Goofs at the Brains Blog Site

 A site with the title of "The Brains Blog" can be found at the URL of https://philosophyofbrains.com/.  It has a byline of "Since 2005, a leading forum for work in the philosophy and science of mind." Let's look at some of the posts at the site:

• "Caitlan Mace: Vehicle Indeterminacy in Memory Neuroscience." The post starts out with a repetition of groundless boasts of neuroscientists about "memory engrams," with the author stating, "I draw on neuroscientific investigations of memory engrams, which are neural representations of memory that result from learning-induced changes, retain information about some fact, feature of the world, or past experience, and are used to retrieve that information for memory recall." All such claims are spurious and bogus, and are not backed up by any robust research. No one has ever discovered in a brain any such thing as a representation of a fact or anything anyone learned. Microscopic examination of brain tissue has failed to produce a single sentence any one ever learned, and has also failed to produce a single word anyone ever learned, with there also never being any discovery of a single image anyone ever saw or a single pixel of any such image. Later the author makes this statement conflicting with her previous boast: "It remains unclear which kind of structure—molecules, synapses, or neural ensembles—performs a representational role in any case."  The correct answer is: there is no evidence that any of these things play any such role in representing something someone learned; and the failure to find such evidence is a very strong for believing that no representations of learned information exist in the brain. 
• "Self-Consciousness and 'Split'  Brains: The Objection from Unified Behavior." We have very bad misrepresentation from a writer who states, "In yesterday’s post I argued that a split-brain subject is not unitary qua thinker but is actually composed of two thinkers." Split-brain subjects are those who have two separated hemispheres of the brain. You can have such subjects by two ways. On one hand, quite a few people are born without any of the corpus callosum fibers that connect the two hemispheres of the brain (a condition called agenesis of the corpus callosum). Then there are those born with such fibers, who undergo operations in which such fibers are severed, to prevent very bad seizures that are resistant to drug treatment. Contrary to the prediction of the claim that brains make minds, which predicts that split-brain patients should have two minds, such split-brain subjects have a single unified mind. Attempts by materialists to claim otherwise are one of the worst examples of deception by materialists. 
• "What do out of body experiences tell us about self-consciousness; Or, Disorders of Self-Consciousness Part 5". In the 300+ posts at this blog supposedly dedicated to "the philosophy and science of mind," this is the only post mentioning out-of-body experiences in its title. We have no substantive discussion of the topic, but merely an attempt to gaslight the significant fraction of the population that has such experiences, by accusing them of "disorders of self-consciousness." The post has no evidence of any deep scholarship of this topic. The author makes a bad description of conditions under which out-of-body experiences occur, failing to mention that they occur during close encounters with death such as cardiac arrest. 
• "Introduction" and "CFP: Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice." These are the only two posts that come up when I search for "near-death experience" at the Brains Blog site. The second post has only a mere mention of "near-death experience" as a bullet list of topics that will be discussed in some journal that is being promoted. The first post says nothing of any substance about near-death experience, other than the promise that in some book it will be shown that near-death "experiences are contingent on the brain." That is not true, because such experiences often occur during cardiac arrest when the brain is electrically shut down, in the state called asystole in which brain waves appear as flat lines. 

The topic of near-death experiences and out-of-body experiences are two of the most important topics that should be covered by any blog dealing philosophically with the brain and the mind. But we get nothing of any substance on these topics in the 300+ posts on this blog. 

The physical design of the blog is poor.  You cannot conveniently navigate its posts, unless you wish to do endless clicking on titles that are only followed by a few lines from the corresponding post. None of the posts is tagged. So you cannot conveniently examine all posts on a particular topic, unless you are willing to laboriously type in topic names in a search bar. 

Using the blog's search tool, I search for topics that should be discussed by a blog of this type that has been published since 2005, without getting any results. Specifically:

• A search for "clairvoyance" gives 0 results. 
• A search for "telepathy" gives 0 results, as does a search for "Ganzfeld" (a word that would be used by anyone decently discussing ESP research), as does a search for "extrasensory perception." 
• A search for "HSAM" gives 0 results, as does a search for "hyperthymesia."
• A search for "autistic savants" gives 0 results, as does a search for the most famous autistic savant, Kim Peek.
• A search for "psychical research" gives only one result, the gaslighting article mentioned above. 
• A search for "eidetic memory" gives 0 results, as does a search for "photographic memory."
• A search for "hemispherectomy" gives only one badly misinforming article, which does not mention hemispherectomy cases.
• A search for "near-death experience" gives only two results, neither mentioning near-death experiences in the title, and neither discussing the topic in any depth.
• A search for "hydrocephalus" produces 0 results, as does a search for "French civil servant," meaning that the blog is failing to discuss cases of loss of most of the brain but good mental performance.
• A search for "morphogenesis" produces 0 results (see here and here for why the topic is very relevant to the topic of how minds arise).
• A search for "terminal lucidity" produces 0 results. 
• A search for "synaptic delay" produces 0 results. 
• A search for "dendritic spines" produces 0 results. 
• A search for "Questionable Research Practices" (an epidemic in today's neuroscience research) produces only 1 result, which fails to discuss the topic decently. 
• A search for "protein turnover" produces 0 results, as does a search for "protein half-life" and "protein lifetime."

These are all topics that are very relevant to "the philosophy and science of mind." It seems that the experts long writing at the Brains Blog are failing to adequately study the things that they should be studying in order to have an intelligent philosophy of mind consistent with observations. 

What are some of the things a philosopher of mind should be doing? They include these:

• He should be constantly testing the claims that brains make minds,  by looking for physical shortfalls of the brain which may discredit such a claim. 
• He should be enumerating all of the mental powers that humans have, and be asking whether there are credible neuroscience explanations for each such power, expressed in the form of detailed theories "hitting all the bases," rather than just vacuous hand-waving catchphrases. 
• He should be constantly testing the claim that brains store memories, by looking for physical shortfalls of the brain which may discredit such a claim, and observation failures that may discredit such a claim. 
• He should be critically examining the research output of today's neuroscientists, always asking whether best-practices are being followed, and looking for cases in which low-quality research is being produced because of the use of Questionable Research Practices such as way-too-small study group sizes and unreliable measuring techniques. 
• He should be giving the deepest study to cases of exceptional human mental performance, cases in which people seem to remember better and recall better and think faster and calculate better than a brain could ever do. 
• He should be giving the deepest study to reports and experiments suggesting psychic phenomena and paranormal human mind abilities, reports suggesting humans have mental abilities that a brain could never allow. 
• He should be giving the deepest study to reports of experiences such as out-of-body experiences, reports we would never expect to occur if the brain is the source of the mind. 
• He should  be giving the deepest study to medical case histories involving loss of brain tissue or loss or half or more of the brain, to see whether they produce results expected under "brains make minds" and "brains store memories" assumptions, or whether they produce results not expected under such assumptions. 
• He should be making a very deep study of human biology and morphogenesis, to see whether there is a "failure to explain the origin of a human body" that is of great relevance to the discussion of whether there is a failure to explain the origin of a human mind.

I don't see much of these activities going on at the Brains Blog site. 

They Had Good Minds After Losing the Left Half of Their Brains

Although neuroscientists are brain specialists, very many neuroscientists are not very deep and broad scholars of the topic of human brains. A typical neuroscientist may be able to tell you in very great detail about some narrow facet of human brains, and may be able to tell you in the greatest detail about how to use some machine that is used to study brains. But the same neuroscientist may have failed to properly study the topic of human brains in a way that involves learning about every relevant thing you could about human brains. Ask that neuroscientist to tell you what happens when you remove half of a human brain, and you may get an answer that is wrong. Ask that neuroscientist to tell you how reliably chemical synapses transmit nerve signals (action potentials), and you may get an answer that is wrong. Ask that neuroscientist to tell you how quickly a brain electrically shuts down when the heart stops (reaching a state called asystole), and you may get an answer that is wrong. 

Part of the job of properly studying brains is to study very thoroughly all of the most impressive cases of high mental performance despite very high brain damage. Relatively few neuroscientists show signs of having studied such a topic. In order to properly study such a topic, you must study unusual medical case histories.  Very many of the most important and relevant medical case histories are recorded in books, newspapers and magazines. But can you ever recall reading of a neuroscientist searching newspapers for unusual case histories in neuroscience? I can never recall reading of such activity by a neuroscientist. 

Luckily there are some web sites that contain very many of the most relevant examples of such medical case histories that are relevant to the question of whether the human mind is the source of the mind and whether the human mind is the storage place of human memories. One of those sites is the very site you are reading.  In my series of posts labeled "High Mental Function Despite Large Brain Damage," which you can read here, I describe many of the most important case histories that are  relevant to the question of whether the human brain is the source of the mind (keep pressing Older Posts at the bottom right to read the whole series). Now let me provide another such case, one I learned about from searching old newspaper articles for a use of the phrase "half a brain." The 1976 case is one that you can read about using the link here. Below are some excerpts from the newspaper article.

We read of a young man named Bruce Lipstadt who had a hemispherectomy operation when he was five years old, an operation that removed the left half of his brain.  Operations of that type are only done when someone is being plagued by very severe seizures, and the seizures cannot be controlled by medication.  The operation was done because as a young boy Bruce was suffering from 10 to 12 seizures a day. 

We are told that despite having the left half of his brain surgically removed, Bruce can ride a bike, swim and play sports. We are told that Bruce got an A grade (the best grade) in a course on statistics at a university. We are told Bruce's speech is normal. We are told that "although not a genius, Bruce has superior intelligence." We are told that Bruce works as a traffic controller, and that next spring he will get a degree in sociology from a university. 

The 1976 newspaper article here gives us some more details on Bruce Lipstadt. We read that his IQ tests showed his verbal IQ to be 126, well above the average IQ of 100. We read this:

A verbal IQ of 126 in a subject who had the left half of his brain removed is a result that would seem to "make mincemeat" out of claims that the brain is the source of the human mind. One of the accounts above mentions an authority named Sugar. The Bruce Lipstadt case seems to be the same one mentioned in the scientific paper here co-authored by Oscar Sugar MD, one entitled "Development of above normal language and intelligence 21 years after left hemispherectomy."

The newspaper article here tells of a film about a man who had the left half of his brain removed, but who (five months after the operation) could still "sing, distinguish colors, and pass simple tests of reading, writing and arithmetic."

At the 2:59 mark in the Youtube.com video here, we get the table below, which shows some impressive intellectual achievements in patients who underwent a hemispherectomy operation to remove half of their brains:

We have some stunning results. All of these people with half a brain had some college studies. Two had achieved a two-year Associate's Degree. One had achieved a Master's Degree. The top row tells whether the left or the right half of the brain was removed.  The two rightmost columns give details for people who had the left half of their brain removed, both of which had some college studies, and both of which were employed. 

At the 5:03 mark in the video, we have the chart below. It shows the IQ of 7 subjects who had a hemispherectomy operation to remove half of their brains. The dots in yellow are people who had left half of the brain removed. Each column represents a particular type of IQ. The first column is full IQ. The second column is verbal IQ. The third column is performance IQ, something that does tests involving non-verbal tasks and motor tasks, with speed of completion affecting the score. We see that one of the subjects who had the left half of his brain removed had above-average verbal IQ. 

At the 8:07 mark in the video, we have a chart showing that one of the left hemispherectomy patients (who had the left half of the brain removed) had a way-above-average 130 score on reading comprehension. 

At the link here, you can read the very interesting paper "AN ENORMOUS CEREBRAL TUMOUR" by William E. Conroy M.D. We read of a patient F. H. who was observed in 1889. The patient had an operation to remove the tumor, but died soon thereafter. 

On page 179 we read that an autopsy was performed, and that after the tumor was removed, the left half of the brain was all but gone, being only the size of the palm of a hand:

On page 180 we read that this "enormous" tumor in the left half of the brain produced almost no mental effects. We read that the boy was "intelligent" and "expressed himself well" and "read much with enjoyment" until his eyesight failed. We read that the mental faculties were "not seriously impaired."  We read this:

On page 16 of an 1899 book J. Sanderson Christison, M.D.  states this: "And when we find that individuals have filled the business and social functions of life in the ordinary way, who were either destitute of a corpus callosum (see page 65) or had but little more than half a brain (see page 62), it is evident that external features are not necessarily of fundamental significance." 

On page 47 Dr. Christison says this:

"Dr. E. W. Taylor reports a man, 36 years of age, with extensive destruction of the left frontal lobe of the brain, and yet, says Dr. Taylor: 'When I last saw him the whole impression was that of a clear-headed vigorous man of exceptional intellect, but neurasthenic. A few days before his death he was filling a responsible position, and making decisions of importance with accuracy and judgment.' "

On pages 58-59 Christison says this:

"Dr. Charles Phelps reports a man who died at the age of 25 years with a large abscess in the middle area of the left cerebral hemisphere, while a large proportion of both hemispheres was either softened or invaded with punctate hemorrhages. Yet Dr. Phelps reports that this man 'had absolute integrity of all his mental faculties and special senses without either having aberration or decadence, and was cheerful and slept well.' "

On the same page 59 Christison says this:

"Drs. J. J. Putnam and M. H. Richardson report a business-man, 30 years of age, whose entire left cerebral hemisphere (except the occipital lobe and the lower portions of the frontal and temporal lobes) was occupied by a diseased growth, 'which everywhere compressed the adjoining brain tissues and to a great extent destroyed them,'  and yet in this man 'no notable mental changes were observable.'  'His mind was clear and he read and understood with pleasure, and enjoyed the society of his family and friends,' and although 'he dragged his right leg he walked well, going to church and back half a mile off, and he drove his horse to town eight miles away, four days before his death.' "

On page 61 Dr. Christison says this:

"Dr. W. B. Haddon reports a man, 21 years of age, with an enormous tumor occupying the left cerebral hemisphere, and severely compressing adjacent structures. Yet, although he occasionally had an epileptic fit and stammered slightly from childhood, he had no paralysis. He was somewhat opinionated, but evinced no moral perversion. At the time of his death (in a fit) he was a clerk in the Steward's office of St. Thomas' Hospital, London, and a few days later he would have entered the government examination for a second grade certificate in perspective and drawing, branches in which he was pronounced by experts to be exceptionally proficient."

On page 62 Dr. Christison says this:

 "Andral reports a man who died at the age of 28 years with the whole of his right cerebral hemisphere so completely atrophied that its covering membrane (pia mater) formed a cyst in which there was not a trace of brain tissue. The floor of the cyst was formed by the optic thalamus, the corpus striatum, and the parts on a level with these two bodies. Yet, says Andral, this man  'had received a good education, had a good memory, and exhibited as much intelligence as most men' (19)."