The left column of the table below gives a series of fascinating topics that should be studied and pondered by any serious scholar of the brain and the human mind. Click on the "Link" words in the middle column to find information about each topic.
Topic | Links | Relevance |
The preservation of intelligence after removal of half a brain in a hemispherectomy operation. | Under the "brains make minds" idea, we should expect that removing half a brain would vastly reduce intelligence. Observations to the contrary challenge such an idea. | |
The preservation of learned knowledge after removal of half a brain in a hemispherectomy operation. | Under the "brains store memories" claim, we should expect that removing half a brain would cause a huge sudden loss in memories and learned knowledge. Observations to the contrary challenge such a claim. | |
The unreliability of synaptic transmission: the fact that a typical chemical synapse transmits a nerve impulse or action potential with a likelihood of 50% or less. | Because the vast majority of synapses are chemical synapses, and because traversing a very small length of brain tissue requires traversing very many chemical synapses, the unreliability of synaptic transmission would seem to exclude the possibility of any reliable memory recall or accurate calculation by means of synaptic transmission. | |
Synaptic delay: the fact that each time a signal passes through a synaptic gap in a chemical synapse, there is a delay of about .5 milliseconds | The topic is supremely relevant because of the huge number of synapses that must be traversed for a brain signal to travel over even a very small length of brain tissue. Cumulative synaptic delay (the cumulative effect of such delays) would seem to exclude a neural explanation for instant recall. | |
High protein turnover in brains and synapses: the fact that the average brain protein has a lifetime of only a few weeks or less, and that no brain proteins last for years. | The short lifetimes of synapse proteins casts the greatest doubt on claims that memories that can last decades are stored in synapses. | |
The lack of any addresses, sorting, indexes or position notation system in the brain. | The lack of such things (present in human-made things that allow a quick access of information) greatly worsen the problem of explaining how humans could ever retrieve relevant answers instantly from a brain, when someone hears a name or sees a face. | |
John Bly reportedly had "unimpaired faculties without a brain," after "the entire brain had been hollowed out by the action of the tumor." | He "could talk, and, in fact, was comparatively discommoded in no other way than by the loss of vision," and " his retention of memory was remarkable." It is another of many cases conflicting with claims that brains make minds and store memories. | |
A UK Biobank study of thousands of brains found negligible correlation between brain size and intelligence. | The result is not one we would expect under "brains make minds" assumptions. | |
Cases of Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM), in which subjects could remember almost every day of their adult lives | Such cases worsen by many times the explanatory shortfall of the lack of a neural explanation for episodic memories, particularly given that HSAM subjects have ordinary brains | |
The lack of any known encoding mechanism that might allow the translation of episodic memories and human learned knowledge into brain states or synapse states. | The issue is not merely the non-discovery of such an encoding system, but the lack of any detailed theory plausibly explaining how such encoding could occur. | |
Out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences: the very many cases in which people report viewing their bodies from outside of their bodies, with such reports often occurring during cardiac arrest, with such reports often involving observations that should have been impossible if the observer was still bound to his body. | Link, | Because such experiences often occur during cardiac arrest, when the brain has shut down and electrically flatlined, such experiences defy all "brains make minds" claims, and also defy claims that brains store memories, as they show the formation of vivid new memories when the brain is electrically shut down. |
The failure of attempts to naturally explain out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences, and the widespread occurrence of misleading language in such attempts. | The key observational report of such experiences -- the observation of your body from meters away -- should never occur under the hypothesis that your brain makes your mind. | |
The failure of brains and DNA to explain instincts. | Link | |
The lack in the brain of any of the hallmarks of information storage systems | ||
The lack in the brain of any component specialized for reading or writing information. | ||
The evidence for widespread fraud in neuroscience papers. | There is apparently a massive occurrence of faking in neuroscience papers, occurring from "paper mill" companies that profit from the creation of fake papers and fake paragraphs, which are sold to neuroscientists under a euphemism of "editorial services." The high degree of fraud undermines the credibility of neuroscience research claims. | |
Animals such as ravens with tiny brains often perform as well as small children on cognitive tests. | The existence of high intelligence in animals such as ravens with tiny brains undermines the credibility of claim that brains produce minds. | |
Extreme variations in human mental performance (including the sudden appearance of numerous types of astonishing mental skills) can be produced under hypnosis. | The many very puzzling types of hypnotic phenomena have no explanation under "brains make minds" claims. | |
Humans have the ability to instantly form permanent new memories, such as when someone suddenly learns of the death of a family member. | Instant learning contradicts prevailing ideas about the creation of memories in a brain, such as the idea that memories form by "synapse strengthening" (something that would take at least minutes). | |
Inaccurate titles, untrue abstract claims and misleading citations are extremely common in neuroscience papers. | Common claims that such-and-such was established previously by neuroscience research are very often untrue. | |
Brain scan studies typically involve way-too-small study groups, and also misleading visuals in which tiny differences of less than 1% are deceptively depicted with a coloring scheme suggesting some much larger difference. | Such studies fail to provide robust evidence that brains are more active during particular cognitive activities. | |
There exists two hundred years of written evidence for clairvoyance and ESP, with the 20th century providing many convincing experiments conducted by scientists. | Evidence for psi effects undermine the "brains make minds" dogma, as shown by the extremely stubborn refusal of neuroscientists to study such evidence, and the denialism they display when discussing such evidence. | |
There are well-documented cases of people with very severe brain damage but good intelligence, sometimes above-average intelligence despite loss of half of a brain. | If your brain is the source of your mind, no one with half a brain should have above-average intelligence or even normal intelligence. | |
Contrary to claims that thought comes from the frontal lobes or prefrontal cortex, there are case histories defying such claims. | ||
Scattered in three-dimensional space, neurons are not organized in any linear way. For any particular neuron in the brain, there are very many equidistant neurons, equally well connected to that neuron; so for the average neuron there is no such thing as a "next neuron" or a "previous neuron." | Human brains lack any architecture that might explain the memorization of very long sequences of text and numbers, such as some humans demonstrate. | |
A study found that gray matter volume in the brain peaks at about age 6, that gray matter volume declines by about 12% by age 20, and that gray matter volume declines by about 20% by age 40. | The study contradicts ideas that gray matter in brains does the main work of thinking. Human experience is that intelligence peaks at about age 20, without substantially declining before age 40. | |
Surgical operations to treat severe epilepsy sometimes completely sever the links between the right and left hemispheres of the brain; and such links are sometimes naturally lost during development. But this does not result in a person with two minds, but leaves a single unified mind (contrary to lies often told on this topic). | The result of a unified human self with two disconnected brain hemispheres is completely unexpected under "brains make minds" claims, but is expected under the idea that the brain is not the source of the mind. | |
Imaging of dendritic spines in brains suggests that they have short average lifetimes (typically weeks or months), and that they do not last for years. | Because synapses are connected to dendritic spines, the short lifetimes of dendritic spines suggest that a synapse cannot last for years, and that synapses therefore cannot explain memories that persist for decades. | |
Brain imaging has failed to show any substantial increase in brain activity when a human engages in memory activity such as recall. | ||
Many humans can think and calculate at blazing fast speeds, despite the existence of so many slowing factors and "speed bumps" in the brain. | Numerous factors such as cumulative synaptic delay, the slow transmission speed of dendrites, and the lack of myelination in most axons collectively tell us that a brain should be unable to produce blazing fast thinking and very rapid calculation. | |
Neuroscientists have no credible account of how relevant instant recall could occur through brain activity. | Upon hearing a name or seeing a face, a human can instantly provide many facts relating to that name or face; but such a capability should be impossible from a brain lacking any addresses, sorting or indexes. | |
A method used very frequently in neuroscience research about memory (the method of trying to judge "freezing behavior" in rodents) is an unreliable method that is basically worthless when trying to judge whether an animal recalled something. | The unreliability of freezing behavior judgments in neuroscience research means that a large fraction of the most widely cited studies are worthless junk science. | |
There is a lack of correlation between brain states and most mental illness, and the microscopic examination of thousands of brains has failed to back up claims that mental illness is caused by brain states. | ||
There are 50 different types of Questionable Research Practices that can undermine the reliability of research studies. | The massive occurrence of Questionable Research Practices in neuroscience studies undermines the evidence value of such studies. | |
A paper reports that a girl has good mental function despite the almost complete loss of the frontal lobes of her brain. | The case undermines common claims that the frontal lobes of the brain are necessary for cognition. | |
A woman has both photographic memory and severe unmanageable epilepsy | ||
High-speed life reviews often occur during near-death experiences at times of cardiac arrest. | Because such life reviews involve very strong and quick memory recall activity at a time when the brain is electrically shut down, such experiences contradict all claims that recall occurs through brain activity. | |
In 1941 the editors of Scientific American confessed that telepathy has been proven | The 1941 confession helps clarify that today's taboo against such evidence is a mere sociological effect. | |
Some people can memorize information at lightning-fast speeds. | Memorization so quick should be impossible if memory formation occurs through synapse strengthening as many neuroscientists claim, as such strengthening is a sluggish affair occurring very slowly. | |
A subject MM had an astonishing memory for factual information, exceeding by many times the average person's memory of facts. | As the person's brain was normal, the case is hard to explain under claims that the brain is the storage place of memories. | |
Bruce Lipstadt had half a brain but above-average intelligence. | Such a case should be impossible under "brains make minds" claims. |
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