My Brain Wave Headband Tests Looked for a Neural Correlate of Recall, But Found None

 The EEG is a device that can detect electrical activity from parts of the brain. When an EEG device is used, electrodes or sensors are placed next to different parts of the skull. The device will pick up a dozen or more different lines that show electrical activity in different parts of the brain. 

The analysis of brain waves obtained by EEG devices is an area of science where bad methods, pareidolia and junk analysis is very abundant.  There have been many people trying to use fancy statistical methods to try to extract identifiable "signals" or "signs" from EEG data that is very noisy and polluted. Muscle movements abundantly contaminate EEG readings. Many experimental studies using EEG readings have been guilty of poor design or Questionable Research Practices, such as failing to exclude unnecessary muscle movements that may contaminate EEG readings, or the use of way-too-small study groups.

When a neurologist asks you to sit for an EEG reading, you will be asked to remain still throughout the reading.  But you will sometimes see experimental studies in which experimenters will unwisely ask people to make muscle movements when EEG readings are taken. For example, a person may be asked to press a button at a particular time during the EEG reading, or to click a particular key on a keyboard. A good study design will avoid mixing EEG readings and muscle movements. 

Studies trying to find EEG correlates of various types of cognitive activity give inconsistent results. For example, the paper here states this about theta waves (one of the five types of brain waves), making it sound like the research results are "all over the map":

 "Contrary to findings from scalp EEG/MEG, almost all intracranial studies of human memory report at least some decreases in theta power  associated with memory success, and many report exclusively decreases in theta power...The intracranial studies we have discussed so far feature prominent theta power decreases, which are at odds with theta increases reported in many scalp EEG studies. There are however, several intracranial studies that show increases in theta power associated with successful encoding  or retrieval."

Another paper tells us this:  "Similarly, encoding-related induced gamma oscillations in the hippocampus,

prefrontal cortex, and left temporal lobe have been

reported to show an increase in amplitude with successful

encoding in humans [65,66] and the hippocampus of nonhuman primates [67], while the reverse relationship has also been reported in the hippocampus and rhinal cortex [4]." Of course, such inconsistent results and variations would be expected if scientists are analyzing different types of brain waves which can randomly vary, without any real relation to some task or some particular place in the brain being checked. Given the relatively low cost of EEG use (compared to much more expensive fMRI scans), and an abundance of neuroscientists looking for experimental work to do, and the freedom of an experimental neuroscientist to check brain waves from any of many brain regions, we might expect that almost any relation between a task and some type of brain wave increase or decrease somewhere in a brain might be found by one experiment or another. 

Prior to a few years ago, experiments involving EEG readings were something that could pretty much only be done by neuroscientists or wealthy citizen scientists, because of the expense of EEG devices and the software used to analyze brain waves. But in recent years the door has been opened for low-cost experimentation involving EEG readings. 

A new wave of inexpensive headband devices have been put on the market, devices capable of reading brain waves. Such devices have been marketed mainly for those interested in activities such as biofeedback and meditation. But the same devices can also be used for low-cost, risk-free neuroscience experiments involving taking brain wave readings, and analyzing them. In some cases, there is a low-cost software infrastructure that allows the data from such devices to be conveniently analyzed. 

I researched the available devices, and found some scientific papers suggesting that at least one of them (the Muse 2 device) was capable of reliably reading brain waves from some areas of the brain. Below is the Muse 2 device that I bought for $249. The device is placed on the forehead, at about the same spot that you might put an exercise sweatband on your head. 

The protocol I used to get the data below is described in the Appendix of this post, where I also describe scientific papers I read about the Muse 2 device, papers that influenced my experimental design.  The Appendix goes into lots of details so that anyone can reproduce my experimental method.  

There were six experiments I performed that I discuss below. The experiments detected five types of brain waves:

1. Delta waves, with a frequency between 0.5 and 4 Hertz. 

2. Theta waves, with a frequency between 4 and 8 Hertz. 

3. Alpha waves with a frequency between 8 and 12 Hertz.

4. Beta waves with a frequency between 12 and 35 Hertz.

5. Gamma waves with a frequency between 35 and 100 Hertz.

Experiment 1, Conducted on October 26, 2026

Here is a short description of what went on when Experiment 1 was performed. 

1. Having read a recommendation to use an alcohol wipe in a particular way to enhance the performance of the Muse 2 headband, I wiped my forehead with one of those little alcohol wipes that come in tiny packets, and also wiped the electrodes of the Muse 2 headbands with such a wipe. 

2. I turned on the Muse 2 headband, and placed it on my forehead, so that its front sensors touched the middle of my forehead. 

2. I went into the Mind Monitor smartphone app described below, and verified that it was well-connected to the Muse 2 headband (the two communicate electronically). 

3. I clicked on a sound recording file of a type described in the Appendix, clicking on the top file in a folder filled with such files. 

4. The sound recording file told me: "Start recording, close eyes, and think of nothing." I clicked on the Record button of the Mind Monitor app. I then pressed the Muse 2 headband against my forehead, closed my eyes, and thought of nothing for the next 30 seconds, while remaining motionless. 

5. After  30 seconds had elapsed in the sound recording, I heard the recording give this instruction: "Recall high school events." I did that silently for the next 60 seconds, while not moving. I not only visualized experiences I had, but also silently thought to myself sentences describing various experiences I had in high school. 

6. After 60 seconds of silence from the recording, while I was silently doing the recall activity described above with my eyes closed, and not moving, I heard the word "Stop." I then pressed the Record button on the Mind Monitor app. When a recording is ongoing, this causes the recording to stop; and you see then on the app screen a prompt allowing you to email the file to any email (below is a screen shot of what appears). I pressed the Gmail button shown below, and then typed in my email address, sending the data file as an attachment in an email. This is very easy; all you have to do is type in your email address.

7. Using the very convenient Mind Monitor chart app at https://mind-monitor.com/Chart.php,  I graphed the data from the email I received, an email including all of the brain wave data recorded during the roughly 90 second experimental session. The first 7 seconds from the recorded data was discarded. This was because such data would have been affected by my muscle action in pressing the Record button on the Mind Monitor app and my muscle action in closing my eyes and pressing the Muse 2 headband to my forehead; and it was desired that the analyzed data would only be data collected when I was motionless and with eyes closed. 

Let us look at the experimental results.  Below are the delta wave results and the gamma wave results that I collected:

 

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was silently recalling experiences I had in high school.  We see no major difference between the rest period and the recall period. 

Below are the theta wave results and the beta wave results that I collected. 

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was silently recalling experiences I had in high school.  We see no major difference between the rest period and the recall period. 

Lastly, we have the alpha wave results that I collected:

Again, we see no major difference between the rest period and the recall period. The resting period alpha wave results are slightly higher. 

Experiment 2, Conducted on October 26, 2026

The procedure for Experiment 2 was exactly the same as the procedure described above for Experiment 1, except that the sound recording file contained the instruction "recall holiday events" rather than the instruction "recall high school events"; and rather than spending 60 seconds recalling high school events, I spent 60 seconds recalling holiday events.

Let us look at the experimental results.  Below are the delta wave results and the gamma wave results that I collected:

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was silently recalling experiences I had during holidays such as Christmas.  We see no major difference between the rest period and the recall period. 

Below are the theta wave results and the beta wave results that I collected:

Below are the alpha wave results that I collected:

Again, we see no major difference between the rest period and the recall period. The resting period alpha wave results are slightly higher. 

Experiment 3, Conducted on October 27, 2026, Around Noon

The procedure for Experiment 3 was exactly the same as the procedure described above for Experiment 1, except that the sound recording file contained the instruction "recall words used by biologists" rather than the instruction "recall high school events"; and rather than spending 60 seconds recalling high school events, I spent 60 seconds recalling words used by biologists.

Below are the results for the delta waves and the theta waves:

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was silently recalling words used by biologists. We see no significant difference. 

Below are the results for the beta waves and the gamma waves. 

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was silently recalling words used by biologists.  We see a slight increase in the gamma rays during the recall period.  An AI overview tells us, "Because gamma waves share the exact same high-frequency electrical spectrum as active muscle tissue (electromyography, or EMG), even minor muscle movements—like blinking, swallowing, shifting your neck, or clenching your jaw—will create massive electrical noise that completely masks the brain's true gamma signals."

Below are the results for the alpha waves:

We see no substantial difference between the rest period and the recall period.

Experiment 4, Conducted on October 28, 2026

The procedure for Experiment 4 was exactly the same as the procedure described above for Experiment 1, except that the sound recording file contained the instruction "recall people you loved seeing" rather than the instruction "recall high school events"; and rather than spending 60 seconds recalling high school events, I spent 60 seconds recalling people I loved seeing.

Below are the results for the delta waves and the theta waves. 

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing, motionless. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was motionless and silently recalling  people I loved seeing. We see no significant difference. 

Below are the results for the alpha waves and the beta waves.

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing, motionless. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was motionless and silently recalling  people I loved seeing. We see no significant difference. 

Finally there was the result for the gamma waves:

We see no substantial difference between the rest period and the recall period.

Experiment 5, Conducted on October 28, 2026

The procedure for Experiment 5 was exactly the same as the procedure described above for Experiment 1, except that the sound recording file contained the instruction "recall celebrities with words in their names" rather than the instruction "recall high school events"; and rather than spending 60 seconds recalling high school events, I spent 60 seconds recalling celebrities with words in their names.  For example, I recalled the name of Frank Sinatra (a name including the English word "frank"), and I also recalled the name of Tom Cruise (a name including "cruise," a word in English).  The recall activity was quite verbal, and required an element of thinking in addition to recall. 

Below are the results for the delta waves and the theta waves. 

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing, motionless. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was motionless and silently recalling  celebrities with English words in their names. We see no significant difference. 

Below are the results for the alpha waves and the beta waves. 

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing, motionless. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was motionless and silently recalling  celebrities with English words in their names. We see no significant difference. 

Finally, we have below the results for the gamma waves.

We see no big difference between the rest period and the recall period. The recall period may have a tiny bit more gamma waves, but the difference looks like a mere random fluctuation. 

Experiment 6, Conducted on October 28, 2026

The procedure for Experiment 6 was exactly the same as the procedure described above for Experiment 1, except that the sound recording file contained the instruction "recall historical figures" rather than the instruction "recall high school events"; and rather than spending 60 seconds recalling high school events, I spent 60 seconds recalling the names of historical figures.  For example, I recalled the names of Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Aristotle and Descartes (among quite a few others).

Below are the results for the delta waves and the theta waves. 

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing, motionless. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was motionless and silently recalling  historical figures. We see no big difference, and these waves are slightly higher in the resting state. 

Below are the results for the alpha waves and the beta waves.

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing, motionless. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was motionless and silently recalling  historical figures. We see no noticeable difference.

Finally, we have below the results for the gamma waves.

We see no major difference. The resting state has slightly less gamma waves in the resting state, but in the first graph there was slightly more delta waves and theta waves in the resting state. So overall from this experiment, we get no evidence of more brain waves during a recall state than during a rest state.

Conclusion

The results displayed above are consistent with the idea that the brain is not the source of recall. Overall, we fail to see any substantial evidence of net greater brain wave activity during the 60 seconds of recall activity in an eyes-closed motionless state, compared to the 30 seconds in which no thinking and no recall occurred in an eyes-closed motionless state, In two of these graphs we see a little more activity during the recall period for one of the wave types; but this is offset in other graphs by less activity during the recall period than during the rest period, so "it's a wash." 

The results I report above are consistent with the findings discussed in my post "The Brains of 60 Subjects Seemed to Look the Same During Eyes Closed Mental Rest, Recall and Math Activity," which describes a scientific paper discussing EEG experiments.  However, my experimental efforts using the Muse 2 were a low-budget "shoestring" affair involving only six quick experiments with a single person. So I cannot claim any great weight in these experiments.  I do think that the protocol used is a good one, as it involves only brain wave readings taken during an eyes-closed motionless state.  And the type of graphs I have presented show a good way to compare whether there is any clear difference between brain waves in a rest state and brain waves in a state of mental activity. 

After several days of testing with the Muse 2 device, I started to get a complete failure of the device to connect to the Mind Monitor app. I now cannot recommend the device to any low-income buyers. 

Appendix

The average reader may want to skip this appendix, which is intended  mainly for those who may be interested in reproducing these experiments. 

Before buying the Muse 2 device, I reviewed several scientific papers discussing whether the device was effective. 

• The 2021 paper "Validating the wearable Muse headset for EEG spectral analysis and Frontal Alpha Asymmetry" stated the following: "We show that the MUSE can be used to examine power spectral density (PSD) in all frequency bands, the individual alpha frequency (IAF; i.e., peak alpha frequency and alpha center of gravity), and frontal alpha asymmetry. Furthermore, we observed satisfying internal consistency reliability in alpha power and asymmetry measures recorded with the MUSE."  The paper had "recommendations for using the Muse device in future clinical and experimental research" that included "eye’s closed recordings of at least 1 minute" and "cleaning the participants’ skin with alcohol wipes and wetting the dry electrodes to reduce impedance."  My experiments described above follow these recommendations. 
• Another scientific paper (the 2024 paper "Comparison of EEG Signal Spectral Characteristics Obtained with Consumer- and Research-Grade Devices") analyzed the Muse 2 device. Referring to the side electrodes of the device that pick up signals from the temporal lobe, the paper claimed that the Muse 2 device "exhibited poor signal quality at the TP9 and TP10 channels (temporal site)" but said "the signal on the frontal electrodes was satisfactory."  My experiments described above took this into consideration, and I have only given data from the frontal electrodes (corresponding to the channels of AF7 and AF8). 
• A 2026 paper in Nature ("A comprehensive evaluation framework for consumer-grade EEG devices: signal quality, robustness, and usability") discussed tests of several EEG headband devices including Muse 2, and said, "The results indicate that all tested devices successfully detected both non-neural physiological artefacts and brain wave signals, with consumer-grade devices displaying comparable alpha rhythm characteristics and noise robustness to the research-grade device." The paper noted "Muse2 exhibited relatively higher sensitivity to movement compared with the other devices." My experiments described above took this into consideration, and my graphs of those experiments show only data gathered when I was entirely motionless. 

A major reason why I selected the Muse 2 device instead of competitors is that I saw a video saying that the Muse 2 device can be used with an app that can generate a data file, and that you can conveniently get an email with the Muse 2 data gathered by that app at a particular time. I paid $15 for the app (called Mind Monitor), and found that it works very well for the type of experimental purposes I had in mind.  The Mind Monitor app is a smartphone app specifically designed to collect data from the Muse 2 headband. The Mind Monitor app includes a convenient Start/Stop button allowing you to manually start recording data from the Muse 2 headset, and then manually stop recording the data. As soon as you have stopped recording data, you will see on your smartphone some options that allow you to send the recorded data to yourself as an email. 

I tried this, and found this all worked very conveniently. What was sent to my email was an email with a comma-separated data file as an attachment. When I opened up the email with the data, and clicked on the attachment sent with the email, I got a screen with an "Open With Google Sheets" button at the top right. Clicking on that button produced a Google Sheets spreadsheet with all of the Muse 2 data appearing well-arranged in columns corresponding to particular EEG channels. Each row had a timestamp in its first column. 

To produce the graphs above, I used File/Download from the Google Sheets spreadsheet, to save the comma-separated file on my hard drive. I then went to the very convenient Mind Monitor chart app at https://mind-monitor.com/Chart.php,  Using the Choose File button on that web page, I chose the comma-separated file I had just saved on my hard drive. Once you have done this, it is very easy to chart the data on the comma-separated file created by the Mind Monitor smartphone app.  You can choose which type of brain waves you wish to chart, and which of the six Muse 2 channels you wish to use. Having heard from one of the scientific papers above that the two frontal channels (AF7 and AF8) are the most reliable, I graphed only those channels. 

After buying the Muse 2 device, I designed an experimental protocol for the purpose of trying to test whether brain waves differ between a state of mental rest, and various states of mental activity.  I decided the experiments would involve reading of brain waves while I was motionless, silent, and with eyes closed. Each experimental run would involve 30 seconds of eyes-closed mental rest involving no thinking, seeing, moving or recalling, followed by 60 seconds of strong mental activity involving some particular task (occurring in a motionless, eyes-closed state). 

To help use this experimental protocol, I created a list of dozens of short prompts, each of which would involve some instruction such as "Recall names of historical figures" or "keep subtracting 7 from 200" or "imagine a trip to a foreign country." For each of the prompts, I made a sound recording of about 100 seconds.  Each sound recording began with this instruction: "Start recording, close eyes, and think of nothing." Then 30 seconds later (after 30 seconds of silence) each sound recording would have a very short instruction to do some type of mental activity.  The instruction would last no more than about six seconds. Then 60 seconds later (after 60 seconds of silence) the sound recording would say, "Stop."

To use one of the recordings as part of the experiment, first I used an alcohol wipe to wipe my forehead and the electrodes of the Muse 2 headphone. I then turned on the Muse 2 headband, and put it on my head, so that the front electrodes touched the middle front of my forehead. I then entered into the Mind Monitor app on my iPhone. After verifying that the connection was good between that app and the Muse 2 headband,  I clicked on the top file in my folder of sound recordings:

Clicking on the sound recording, I heard the words "Start recording, close eyes, and think of nothing." Upon hearing that, I clicked on the Record button on the Mind Monitor app, and quickly closed my eyes and pressed the Muse 2 device against my forehead. I thought of nothing for the next 30 seconds, and did not move. After 30 seconds of silence from the sound recording, I then heard the prompt asking me to perform a particular cognitive task. I did that task for the next 60 seconds, until hearing a "Stop" instruction at the end of the sound recording. When I heard that instruction, I had been eyes-closed and motionless for the previous 90 seconds. As soon as I heard that "Stop" instruction, I pressed the Record button on the Mind Monitor app, which causes the current recording to stop. 

I thereby had about 97 seconds of brain wave data recorded. Once you stop a recording with the Mind Monitor app, you get a screen allowing you to email the recording to yourself. I used this smartphone capability to send an email to myself, one that included the brain wave data as an attachment. The graphical user interface allows you to choose a title for the email, and it is a good idea to type a unique title such as "Experiment 1, testing recall of high school events." 

The email contained brain wave data that I graphed above. After graphing the data I excluded the first seven seconds of recorded data, because under my method there was muscle activity during most of those seconds. I wanted the graphed data to be only data for seconds in which I was motionless, and with eyes closed; so I excluded the first 7 seconds of the data.  I made that exclusion by a simple act of cropping a bit of the left part of some screen shot from a chart obtained at the Mind Monitor chart app at https://mind-monitor.com/Chart.php.  So, for example, you can very easily chart all of the data showing one or two particular brain waves, and two channels (using checkboxes of that web page).  You can then take a screen shot of the resulting graph, and simply crop 7 seconds from the left part of the graph (removing something like the left 6% of the image). 

I followed the same procedure described above when running each of the experiments described here. 

Below are options I used when graphing a brain wave of a particular type (gamma waves).

Besides the experiments discussed above (involving recall tasks), I also did experiments involving two other types of activity: math calculation and imagination. Two future posts will report on the results of such experiments. 

His Bungling Panpsychism Pitch at Least Gets One Thing Right

 In academic circles it is commonly assumed that consciousness is generated by the brain. But many philosophers have been dissatisfied with this idea. Why is it that some particular arrangement of matter would cause Mind (a totally different type of thing) to emerge from the matter in a brain? To many that seems no more plausible than the idea that some particular arrangement of crystals in a rock might cause the rock to gush out blood.

One alternate idea is to assume that we have something like a soul, and that our mental experiences are produced not mainly by matter (the brain), but by something that is itself mental or spiritual. Another alternative (called idealism or immaterialism) is to believe that everything is mental, and that matter only exists as perceptions within minds.  A third alternative is the idea that the brain doesn't actually produce our minds, but somehow taps into some great external reality that is the source of our minds, perhaps in a way rather similar to how a television set receives TV signals, or how a smartphone connects with the internet. 

Yet another alternate idea is the radical notion known as panpsychism. Panpsychism has been described as the idea that consciousness is in everything.

This idea may not seem very unreasonable if we think of consciousness as some very simple thing. But the word “consciousness” describes only one aspect of human mentality, and there are many different aspects of the human mind. The visual below reminds us of the many aspects of mentality.

I doubt whether panpsychism theorists have thought out which of these aspects of mentality they think should be attributed to “all matter.” Below are some questions I would ask a panpsychist:

1. How could dead matter be said to have consciousness or mind, when objects such as rocks, atoms and electrons do not have sensory organs? Do you maintain that such objects have some existence like some person born blind and deaf into the world, who also had some brain defect preventing a sense of touch?
2. How would self-hood work under a scenario in which all matter is conscious? Is the Pacific ocean a single conscious self? Or is every drop of water its own conscious self? Or is there perhaps some particular unit of matter (such as a liter) which causes some quantity of water to achieve self-hood?
3. Does each atom on a beach have its own self-hood, or does it take a grain of sand to make a sand self? Or does perhaps the whole beach constitute a single self?
4. Do you maintain that lifeless objects have volition, the ability to will particular actions? If so, how do you reconcile such a belief with the complete lack of any evidence that lifeless matter is engaging in volition or willing actions?
5. Do you maintain that lifeless objects have memories or thoughts? If you think they have either, how could that be, since thoughts require language (which could not be known by minds without sensory experience), and memories require either thoughts or sensations (which would seem to be impossible for a mind without sensory experience)?
6. Do you maintain that lifeless objects have interests, pleasures, pains, attitudes, knowledge or ideas? How could lifeless objects have such things if they never had sensory experience?

Of course, once we consider such questions we become entangled in a great ocean of difficulties. Let us consider the question of volition, which means the power to carry out some action. There are two possibilities for a panpsychist. The first (call it option A) is to maintain that lifeless objects can carry out actions by willing them. One problem with this option is that lifeless objects do not have sensory organs. So we can't really imagine any reasonable scenario by which a lifeless natural object would will something to occur. For example, if a lifeless asteroid were traveling through the solar system, we cannot imagine it willing itself to move closer to the Earth, because lacking all sensory organs, such a rock would never know what Earth (or anything else) was.

Another strong reason for rejecting option A is that there is zero evidence that lifeless objects can will things. For example, on the subatomic level, subatomic particles such as electrons and protons act with unvarying precise obedience to the laws of electromagnetism. If they did not, you would not be reading a coherent intelligible essay at this moment, but would be seeing only a jumbled scramble of pixels. To give another example, astronomers find that things such as asteroids and comets act with unvarying precise obedience to the laws of gravity, showing no signs of independence.

So it seems option A doesn't work. The alternative for a panpsychist considering this question of volition in lifeless objects is what we may call option B: the idea that lifeless objects with minds do not have any power of volition. But when we think about this possibility, it seems very depressing. Given their lack of sensory organs, lifeless objects with a mind would be like a child born deaf, blind and incapable of any tactile sensation. If we also imagine them having no power of volition, we then imagine them like a child born completely paralyzed, blind, deaf and incapable of feeling touch.

So option B seems like quite a dismal scenario. If we have a universe filled with 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 conscious objects that are like children born deaf, blind, paralyzed and without any sense of smell, taste or touch, that is a dismal and repulsive scenario. The scenario becomes even more dark and depressing when we ask ourselves: how long would these conscious but lifeless objects live? The answer would apparently be: in many cases, for billions of years. So, for example, if you were a conscious rock on the moon, you would have to hang around for billions of years in such an undesirable state: blind, deaf, and paralyzed, unable to communicate with your fellow rocks, unable to do anything. The panpsychist apparently must believe that for every conscious human such as yourself who can exercise volition and enjoy sensory experience, there are 1,000,000,000,000,000 or more conscious entities living a horrid life o of blindness, deafness and paralysis.

Lament of a lunar rock (if panpsychism is true)

Engaging in the shadow-speaking of trying to make a human mind sound like a mere "property," panpsychists are constantly forgetting (or speaking as if they forgot) that a human mind is largely a great wealth of capabilities, capabilities not decently described by the ultra-reductionist "make it sound as tiny as possible" shadow-speaking of referring to a human mind as "consciousness."

At the atheism indoctrination site bigthink.com, we have the latest bungling sales job by a panpsychist. We have an article with a title of "The consciousness theory that connects you to everything." We don't need consciousness theories, which are examples of shadow-speaking, in which some enormous reality is spoken of as if it was a mere shadow of itself.  What we need is a credible theory that helps explain human minds, human mental experiences and human mental capabilities. Human minds are realities gigantically bigger and more complex than mere consciousness.  And it is is not true that panpsychism connects you to everything. It does not connect you to anything.  A better description of panpsychism would be "The shrink-speaking theory that puts you on the same level as a rock." 

The article by psychiatrist Ian McGilchrist has a subtitle with the false claim that "we’ve learned that even single-celled organisms can make intelligent decisions." No, we haven't learned any such thing. A cell may move in some way or act in some way that helps serve some higher purpose. But that isn't the cell making a decision. 

Sounding like someone who cannot get his story straight, McGilchrist says this:

"The brain definitely does not create consciousness. It gives rise to my consciousness." 

That does not make sense. The two terms are equivalent.  Later he refers to "when my brain or your brain produces my consciousness or your consciousness," which sounds he has forgotten that he previously claimed that "the brain definitely does not create consciousness." 

Later McGilchrist makes the silly claim that "matter is a phase of consciousness," a claim making no sense at all. He gives some rambling talk about water and whirlpools that fails to hold together in any coherent way. 

He says this:

"I think single cell organisms are conscious. Cell biologist James Shapiro wrote a long time ago that single cells make intelligent decisions. And they do. They realize what's going on, even if it's something that they couldn't be prepared for genetically or by their own experience. And they make intelligent choices as to what to do."

There is no evidence that cells are intelligent. When a biologist such as Shapiro said cells make intelligent decisions, he was probably referring only to a cell moving in some direction or changing in some way that was good for the cell's survival, or good for some higher purpose in an organism that a cell belonged to.  Such movement or change did not constitute a conscious decision by a cell, and is not evidence that cells realize anything or that cells "make intelligent choices" like a person deciding to go towards a particular destination or deciding to choose a particular career direction. 

It is very true that cells and other bodily components such as proteins and protein complexes act in endless purposeful ways "that they couldn't be prepared for genetically," ways not specified by DNA or its genes. That reality is an extremely important clue, suggesting our biology is driven by something greater than ourselves, such as a Global Organizing Activity of a Life-force or GOAL (discussed in my three posts here).  But the very dramatic reality of cells, proteins and protein molecules acting in purposeful ways necessary for our existence and perpetuation is not any evidence for panpsychism. 

But what about the problem of morphogenesis, the problem of how a speck-sized zygote progresses over nine months to become the vast organization of a human body? That is the most gigantic unsolved problem. You can start to realize how big an unsolved problem it is when you realize that DNA does not have any specification for how to make a human body, nor does it have any specification for how to make any organ system or organ in a human body, nor does it have  any specification for how to make any cell in a human body,  nor does it have any any specification for how to make any of the organelles that make up cells. Can the ocean-sized explanatory shortfalls be lessened here by imagining intelligent cells making the right decisions? 

No, it cannot. What could a cell know and perceive? Only what was in front of it, just a billionth of a human body. A cell could never know where it was supposed to go and what it was supposed to do to help serve the grand purpose of the construction of the fantastically organized body of a mobile, two-legged and two-armed human with a digestive system, a vision system and a circulatory system. Similarly a brick and a pipe could never what they needed to do to serve the purpose of building a nine-story apartment building. 

So, no, the idea of conscious cells is not useful in helping to explain the origin of human bodies. To credibly explain the unexplained origin of human bodies and their unexplained continuation over decades (requiring a thousand daily unexplained miracles of organization such as protein folding and the formation of protein complexes so complex they are called molecular machines), we must imagine causal agency by some reality grander than a human, not merely the causal agency of something a billionth of a human in weight. 

Human bodies are systems of systems of systems of systems, a reality of the most enormous organization and dynamism. Human minds, human mental capabilities and human mental experiences are as complex as human bodies. Beware of those who take "make my explanation job a million times easier" shortcuts by describing either of these realities as if they were something simple. 

Overall, McGilchrist's article is a bungling affair. But it does have one very good quote. He says, "Nature is all the time doing things in the twinkling of an eye that otherwise by chance would take literally millions of years."  That is correct. I described some of that reality in my June, 2026 post "In Your Body Every Day There's a Million Miracles of Warp-Speed Purposeful Assembly." The post discusses things such as how our existence depends on proteins constantly folding into the right shapes needed for their functions, and such well-folded proteins constantly teaming up in just the right way to become "molecular machine" protein complexes needed for our existence. The Google Gemini infographic below discusses one example (and hundreds of other equally dramatic examples could be given). 

But you cannot credibly explain such blazing-fast miracles of purposeful assembly by merely imagining molecules or cells that are conscious. If such things were conscious, they would only know tiny little molecule things or tiny little cell things, and would not know how to serve the goals of some grand human body construction process and human body maintenance process that are so complex that no human being even half-understands them.  To credibly explain such million miracles of warp-speed purposeful assembly occurring every day in each of our bodies, we can postulate some transcendent reality with a mind and a power and an understanding greater than any human's, rather than just imagine conscious cells or molecules with only the tiniest sliver of a human's understanding.  A similar idea was expressed by the co-founder of the theory of evolution by natural selection (Alfred Russel Wallace), who (after reviewing facts of biological organization and dynamism only a small fraction of what we now know of) stated, "What we absolutely require and must postulate is, a Mind far higher, greater, more powerful than any of the fragmentary minds we see around us, a Mind not only adequate to direct and regulate all the forces at work in living organisms, but which is itself the source of all those forces and energies, as well as of the more fundamental forces of the whole material universe."

He "Retained All His Faculties" Despite Losing the Left Half of His Brain

One of the very great investigation failures of today's psychologists and neuroscientists is their tendency to only search scientific papers when writing scientific papers. The fact is that there are huge additional sources of information providing very important cases of medical case histories. Those include newspapers and magazines. It is not hard to search for medical case histories documented in newspapers. For example, the free Chronicling America site allows you to search through more than 100 years of American newspapers. You can use the site by using the link below:

https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/about-this-collection/

 Below is one of the very interesting cases I get when using the phrase "brain gone." We read about how Guy Morrison "retained all his faculties with half his brain gone." 

You can read the news account using this link:

https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86069021/1908-12-04/ed-1/?sp=3&&r=0.125,0.083,0.648,0.31,0

The article tells us of a man who had a hunting accident which left him without a left half of his brain. But we are told that he "retained all his faculties." Later another shooting accident killed him. At the end of the story, we read this speculation: "The fact that he retained all his faculties with half his brain gone, the doctors say, was due to the fact that he must have been using the right lobe exclusively before his first accident." The speculation makes no sense. Nobody with two brain halves would be using only one of those halves. 

The case history above is quite compatible with my claim that the brain is not the source of the human mind. The case is not compatible with typical claims of neuroscientist literature, such as claims that speech arises from the left side of the brain. 

To read about many other cases in which people suffered little after losing the left half of their brain, read my series of posts here. 

Frustrated Neuroscientist Takes Comfort in Playing With Virtual Rodents

 An article this week at the Transmitter neuroscience site is entitled "What to do when traditional mechanistic approaches no longer work." The article (written by Harvard biologist Bence Ölveczky) has a strong note of frustration. It rather seems the author is not happy at all with the progress he is making in trying to explain behavior in a mechanistic manner. He says, "Many complex behaviors have stubbornly resisted mechanistic explanations." A more candid statement would have been that basically no complex human behavior has any mechanistic explanation. 

The first sentence is a giveaway. He begins, "Our worldview is mechanistic, so naturally we want our explanations to be too." Yes, the neuroscience community is indeed a conformist belief community all centered around an atheist materialist worldview. That is one of the biggest reasons why its members keep making statements contrary to the observations of neuroscientists themselves, which strongly contradict "brains make minds" ideology, as the posts of this site so abundantly demonstrate. 

Following the bungling neuroscientist speech custom of groundlessly claiming "representations" when no representations have been discovered, Ölveczky states, "Two regions that we had shown by lesions to make very different contributions to a behavior carried near-identical representations." The link is to an article discussing how an attempt to trace decision-making in mice to some specific brain area had failed dismally. Instead what was found (in a study implanting electrodes into an unusually large sample of mice) was roughly equal brain activity throughout the brains of mice.  That article says this:

"Activity associated with choice showed up in cortical areas, in line with previous findings, but it also occurred in subcortical areas such as the hindbrain and cerebellum, challenging the notion that only a few select areas encode information about decision-making and supporting the idea that it is widespread.

'It is interesting how much choice selectivity is everywhere,' says Long Ding, research associate professor of neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the work."

The results of the study are consistent with the idea that brains do not produce decisions. The "choice selectivity" that is "everywhere" is just the brain firing randomly all over the place, as it continuously does, regardless of whether any decision or thinking is occurring. The same continuous random firing occurs at an equally strong level even when someone is sleeping.  

Referring to a length of time that is only a tenth of a second (100 milliseconds), the study's authors claim, "The animal’s choice could be decoded from neural population activity during a 100-ms time window before the first wheel-movement time in many analysed regions." The claim is groundless if it is interpreted to mean something going on in a brain prior to muscle activity. It is very well-known that muscle activity causes blips in electrode readings of the brain's activity. All that is going on is that the authors picked up a tenth of a second of muscle activity prior to the instant when some wheel starts being turned by a mouse.  It is fallacious to assume that a mouse would start using its muscles at the exact tenth of  a second that some wheel turned by a mouse starts turning. And if I start using my muscles to open a jar, there will surely be a tenth of second or more of my muscle activity before the jar's lid starts turning. 

There is no neural correlate at all of making decisions that have no muscle movement associated with them. If you do a study of a motionless eyes-shut person connected to an EEG machine with electrodes, and tell the person to first keep a blank resting mind for 20 seconds, and then make a series of decisions in his mind during some time interval of the same length (such as what to eat and wear tomorrow), the brain wave readings for such a person will be essentially the same. In a later post I will substantiate this claim with some original research using headband technology allowing a reading of brain waves (technology that the average person can experiment with at little cost). 

In the quote below, Ölveczky first seems to suggest that attempts to create circuit-based explanations for behavior are pretty much dead ends, a blind alley. But he then comforts himself with the idea that scientists like himself can play around with "virtual animals" that exist only in a computer, and do experiments with such software creatures. 

"To work our way back to a mechanistic explanation, we need to align population dynamics and function with the underlying biology. This will require accounting for how cellular mechanisms, circuit motifs and specific brain areas contribute to those dynamics and the functions they support. No experiment I can conceive of in a real animal will let us do this in a clean and comprehensive way.

Are we toast? Maybe not. The field is rapidly developing tools to create virtual animals, complete with realistic biomechanics and artificial neural networks for brains. Such critters—informed, constrained and validated by experiments in real animals—can be brought to 'life' in a physics simulation. These so-called 'digital twins' are fully observable, fully manipulable and endlessly repeatable."

You may laugh at the quotation above, which Ölveczky follows by the assertion that his lab is experimenting with virtual rats. You might ask: "What's the matter,  Ölveczky -- real life didn't give you the results you wanted, so now you've taking comfort in a virtual playground sandbox where you can program computer software rodents to get the results you want?"  Ölveczky sounds like some person whose team loses the Super Bowl, and who then seeks consolation by replaying the game, using Madden Football on his PlayStation video game machine.