The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon’s Case for the Existence of the Soul

THE IMMORTAL MIND: A Neurosurgeon's Case for the Existence of the Soul by Michael Egnor and Denyse O'Leary. Worthy Books, 2025. 272 pages. Hardcover; $29.00. ISBN: 9781546006350. *The existence or nonexistence of a nonmaterial soul or mind cannot be proved or disproved. All that can be done is to muster evidence that seems to imply one answer or the other. Egnor and O'Leary have written what they believe to be a case for the existence of a nonmaterial soul/mind. The question remains whether the evidence provided, and their interpretations of that evidence, prove compelling. *The authors begin with Egnor's religious experience and his commitment to prove that science can create space for the supernatural. While science writer O'Leary serves as co-author, Egnor appears to rely on his own expertise to then assert a difference between the brain and the mind, assigning the mind both an independent status that later moves to the assertion of the mind's independence of death. The authors use these assertions to advance a case for the immortality of the soul, a free will that acts independent of causation, and ultimately the mind as evidence of God's design. To address a more contemporary concern, Egnor and O'Leary conclude by asserting that this understanding of the mind also challenges the possibility of artificial intelligence. *They present a "soul of the gaps" argument that begins with the assumption that if you cannot demonstrate a localized place in the brain where a mental function is specifically processed, then that mental process must be accomplished by a nonmaterial soul (or mind). Even though Egnor is a professor of neurosurgery, the neuroscience and neuroanatomy discussed appear outdated and/or selectively presented in ways that mislead the reader. In essence, this book constitutes not a rational argument based on a weighing of evidence, but a polemic treatise. *A striking example occurs through the authors' descriptions and conclusions regarding the outcome of "split brain" surgery. These patients have had all or part of their cerebral commissures (the connective pathway between the right and left cerebral cortex) severed to control the spread of epileptic seizures. The authors propose that since these persons, despite a "split brain" (commissurotomy), continue to act and think as a unified person, the mind (conflated with soul) cannot be a product of the functioning of the brain. For example, they write, "Even when the brain is split in half, many important aspects of the mind remain unified. Thus, the mind is something that the brain isn't" (p. 19). *However, as I presume neurosurgeon Egnor must understand, the brain is not split in half. Although the surgery is colloquially labeled a "split brain," only the cerebral cortex is split. The majority of the brain is not split. The diencephalon, midbrain, and brainstem are all still unified with bilateral interactions. For example, the cerebellum in the brainstem has right-left commissures involved not only in sensorimotor and vestibular functioning, but also in aspects of cognition and emotion. Thus, one would not expect splitting of mind or personhood when cutting only the right-left connections in the cerebral cortex. What is more, the case presented by the authors as an illustration of what is preserved in a person with a "split brain" involves a callosotomy, not a commissurotomy--that is, the surgery leaves intact three smaller cortical right-left interactive pathways. This illustration is puzzling and grossly misleading. *A similar form of misrepresentation of neuroscience comes from a focus on old theories of cortical localization of cognitive functions. It is now clear that the highest forms of mental processing emerge from the interactive functional coupling of large cortical areas. For example, there is the default mode network associated with internal thought and self-reflection; the salience network is involved in detecting and processing important external and internal information; the attentional network subserves focused attention; and the control network is involved in cognitive control and decision-making. Each of these networks involves a different pattern of cortical interactivity from which emerges a particular form of higher cognitive functioning. *In contrast to this current view of cortical functional networks, Egnor and O'Leary describe cortical functioning in terms of concepts of localization--surprisingly, supporting their arguments with the work of Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield (1891-1976). While doing neurosurgery for the treatment of epilepsy, Penfield electrically stimulated various points on the surface of the cerebral cortex, observing the impact on sensory, motor, language, and memory functions. The research of Penfield had, at the time, a significant impact on the understanding of cortical functioning as based on very local brain circuits each of which is responsible for a particular facet of cognitive functioning. The authors argue from this neurosurgical work that the highest mental functions cannot be based on brain functioning because you cannot find a point on the brain that you can electrically stimulate to impact these higher forms of processing. However, this outcome of point-by-point electrical stimulation is exactly what you would expect if the highest forms of mental processing emerge from the functional interactivity of large cortical networks. *A strength of this book is the descriptions of different persons with major brain abnormalities who nevertheless function relatively well. These cases are indeed remarkable. Two of the conditions described are removal of an entire cortical hemisphere for the treatment of intractable epilepsy (hemispherectomy) and the congenital absence of the corpus callosum (agenesis of the corpus callosum, or ACC). My students and I have studied both conditions extensively. It is indeed remarkable that many of these individuals function so normally. However, these brain abnormalities are not without consequences in their highest forms of mental functioning. For example, our recent research has demonstrated that persons with ACC, even when their IQ is within the normal range, have deficiencies in their capacity for creativity. *What the authors do not seem to be able to countenance, but what the majority of neuroscientists would conclude from these cases, is the extensive redundancy of brain systems, as well as neural reorganization known as plasticity. Brain systems exhibit a lot of redundancy of behavioral control both within smaller cortical neural circuits and between cortical and subcortical systems. If one area is damaged or abnormal, a lot of yet-still-sophisticated control is available for an adaptive work-around. Plasticity suggests the capacity for neural reorganization, such that preserved neural networks can assume some of the function of damaged or abnormally developed tissue. Neural plasticity is not a minor issue; it is the very basis of child cognitive development and adult learning and memory. *Unfortunately, the authors present a polarized view of the problem they address. For them, there is either a "materialist" or a dualist view. This polarity demonstrates several fundamental problems. First, using the term "materialism" semantically biases the discussion by using a term connoting mechanistic, rather than physiological, functioning. Physiology is alive and dynamic in critically important ways that mechanisms are not. In addition, the authors ignore the more subtle middle position of emergent physicalism, in which mind emerges from physiological functioning but is neither nonmaterial nor entirely reducible to its physiological functional parts (neurons or neural subsystems). *Finally, the authors presume that any physicalist view must be non-Christian. They ignore a large literature on Christian physicalism in which humans are understood as part of God's physical creation. Given the incredible complexity of our neurophysiology, humans have emergent mental properties capable of abstract thought, significant degrees of free will, and comprehending (however incompletely) the presence of God in the world. This neurophysiological complexity, and its consequences in human thought and intelligence, is the miracle of human creation--a perspective The Immortal Mind overlooks in the authors' effort to prove the existence of the soul. *Reviewed by Warren S. Brown, Professor of Psychology, Graduate School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary, and founding director of the Travis Research Institute, Fuller Theological Seminary.

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