The Case for a Creator - Lee Strobel [139]
Moreland paused before adding one other comment. “Regardless of what anyone thinks about near-death experiences, we do have confirmation that Jesus was put to death and was later seen alive by credible eyewitnesses,” he said. 44 “Not only does this provide powerful historical corroboration that it’s possible to survive after the death of our physical body, but it also gives Jesus great credibility when he teaches that we have both a body and an immaterial spirit.”
THE INNER AND PRIVATE MIND
At this point, having considered Moreland’s critique of physicalism, I wanted to hear his affirmative case that consciousness and the soul are immaterial entities. “What positive evidence is there that consciousness and the self are not merely a physical process of the brain?” I asked.
“We have experimental data, for one thing,” he replied. “For example, neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield electrically stimulated the brains of epilepsy patients and found he could cause them to move their arms or legs, turn their heads or eyes, talk, or swallow. Invariably the patient would respond by saying, ‘I didn’t do that. You did.’ 45 According to Penfield, ‘the patient thinks of himself as having an existence separate from his body.’ 46
“No matter how much Penfield probed the cerebral cortex, he said, ‘There is no place . . . where electrical stimulation will cause a patient to believe or to decide.’ 47 That’s because those functions originate in the conscious self, not the brain.
“A lot of subsequent research has validated this. When Roger Sperry and his team studied the differences between the brain’s right and left hemispheres, they discovered the mind has a causal power independent of the brain’s activities. This led Sperry to conclude materialism was false. 48
“Another study showed a delay between the time an electric shock was applied to the skin, its reaching the cerebral cortex, and the self-conscious perception of it by the person. 49 This suggests the self is more than just a machine that reacts to stimuli as it receives them. In fact, the data from various research projects are so remarkable that Laurence C. Wood said, ‘many brain scientists have been compelled to postulate the existence of an immaterial mind, even though they may not embrace a belief in an after-life.’ ” 50
“What about beyond the laboratory?” I asked.
“There are valid philosophical arguments as well,” he said. “For instance, I know that consciousness isn’t a physical phenomenon because there are things that are true of my consciousness that aren’t true of anything physical.”
“For instance . . . ,” I said, prompting him further.
“For example, some of my thoughts have the attribute of being true. Tragically, some of my thoughts have the attribute of being false—like the Chicago Bears are going to go to the Super Bowl,” he said with a chuckle. “However, none of my brain states are true or false. No scientist can look at the state of my brain and say, ‘Oh, that particular brain state is true and that one’s false.’ So there’s something true of my conscious states that are not true of any of my brain states, and consequently they can’t be the same thing.
“Nothing in my brain is about anything. You can’t open up my head and say, ‘You see this electrical pattern in the left hemisphere of J. P. Moreland’s brain? That’s about the Bears.’ Your brain states aren’t about anything, but some of my mental states are. So they’re different.
“Furthermore, my consciousness is inner and private to me. By simply introspecting, I have a way of knowing about what’s happening in my mind that is not available to you, my doctor, or a neuroscientist. A scientist could know more about what’s happening in my brain than I do, but he couldn’t know more about what’s happening in my mind than I do. He has to ask me.”
When I asked Moreland for an illustration of this, he said, “Have you heard