Mario Beauregard, Ph.D., is associate research professor at the Departments of Psychology and Radiology and the Neuroscience Research Center at the University of Montreal. He is the coauthor of
The Spiritual Brain and more than one hundred publications in neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry. His new book is
Brain Wars: The Scientific Battle Over the Existence of the Mind and the Proof That Will Change the Way We Live Our Lives.
From a Q & A at his publisher's website:
Q: Is the mind an illusion created by the brain?
A: Materialists generally say yes. However, they have not proved that. Quite the opposite. They start with that assumption, and then they fit anything they see into it.
Non-materialist neuroscience demonstrates that the mind is real and can change the brain. For example, Jeffrey Schwartz, a nonmaterialist UCLA neuropsychiatrist, treats obsessive-compulsive disorder by getting patients to reprogram their brains. Similarly, some of my neuroscientist colleagues at the Université de Montréal and I have demonstrated, via brain imaging techniques, that women and girls can control sad thoughts, men can control responses to erotic films, and people who suffer from phobias such as spider phobia can reorganize their brains so that they lose the fear.
Evidence of the mind's control over the brain is actually captured in these studies. There is such a thing as "mind over matter." We do have will power, consciousness, and emotions, and combined with a sense of purpose and meaning, we can effect change.
Q: Are mind and brain identical?
A: Some materialists say that, but again, they have not demonstrated it. They assume it. Your mind is just the workings of your brain.
Non-materialists neuroscientists think differently. They think that...[read on]
--Marshal Zeringue
