dr. Michael Egnor, a professor of neurosurgery at Stony Brook University and author of The Immortal Mind, argues that modern neuroscience supports the existence of an immaterial human soul and that the mind is not fully produced by the brain.

Key Arguments:

• The brain produces certain functions (movement, perception, memory, emotion, homeostasis, and arousal) but not reason or free will, which are immaterial powers of the soul.
• Evidence includes:
  • Electrical stimulation of the brain (via seizures or awake brain mapping) elicits movement, sensations, memories, and emotions but never logical reasoning, mathematical thought, or moral judgments.
  • Deep brain stimulation and split-brain studies show the same pattern.
• Clinical cases: Patients missing large portions of their brain (up to two-thirds or even cerebral hemispheres in hydrocephalus/hydranencephaly) can remain highly functional, intelligent, conscious, and socially aware, contradicting materialist theories of consciousness that require extensive cortical processing.
• Historical context: Wilder Penfield reached similar conclusions after decades of research. Ancient philosophers (e.g., Aristotle) viewed humans as integrated beings with souls, not machines; the modern "mind-brain problem" stems from Descartes' dualism and mechanical philosophy.

Critiques of Materialism:

• Materialist neuroscience operates with bias, often relying on "promissory materialism" (promises of future explanations) and dismissing non-materialist views as "god of the gaps."
• Common fallacies: mereological fallacy (attributing to brain parts what only the whole person does, e.g., "the brain thinks") and treating humans as machines.
• Conjoined twins sharing brain tissue (e.g., Tatiana and Krista Hogan) share sensations, emotions, and some memories but retain separate personalities, reasoning, and free will.

Near-Death Experiences (NDEs):

• NDEs (estimated 20 million Americans affected) provide evidence of consciousness independent of brain function.
• Paradigmatic case: Pam Reynolds (1991) accurately described surgical details, instruments, conversations, and music while clinically brain-dead during a "standstill" procedure (heart stopped, brain drained of blood, body cooled).
• Four characteristics challenging materialist explanations (e.g., dying brain hallucinations):
  1. Enhanced clarity and coherence (unlike brain impairment).
  2. Veridical out-of-body perceptions.
  3. Encounters only with deceased persons (never living ones; sometimes people unknown to be dead).
  4. Profound, lasting positive transformation.

Implications:

• Technologies like Neuralink can affect brain-produced functions (e.g., movement, mood) but cannot generate or control reason or free will.
• Free will operates as "free won't" (per Benjamin Libet's experiments): the brain generates impulses, but the person can veto them via rational choice.
• Egnor concludes that the soul's existence and immortality are fully consistent with the best neuroscience, and science does not contradict belief in God or the soul.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

...modern neuroscience supports the existence of an immaterial human soul and that the mind is not fully produced by the brain...

Which implies that "Artificial Intelligence" will never be anything more than intricate levels of stimulus/response.

[Ronaldus Magnus III]

We can build really useful, very smart machines - intelligent in terms of sheer knowledge, powerful in terms of speed, highly capable of selection and prediction; but it’s not going to have the full ability to *understand* and weigh things on the many levels that humans do.

Are their Large Language Models (LLM) that have all of the Pravda archives as part of their "data"? Does the LLM programming state that communism is just another culture?

If a LLM has both AlGore's Inconvenient Truth and Michael Crichton's State of Fear as part of it's data, would it be able to determine that BOTH are fiction?

[GingisK]

“Soul” is just a word...

But what it labels is very real, and very vital.

[SaxxonWoods]

Excellent fleshing out of the issue, thanks.

[Jamestown1630]

Why should the AI need to do that, when the academy has been doing a very good job of it for decades?

I don’t think AI will need Pravda lies to run a water treatment plant, build a car, or read X-rays and scans.

[SaxxonWoods]

Yeah, sometimes those molecules get really dense, oddly providing room for thought in the process:

“Antony Flew-

The atheist who changed his mind after breaking his leg on a bench in the dark is Antony Flew. He was a prominent philosopher known for his atheism but later came to believe in God after reviewing scientific evidence and philosophical arguments. Flew’s conversion was documented in his book, There is a God, where he describes the gradual process of his belief change over two decades”

[cgbg]

The danger of AI is not its “intelligence” or “judgement”.

It need be no smarter or have better judgement than a lion to conquer the planet—smashing everything in its path.

[SaxxonWoods]

Excellent, thanks.