Woman with hemorrhage and transmitted power from Jesus

Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” Jesus turned and saw her, “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that moment. (Matthew 9: 20-22)

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. “Who touched me,” Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.” Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.” (Luke 8: 43-48)

We see evidence of a dual interaction in these passages between the woman and Jesus, a healing power that flowed from Jesus to the woman. In my writings I offer a description of that power.  We have seen in multiple blog posts that the immaterial, nonphysical energy of dual interactionism exerts causal effects on the material components of the neural synaptic networks.  Reference to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary shows that the definition of power, the noun, includes the ability to produce an effect, a mental efficacy, or a means of supplying energy.  The energy of wave forms having amplitude, frequency and shape has been attributed to the synaptic transmission of specified information encoded within action potentials to bring about intended action.  I posit that the healing power that went out from the Spirit of Jesus consisted of the energy of wave forms spoken to by Luke 2000 years ago.

Knew their thoughts

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand. . . . (Luke 6: 7-8)

I have discussed in blog posts the likelihood that wave forms are generated by the intention of a cognitive mind that may be transmitted to a recipient brain, accounting for Jesus’ knowing “what they were thinking.”

Mental imagery and the brain

I now return to posting blogs that address findings from the neurosciences that give compelling support to dualist interaction between the immaterial mind and the material synaptic networks that are involved in cognition.

My first post addresses the findings of O’Craven and Kanwisher reported in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12:6, (2000) pp. 1013-1023. The authors refer to the “mind’s eye” of mental imagery that engages many of the same cognitive and neural mechanisms involved in visual perception of physical stimuli. Cortical regions selectively involved in the visual processing of a material object physically present show similar selectivity during mental imagery in the absence of a material stimulus. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) responses in the brain were robust to the extent that a single mental event could be determined with high accuracy in the inspection of raw fMRI data. Their “data are the first to show that the content of a single thought can be inferred from its fMRI signature alone.” I conclude with the authors’ statement, “The present study takes the final step . . . by showing that content-specific neural activity in . . . visual cortex can be created by a pure act of will even when no visual stimulus is present at all.”

The stimulus, whether real or imagined, could have generated wave forms actualized with specification within neural codes transmitting information through synaptic networks interpreted as to meaning by the cognitive mind of the subject.

Mental imagery and the "mind's eye"

Deana Vitrano has compared perception and imagination at the visual cortex in a recent article. She presented the findings in her Dickinson College Honors Thesis, Paper 12, in 2012. Her work is consistent with articles that have been presented in the last decade by neuroscientists.

Her study found that imagined patterns and seen patterns produced similar waveforms in 30 college students. Her findings supported “the claim that the visual cortex is activated in a similar manner during both imagination and perception.” That perception and visual mental imagery share common processes in the visual cortex was strengthened by the application of fMRI and PET scans. She recognized the importance of analyzing imagined stimuli that had not been seen before, so that imagined images would not be drawn from memory but were described verbally to the study subject. “The same neural substrates are involved in both imagination and perception.”

Evoked potential waveforms that were recorded were reflective of images that were both perceived and imagined in the “Mind’s Eye.” As I have shared in previous blogs, including “Waves in Our Brains,” Parts 1-3, it can be inferred as the best explanation that the immaterial cognitive mind can generate waveforms that are transmitted through the visual cortex as neural codes that can be interpreted as the images imagined as well as perceived. Her study is consistent with the premise of dualist interaction between the immaterial mind and the material components of the brain’s synaptic networks. That the human mind has been created in the imago Dei infers in a compelling manner that the Mind of God can in fact commune with the mind of Man via the indwelling Holy Spirit, a process supported by the brain’s synaptic networks.

Mind and matter

My thesis is that the explanations based on the present materialist/reductionist views on how experiential qualities developed out of inert matter are unconvincing and that an alternate viewpoint offers a more parsimonious and logically coherent account. This is a quotation taken from Leonard Freris’ article entitled “Mind and Matter.” It appeared in Communicative and Integrative Biology in 2014 (http://dx.doi/org/10.4161/cib.26658). He goes on to state that the truth of dualism would support the possibility of the mind surviving the death of the body. “The fundamental problem of Dualism is that it has no convincing explanation of how the two realms of mind and matter interact.” This last statement by Freris underscores the very objective of my studies over almost 30 years, the findings of which are presented in my two books and now in my blogs.

The author asks how experiential phenomena can be physical. The materialist/reductionist agenda is problematic. It is the mind-body problem. He refers to “eliminative materialism” wherein “mental phenomena are considered to be an ‘aspect’ of brain activity,” being physical phenomena. “Cognitive psychology” on the other hand views the brain as a computer. Mental activity is “information processing with experiential activity reduced to a computational process.”

Freris addresses the “mind-body” problem well. He closes with a postscript by Erwin Schrodinger:

But now let us assume that in a particular case you eventually observe several efferent bundles of pulsating currents, which issue from the brain and through long cellular protrusions (motor nerve fibers), are conducted to certain muscles of the arm, which, as a consequence, tends a hesitating, trembling hand to you to bid you farewell - for a long heart rendering separation; at the same time you may find that some other pulsating bundles produce a certain glandular secretion so as to veil the poor sad eye with a crape of tears. But nowhere along this way from the eye through the central organ to the arm muscles and the tear glands - nowhere, you may find, however far physiology advances, will you ever meet the personality, will you ever meet the dire pain, the bewildered worry within this soul, though their reality is to you so certain as though you suffered them yourself - as in actual fact you do!

Immaterial aspects of thought

In support of dualist interactionism I am identifying an article by Edward Feser that appeared in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 87, No. 1, 2013. Its title is “Kripke, Ross, and the Immaterial Aspects of Thought.” Feser cites comments by the materialist philosopher of mind, Jerry Fodor, who stated, “Lots of mental states are conscious, lots of mental states are intentional, and lots of mental processes are rational, and the question does rather suggest itself how anything that is material could be any of these.” One of the authors, the late James Ross, formulated a “powerful argument for the immateriality of our intellectual operations.” (His argument for the immateriality of the intellect was rooted in the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition.) He identified a contrast between “the determinacy of thought and the indeterminacy of the physical.” Favoring the immateriality of thought is “the contrast between the universality of thought and the particularity of physical processes.” The determinacy of thought was considered by him to be immaterial.

Visual mental imagery

Visual mental imagery refers to the perceptual experience of “seeing in the mind’s eye.” Mario Senden and coworkers published an article in 2019 that addressed the subjective correspondence known between imagined images and physical image perception and further showed that correspondence exists in their neural representations (https://dol.org/10.1007/s00429-019-01828-6). Visual “imagery-based reconstructions of letter shapes are recognizable [by fMRI] and preserve their physical geometry” in the visual cortex. Their results confirmed “that visual mental imagery preserves perceptual topographic organization” in the brain. Images of letters directly perceived by sight were generated via waveforms (photons) transmitted from the letters perceived and transmitted through the retina and optic nerve to the visual cortex. Of great interest in their study is that imagined letters were also detected in visual cortex by fMRI with the same “physical geometry” or topography. This finding suggests that mental imagery by the cognitive immaterial mind also generates waveforms that are transmitted through coherent neural networks to topographically corresponding visual cortex as neural codes. It is the cognitive mind that interprets the codes as perceived, or imagined, imagery. One can reason that the Mind of God has the power to stimulate neural networks to generate images as in dreams and visions?

Decoding thoughts of the human mind

STEPHANIE MARTIN AND COWORKERS PUBLISHED AN ARTICLE IN FRONTIERS IN NEUROENGINEERING, MAY 2014, VOL. 7, ENTITLED “DECODING SPECTROTEMPORAL FEATURES OF OVERT AND COVERT SPEECH FROM THE HUMAN CORTEX.” IN THEIR STUDY SUBJECTS READ THE SAME STORIES BOTH ALOUD AND SILENTLY, OVERT AND COVERT RESPECTIVELY. SPEECH IMAGERY IS INNER SPEECH, SILENT SPEECH, IMAGINED SPEECH, COVERT SPEECH, OR AUDITORY VERBAL IMAGERY. IT IS HAVING WORDS IN THE MIND. IT REFERS TO THE ABILITY TO “HEAR” SPEECH INTERNALLY WITHOUT THE INTENTIONAL MOVEMENT OF ANY BODY PARTS INVOLVED IN GENERATING AUDIBLE SPEECH. THE AUTHORS UTILIZED A METHOD TO “RECONSTRUCT OVERT AND COVERT SPEECH FROM DIRECT INTRACRANIAL RECORDINGS” TAKEN BY ELECTROCARDIOGRAPHY. THEY FIRST BUILT A NEURAL DECODING MODEL FROM SELF-GENERATED OVERT SPEECH, AND THEN [EVALUATED] WHETHER THIS SAME MODEL COULD RECONSTRUCT SPEECH FEATURES IN THE COVERT SPEECH CONDITION.” THEY FOUND THAT “AUDITORY FEATURES OF COVERT SPEECH COULD BE DECODED FROM MODELS TRAINED FROM AN OVERT SPEECH CONDITION, PROVIDING EVIDENCE OF A SHARED NEURAL SUBSTRATE FOR OVERT AND COVERT SPEECH.” THOUGHTS WERE MAPPED TO BRAIN ACTIVITY IN THE FORM OF WAVEFORM TRACINGS THAT WERE DECODED SO THAT BRAIN ELECTRICAL ACTIVITY COULD BE TRANSLATED INTO UNDERSTANDABLE SPEECH. BUT THE PROCESS BY WHICH WAVEFORMS WERE GENERATED THAT WERE REFLECTED IN THE BRAIN TRACINGS WAS NOT ADDRESSED. AND JUST WHAT “HEARS” THE INTERNAL SPEECH? I OFFER THAT IT IS THE IMMATERIAL COGNITIVE MIND IN BOTH INSTANCES, BUT THE AUTHORS PROPOSED THAT “IMAGERY-RELATED BRAIN ACTIVATION COULD RESULT FROM TOP-DOWN INDUCTION MECHANISMS, INCLUDING MEMORY RETRIEVAL AND MOTOR STIMULATION.” THEIR PROPOSAL SUGGESTS A MATERIALIST REDUCTIONISM, ASSIGNING NO ROLE FOR THE IMMATERIAL COGNITIVE MIND.

THE AUTHORS TRANSLATED THE BRAIN TRACINGS USING THE MODEL THEY BUILT, AND IT IS AN ELEGANT STUDY THAT HOLDS ULTIMATE PROMISE FOR BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACES THAT CAN MAKE COMMUNICATION POSSIBLE FOR PATIENTS UNABLE TO SPEAK BUT ABLE TO HAVE THOUGHTS. I PROPOSE THAT THEIR STUDY RESULTS POINT TO THE IMMATERIAL MIND AS THE “TRANSLATOR” OF LINGUISTIC NEURAL CODES GENERATED BY BOTH AUDIBLY PERCEIVED AND IMAGINED SPEECH. WE HAVE SEEN IN PREVIOUS BLOG POSTS AND IN MY BOOKS THAT WAVEFORMS ARE TRANSMITTED PROBABILISTICALLY VIA QUANTUM TUNNELING THROUGH POTENTIAL BARRIERS WITHIN SYNAPTIC COMPONENTS TO GENERATE SPIKE TRAINS OF ACTION POTENTIALS TRANSMITTING IN TURN LINGUISTIC NEURAL CODES THROUGH COHERENT SYNAPTIC NETWORKS WITH PURPOSE, SUCH AS TO TRANSMIT SPEECH. I OFFER THAT THE COGNITIVE MIND IS THE GENERATOR OF THE WAVEFORMS AND THE TRANSLATOR/INTERPRETER OF THE LINGUISTIC NEURAL CODES. THAT THE COGNITIVE MIND OF A HUMAN HAS THIS CAPACITY LEADS ONE TO DEDUCE THAT THE MIND OF GOD INDWELLING US AS THE HOLY SPIRIT ALSO HAS THE CAPACITY FOR DUALIST INTERACTION WITH THE MIND AND BRAIN OF MAN.

God's omnipresence and omniscience

I am offering verses from Psalm 139 that show concordance with points I have shared in my two books and blogs, that God has the power to “translate” neural codes that course through the synaptic networks of our brains as well as to generate them. He knows our thoughts.

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me….you perceive my thoughts from afar….Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely….Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there….if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me….For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Imagined touch by the mind

In an article published in 2021, the authors “recorded neurons within the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) of a human . . . participant during actual touch presentation and during a tactile imagery task” (https://doi.org/10.7554/eLilfe.61646). The results of the study showed that PPC neurons that are activated by physical touch are also activated “during a tactile imagery task in a body part-specific manner.” It is a novel finding that suggested “PPC involvement in the cognitive processing of touch [encoding]. . . . cognitive processing prior to active imagery as well as during imagery shares a neuronal substrate with actual touch.” Of particular interest is that the study participant was a tetraplegic in whom touch sensation was tested in insensate parts of the body. Actual touch in those parts was found to elicit no neuronal activation, but imagined touch did activate the known coherent neuronal pathways normally activated by direct touch. Activation was attributed to the cognitive mind through the PPC. The mechanism for the activation was not addressed, but there is accumulating evidence that activation could have been via waveforms generated by the cognitive mind and transmitted encoded through the PPC and its coherent synaptic networks. I propose that the immaterial mind of the study participant accounted for the interpretation of the neural codes as touch, a dualist interaction between immaterial and material entities.

Brain-computer interface technology

While seeking articles from the neuroscience literature that speak directly to the generation of brain waves by the immaterial mind, I am posting summaries of some articles that address applications of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology. ‘Mind-Reading’ Technology Allows Paralyzed Man to Rapidly Text is an article discussed by Amy Norton in WebMD, May 12, 2021.

In this technological application, “tiny chips are implanted in movement-related areas of the brain, where they tap into electrical activity in cells. When a person imagines [Italics added] executing a movement, the relevant brain cells start firing. Those electrical signals are then transmitted by wires to a computer, where they are “decoded” by sophisticated algorithms and translated into action, allowing people to control assistive devices with their own mind power.”

The “cells” are neurons, and the electrical activity consists of the spike trains of action potentials generated within and transmitted across the synapses of coherent, synchronized neural networks explained in my blogs. That the signals are “decoded” signifies that the frequencies and amplitudes of the neural impulses are transmitting actualized codes relevant to the specific intended motor action. It is remarkable that it is now possible for neuroscientists to access nerve impulses generated by the imagined objectives of a subject’s mind, by “mind” power according to the author. How the immaterial mind generates the neural impulses is the subject of my research, and in my blogs I have presented evidence suggesting that it is via wave forms transmitted to and through synapses via quantum tunneling.

Researchers at Stanford University asked a man with full-body paralysis to imagine handwriting utilizing BCI technology. This approach allowed him to “churn out text at a rate of roughly 18 words per minute, . . . nearly on par with the typical smartphone user.” Dr. Jaimie Henderson, a co-senior researcher and professor of neurosurgery at Stanford, “implanted two microchips in the man’s motor cortex, an area in the brain’s outermost layer that governs voluntary movement. . . . The microchip had electrodes that sensed the encoded signals from neurons involved in moving the hand. The computer algorithms utilized by the investigators decoded [Italics added] the mental handwriting codes. The curves and speed changes resulting from visualizing handwriting provided a “rich signal” that was relatively easy to decode using their algorithms”.

Immaterial mind's causal effects

Today while driving I found myself behind a bus with an interesting sign on the back. Pictured was an Asian man wearing a team uniform preparing with great concentration to kick a soccer ball. He had had an amputation of his left leg just below his hip joint, and he was balancing his body by holding onto special canes, one on each side, so that he could kick the ball. As I viewed the image on the sign I found it inconceivable that the physical brain could account solely for this action. No, there had to be an immaterial mind that expressed the will and intent to kick the ball and that exerted causal effects on the man’s nervous system to bring it about in the face of such a significant physical hindrance and specific circumstance in time.

In my previous blog post I identified the precise focus of my research over nearly thirty years. Just how does the immaterial, cognitive mind exert causal effects on synaptic networks. Synaptic transmission is understood to be electrochemical in nature, and it is now understood that wave forms enter the potential barriers of synapses and pass through via quantum tunneling. Are the wave forms generated by the immaterial mind? I have presented evidence suggesting that this is the case.

Wave of the gaps

I want to identify the focus of my research very concisely. I refer to it as the “wave of the gaps.” I draw upon the phrase “God of the gaps” that has caused such confusion among people over time, a view often expressed by the atheist perspective. Just how does the cognitive, immaterial mind, including the Mind of God, initiate causal interaction with the synaptic networks of the human brain? In my books and blogs I have discussed how wave forms stochastically/probabilistically pass through potential barriers of synaptic components to generate spike trains of action potentials that are encoded and transmitted through neural networks. The “gap” is between the mind of Man/Mind of God and wave forms that have amplitude, frequency and shape and are now acknowledged to pass through neural synapses via quantum tunneling. My hypothesis is that the immaterial mind of Man/Mind of God generates these wave forms which interact with synaptic dendrites of neural networks. My ongoing search is to find articles from neuroscience literature that address the hypothesis, a hard task when so much of the literature accepts materialist reductionism that denies the causality of the immaterial mind. This is an issue I have identified in previous blogs.

God created the waves

Consider that God created the waves that comprise our universe. God transcends His creation but can and does interact within it. To be sure God may have the means to commune with Man apart from all that is known about information transmission, but there is reason to accept the likelihood that He also uses the wave forms He created. Also, consider that the Holy Spirit indwells repentant mankind. As our own minds have the capacity to generate wave forms that pass through our neural networks, so also does the Mind of God via His indwelling Holy Spirit.

Current neuroscience and dualist interaction

I have referred to my blog, “Waves in Our Brains,” Part Two, several times since it was posted on October 3, 2020. I invite your review of it to refresh your understanding of dualist interactionism between the immaterial mind and the material synaptic networks of the human brain. In that blog I referenced an important and exciting study that provides compelling confirmation of this interaction. I am copying the work of the authors of that study here that I summarized in that blog. It will serve as the basis for my subsequent blogs that will expand on their findings. My research continues investigating how the mind exerts an energy expressed as wave forms that transmit information through synaptic networks of the brain within linguistic neural codes.

THE NEURAL CODES OF OVERT AND COVERT SPEECH

THROUGH PART TWO OF THIS BLOG REFERENCES HAVE BEEN MADE TO COGNITION, ATTENTION AND INTENT, AND WE HAVE SEEN THAT WAVES ARE TRANSMITTED INTRINSICALLY THROUGH NEURAL NETWORKS TO BRING ABOUT SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS SUCH AS TO MOVE AN EXTREMITY.  WHAT IS LEFT IS TO ADDRESS THE QUESTION RAISED ABOVE, HOW DOES THE IMMATERIAL MIND RELATE TO THESE PROCESSES IN A DUALIST INTERACTION?  DOES THE HUMAN MIND GENERATE WAVES EXTRINSIC TO THE BRAIN ITSELF THAT CAN ACT CAUSALLY ON IT?  STEPHANIE MARTIN AND EIGHT COWORKERS PUBLISHED AN ARTICLE IN FRONTIERS IN NEUROENGINEERING THAT ADDRESSES THIS QUESTION WITH EXCITING FINDINGS. (17)  I CONCLUDE THIS BLOG WITH A DISCUSSION OF THEIR FINDINGS.

THE MODEL USED WAS ECOG IN SEVEN EPILEPTIC PATIENTS WHO PERFORMED AN OUT LOUD AND SILENT READING TASK.  SUBJECTS READ SHORT STORIES THAT WERE PRESENTED TO THEM BOTH ALOUD AND SILENTLY.  A HIGH GAMMA (70-150 HZ) NEURAL DECODING MODEL WAS BUILT “TO RECONSTRUCT SPECTROTEMPORAL AUDITORY FEATURES OF SELF-GENERATED OVERT SPEECH.”  THE DECODING MODEL TRAINED FROM OVERT, SPOKEN SPEECH WAS USED TO DECODE THE NEURAL ACTIVITY OF COVERT, SILENTLY READ SPEECH (WHICH DID NOT INVOLVE AUDITORY SENSORY INPUT, ONLY INPUT FROM MENTATION!). SPECTROGRAMS WERE GENERATED IN CONTROLS AND IN SUBJECTS WHO USED OVERT AND COVERT SPEECH TO RECONSTRUCT NEURAL RESPONSES WITH A HIGH STATISTICAL ACCURACY.  EVIDENCE WAS PROVIDED THAT SHOWED THAT REPRESENTATIONS OF OVERT AND COVERT SPEECH COULD BE RECONSTRUCTED SHARING A NEURAL SUBSTRATE.  IN OTHER WORDS, OUT LOUD SPEECH AND READ TEXT COULD BE RECONSTRUCTED IN NEURAL NETWORKS MONITORED VIA ECOG.  NO WIRES CONNECTED THE TEST SUBJECTS TO THE CORTICAL MONITORS, INDICATING THAT THE CEREBRAL NETWORK RESPONDED TO WAVES GENERATED BY THE MIND OF THE TEST SUBJECTS.  THE HIGH GAMMA BAND RELIABLY TRACKED NEURONAL ACTIVITY AND CORRELATED WITH THE SPIKE RATE OF THE UNDERLYING NEURAL POPULATION.  THE KEY TEST OF RECONSTRUCTIVE ACCURACY, ACCORDING TO THE AUTHORS, WAS THE ABILITY TO USE THE RECONSTRUCTION TO IDENTIFY SPECIFIC SPEECH UTTERANCES.  THIS WAS POSSIBLE ESPECIALLY FOR OVERT SPEECH.

Is wave function reality?

Throughout my writings I have referred to quantum wave functions and to wave forms that vary in frequency, amplitude and shape. In “Waves in Our Brains,” Part Two (to which I referred in a very recent blog on March 1, 2021) I have shared that wave forms now appear to be generated by the immaterial mind of Man (and by the Mind of God, I would add) that transmit specified information to and through neural synaptic networks. The term wave function consists of all the information wave forms can assume in a probabilistic manner. W. A. Dembski has referred to the “small probabilities” that describe the specification of information that can be transmitted between a sender and recipient. Wave forms, if you will, are expressions of “small probabilities” by which wave functions can be specifically manifested, for example within linguistic neural codes.

But are quantum wave functions real? Colbeck and Renner have addressed this question and have found that they are elements of reality in a one-to-one correspondence. (https://cqi.inf.usi.ch/qic/ColbeckRenner2012_2.pdf) The authors maintain that the wave function corresponds to an element of reality that objectively exists, and it does not depend on whether it is measured or not. Colbeck and Renner’s claim is that “…the wave function includes all information that is in principle available about the system….” So we can justifiably assume that wave forms correspond to specified elements of reality.

Is mind an immortal reality?

It is important to explain the relationship between the mind and the soul. In my writings I have defined the soul as consisting of the mind, the will and the emotion expressed by the living human being. Yes, there are “soulish” animals, such as dogs and horses. If you have ever ridden a horse (as I have on many occasions over 35 plus years) you have been exposed to its emotions and its will, such as when it has tried to rub you off its back against a fence or beneath a low limb! It is with its mind that it expresses its will or intention to get you off of its back! But, to the best of our theological knowledge “soulish” animals have no spirit, as does Man, and it is not known if “soulish” animals have immortal souls. But how about Man? Is the soul of Man immortal? Scripturally we have reason to believe that indeed the soul of Man IS immortal, as is his spirit.

Michael Egnor wrote an article on January 31, 2021 that speaks to this issue. It appeared in “Mind Matters.” (https://mindmatters.ai/2021/01/your-soul-has-no-off-switch/) Egnor states that “Man has a soul, and the mind is several powers of the soul - sensation, perception, sensus communis, imagination, memory, sensitive appetite, reason, and will.” He continues saying, “But there is no evidence - either philosophical or scientific - that the mind or the soul (of which the mind is an aspect) has an “on switch” or an “off switch.” The most reasonable scientific inference is that we are never “unconscious,” nor are we “conscious” in any meaningful sense. Our mental life is a composite of abilities - arousal, sensation, perception, locomotion, reason, etc., and these abilities appear to subsist in modified form despite dramatic changes in the body and brain….Even after death, we often seem to retain awareness that can be verified, and even have heightened awareness, as the massive literature on near death experiences demonstrates….Our minds are never off; we just have states in which one or more powers of the mind - sensation or perception or memory etc. - are temporarily inactive….Most egregiously, the concept of “consciousness” perpetuates the lie that we are extinguished at death. There is every reason - philosophical and scientific - to infer that man has an immortal soul.” Our mind is an immortal reality.

Information flow and brain waves

Researchers from The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published an article in 2020 that addresses information flow through the brain. The title is “Preservation and Changes in Oscillatory Dynamics across the Cortical Hierarchy.” and the authors are Mikael Lundqvist, Andre M. Bastos and Earl K. Miller. An excellent review of the article appeared in Science Daily on September 8, 2020 to which I now refer. To produce … thoughts and actions, [the] brain processes information in a hierarchy of regions along its surface, or cortex. … many studies have looked at how synchronized the phases of a particular frequency are between cortical regions. … [The authors found] a systematic shift in preferred frequencies across regions. [In their animal studies three regions were studied, the visual cortex, the parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex, and the animals were given the task of correctly identifying an image they had just seen. The authors tracked the waves produced by this activity in the three regions.] In each region they found that when an image was either being encoded (when it was first presented) or recalled (when working memory was tested), the power of theta and gamma frequency bands of brain waves would increase in bursts and power in alpha and beta bands would decrease. When the information had to be held in mind, … theta and gamma power went down and alpha and beta power went up in bursts. … the bursts of theta and gamma power were closely associated with neural spikes that encoded information about the images. Alpha and beta power bursts … were anti-correlated with that same spiking activity. … As you move from the back of the brain to the front, all the frequencies get a little higher. … the inverse relationships between frequency bands … are consistent with a model in which alpha and beta alternatively inhibit, or release, gamma to control the encoding of information - a form of top-down control of sensory activity. … The increased frequency in the oscillatory rhythms may help sculpt information flow in the cortex.”

I cite this article because it shows how brain waves in different frequencies work in synchrony to provide the flow of information through different regions of the brain. As I stated in “Waves in Our Brains,” Part Two, energy in wave forms is transmitted through the brain’s synaptic networks linguistically encoded to convey semantic information, and this article elaborates on that point. My objective is to identify work that supports dualist interaction between the immaterial mind and the material neural networks of the brain involving wave forms generated by the intention or attention of the immaterial mind.

Neural encoding of imagined touch

I have come across an interesting article that is relevant to research that supports dualist interaction between the immaterial mind and the material brain. It is entitled “Neural Encoding of Actual and Imagined Touch within Human Posterior Parietal Cortex,” authored by Srinivas Chivukula et al in eLife and published on March 1, 2021 (https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.61646) I am posting excerpts from that article along with my comments:

“Recent human neuroimaging studies suggest that the PPC [posterior parietal cortex] is also recruited during touch cognition in the absence of actual tactile input (e.g., seen touch or imagined touch), supporting a notion that both higher-level touch processing and tactile cognition share a neural substrate. . . . we found that a shared PPC neuronal population coded for overt movements as well as cognitive motor variables including imagery, observed actions, and action verbs. . . . The tactile imagery task evoked body part-specific responses that shared a neural substrate with actual touch. Our results demonstrate that PPC neurons that discriminate touch are partially reactivated during a tactile imagery task in a body part-specific manner. The latter represents a novel finding . . . and suggests PPC involvement in the cognitive processing of touch. . . . Recordings were made from a chronic implanted array, and thus neuronal waveform sorting resulted in both well-isolated neuronal waveforms and multi-neuron groupings.”

The authors asked the important question, “Are neurons that encode tactile sensations also recruited during tactile imagery?” Recall the comment above, “. . . and thus neuronal waveform sorting resulted in both well-isolated neuronal waveforms . . . .” Previous blog posts have identified the compelling possibility that the cognitive mind has the capacity to generate waveforms that interact with neural synaptic networks to transmit specified information through neural networks in the form of linguistic neural codes within spike trains of action potentials. It is important to note that “. . . during the imagery task, no stimulus was delivered to the participant.“

In previous blogs and as discussed in my books a nonclassical, immaterial energy generated by the immaterial mind may interact with material neural networks as waveforms with amplitude and frequency that are transmitted through neural synapses by quantum tunneling. Are we getting closer to at least a partial understanding of how the Mind of God communes with the mind of Man?

Imagining touch

An article was published on April 3, 2014 entitled “Dissociating the Neural Correlates of Experiencing and Imagining Affective Touch.” The authors are Molly V. Lucas, Laura C. Anderson, Danielle A. Bolling, Kevin A. Pelphrey and Martha D. Kaiser. The investigators shared that “both experiencing and viewing affective . . . touch recruit similar neural mechanisms.” An observation from earlier studies suggests that “some components involved in touch perception do not require physical sensation. . . .The anterior insula of the brain is involved in subjective feeling states and affective learning.” The investigators “sought to characterize . . . stimulus-independent activations, which may be coding the affective aspects of gentle [imagined] touch.” Their hypothesis was “that some aspects of brain mechanisms for processing touch may reflect stimulus-independent, cognitive-based, responses, which code for the affective response to touch. . . . While the posterior insula showed activation only during the physical experience of touch, the anterior insula was responsive to both experienced and imagined touch, suggesting that this region plays a role in the interpretation of the affective meaning of the touch.”

I propose from my studies that the mere imagining of touch in the prefrontal cortex generates specific wave forms that stimulate spike trains of action potentials transmitting neural codes with meaning through synaptic networks. The cognitive mind is the interpreter of the codes. That the anterior insula “plays a role in the interpretation of the affective meaning of the touch” is explained by the synaptic transmission of neural codes within specific regions of the brain that the cognitive mind “reads” through a lifelong process of learning archived in memory. It is important for neuroscientists to account for the activity of the cognitive mind in such interpretation.

So what, dualist interactionism?

I have spent close to 30 years in research, written two books and now have a website and over 700 blogs that expand on the contents of my books. One can ask, “So what?” Why have I spent so much time and energy on this task? Let me answer.

I find that many people who consider themselves Christians, and this includes pastors, cannot differentiate between the spirit and the soul and their relation to the body and fail to give full explanation to the human spirit and its relation to the Holy Spirit. Reference is made to the “heart,” but no explanation is given to what constitutes the “heart.” Yes, the Bible refers to the heart, but what IS the heart in this context? And what does it mean when it is taught that the Holy Spirit indwells the body, the “heart?” OR, did the indwelling of the Holy Spirit cease at the closure of the Canon? Does the Holy Spirit indwell repentant mankind in our time? What exactly does it mean to be indwelled by the Holy Spirit? Can we only pray TO God, or can we yet hear FROM and receive Counsel FROM God through His indwelling Holy Spirit, sent as promised by Jesus Christ upon His resurrection, as documented in the Book of Acts? And how do we hear from God, or can we only pray TO Him? Is being “spiritual” merely signified by the raising of hands in song or by other physical actions? What IS worship anyway? Is it expressed only in song and when we “feel” the “moving of the Holy Spirit,” however that is expressed in an emotion?

In a very recent communication with a dear friend I made the following statement: “My research really does not deal with consciousness but rather with the cognitive, immaterial mind/soul of humanity and how it relates to the spirit both of Man and of God in dualist interaction with the material neural synaptic networks of the brain.” But the fair question is, “So what?” So many questions! IT HAS BEEN THE PURPOSE OF MY WRITING IN MY BOOKS AND IN MY BLOGS TO ADDRESS THESE  VERY CRITICAL QUESTIONS. We are now living in an era when science is “king,” and we must ask if there is concordance between properly conducted and interpreted science, including of course, neuroscience, and properly interpreted Scripture in context. In my next blogs I will endeavor to succinctly address these questions. It is important to the Great Commission given to all mankind by Jesus Christ.

Tripartite Man

I now address the question if Man is a tripartite being. Spirit and soul can be confusing concepts since the words appear to be used interchangeably in Scripture. And where does spirit fit in?

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. Hebrews 4:12

From my first book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man Through Neural Synaptic Networks, I addressed this issue with comments that give support to Hebrews 4:12:

Then God said, “Let Us make man in our image, in my likeness” . . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:26-27

God is a triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Only the Spirit knows the Mind of God. (1 Corinthians 2:11) Since man was created in the image of God (imago Dei) it is biblical that man is tripartite with body, soul and spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 states, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” When God formed man from the dust of the ground, He breathed “the breath of life” into him. (Genesis 2:7) It is this life from God that constitutes the human spirit, and as it is with God only the human spirit truly knows the mind of man. It is the soul of man that is the vehicle through which the mind’s will operates, and if a repentant man’s soul wills to obey God, it will allow the spirit to rule over the man as ordered by the indwelling Holy Spirit. As spirit acts upon the soul of man, the soul in turn expresses itself through the brain and body.

With the Fall of man (Genesis 3) the image of God in humans was corrupted with the loss of intimate communion between the soul of man and the Holy Spirit since Man in sin experienced spiritual death, losing [the indwelling personal] communion between the Holy Spirit and his human spirit. Man’s mind became governed by his soul, the will of his own self-centered focus. The relationship between God and Man was and is designed to be a bidirectional, interactive one. Man’s capacity is to use all the communicable attributes of his Creator God, his mind being created in the image of the Mind of God. The restoration of this interaction depends upon Man’s repentance and the soul’s choice to follow the Counsel of the Holy Spirit through his human spirit.

Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

What does it mean to be indwelled, or anointed, by the Holy Spirit? In The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, I address this action. In the next blogs I will share my comments from this book, beginning with the indwelling of Jesus Christ, the God-Man, by the Holy Spirit of his Father. Recall that I refer to the soul as consisting of mind, will, emotion and conscience and heart as the soul.

Throughout his life Jesus lived and spoke in complete obedience to God’s counsel through his indwelling Holy Spirit. In John 15:9-15 Jesus teaches that he has obeyed his Father’s commands and that everything he has learned from his Father he has made known to his disciples. In the synagogue in Nazareth Jesus opened the scroll of Isaiah and read, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach the good news…,” confirming his identity with God the Father and fulfilling Scripture that identified him as the promised Messiah. To Thomas he said, “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” Responding to a question from Phillip Jesus stated, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” These passages confirm Jesus’ indwelling by his Father through his Holy Spirit who descended to dwell in the human spirit of Jesus just after he was baptized by John the Baptist. He willfully lived in complete obedience to the Father all his life, even to his death. As Jesus was dying on the cross he cried out, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” That Jesus possessed a human spirit is indicated by these words he spoke on the cross. His very last words were, “‘It is finished.’ With that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” These verses confirm that Jesus the Man possessed a spirit and submitted it in full obedience to the Spirit of the Father.

Indwelling of the Holy Spirit, restored

The Book of Acts could be called The Acts of the Holy Spirit since there are fifty-six references to the Holy Spirit in the twenty-eight chapters of the book, more than in any other single book of the Bible. Huber L. Drumwright, Jr. stated that Jesus Christ continued his work through the lives and ministries of his disciples. In John 12:24 Jesus told his disciples, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies it produces many seeds.” Walter Thomas Conner said, “The Holy Spirit is the presence of the living Lord Jesus in spiritual power in the lives of men.”

This work was begun at Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2:14-36 when the Holy Spirit was given as an indwelling as Jesus had promised before his death on the cross. The Spirit was given to dwell permanently once again inside all repentant believers, making regeneration possible for all mankind. Regeneration refers to the restoration of the intimate, direct, personal interaction between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit and soul that was lost at the Fall. Though yet fallen in our time humanity in repentance has been granted salvation by the grace and love of God through the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus Christ, resurrected by the power of the Holy Spirit. The price for sin has been paid. Life is restored in the living Jesus Christ. Spirit-indwelled individuals are spokespersons for God, and their testimony is Spirit-originated and Spirit-empowered. The first Christian sermon was given by Peter at Pentecost, and the events demonstrated that Jesus who was raised from the dead had his authority extended beyond our time into eternity and beyond Earth into heaven. Jesus reigns by virtue of his resurrection. The presence and power of the Holy Spirit is the proof.

Effects of the indwelling Holy Spirit

I conclude this series of blog posts by commenting on how the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in repentant believers is manifested. The Apostle Paul admonished believers to walk by the leading of the Holy Spirit, as did the God-Man Jesus Christ. In doing so they manifest the fruits of the Holy Spirit. These include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The Source of these effects is the character and living presence of Jesus Christ. Desires of the flesh reflect an attitude of defiance to God. Believers who live in obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit are “sealed,” signifying that God has ownership of them.

Paul also taught that spiritual gifts are given to believers for the benefit of the whole Church. The gifts are supernatural, Spirit-given abilities that are addressed in 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. The gifts are given by one Spirit for the common good, the Spirit of Jesus Christ. These include wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy. the discernment of spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues, service, teaching, encouragement, sharing, leadership and showing mercy. We are designed to need each other and to serve one another. Communion and companionship vertically between the Christian and the Father will always include a horizontal relationship in love among the saints.

It is my hope that what I have shared in this series of blogs is helpful for an understanding of what it means to be indwelled by the Holy Spirit. How does the indwelling relate to the human spirit and soul, and how does communion occur in our time between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit and soul? It is a communion actualized by the transmission of meaning in neural codes through God’s created synaptic networks. It is a bidirectional dualist interaction between the immaterial Mind of God and mind of Man and the exquisite material mechanisms of the human brain.

Jesus knew what they were thinking

The first verses I shall share are in Luke 5:21-23:

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk?’”

Another instance of Jesus’ knowing the thoughts of other people is recorded in Luke 6:7-8:

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there.

I refer to the scheme for communication discussed in my books as a template for information transmission between the Mind of God and the mind of Man via the indwelling of the human spirit by the personal Holy Spirit. It also applies to the communication between God the Father and his Son, the God-Man Jesus Christ, who was indwelled by the Holy Spirit at his baptism. In this scheme the identification of the Sender, or information Source, is the Mind of God the Father, and the recipient, or receiver, is the mind of Man, applicable in this case to the Mind of Jesus Christ the God-Man. The transmitter of specified information in this scheme is the Holy Spirit who directs a signal with meaning and purpose to the receiver, in this case the cognitive Mind of Jesus. The signal is in the form of spike patterns of action potentials transmitted through the neural synaptic networks as linguistic codes in various manifestations, including perceived words and discernment. I suggest a parallel between this scheme and the cited Scriptures wherein Jesus “knew what they were thinking.” It is a dualist interaction between immaterial and material entities created by God.

The God Hypothesis

I have finished reading Stephen C. Meyer’s new book, Return of the God Hypothesis, and I strongly recommend it to you. My next blog posts will address points made in his book and relate them to the points I have made in my books and blogs concerning dualist interactionism. As Meyer stated, too many people, including some leading scientists today, do not accept the reality that properly interpreted Scripture in context and good science can be in concordance without contradiction, a point I have made in my writings. I value his book since the transcendent intelligence that designed the universe and all within and sustains it is identified by inference to the best explanation as the biblical God. I quote from Meyer’s book:

…philosophers or scientists who postulate the existence of God understand God to have certain attributes (e.g., transcendence, intelligence, creativity, omnipresence, and free will) and corresponding causal powers that would allow God to produce certain kinds of effects expected on the basis of those powers….By articulating those attributes, properties, and powers, philosophers can provide a theoretical rationale for affirming the causal adequacy of a God hypothesis…with respect to specific observable phenomena or kinds of events….Since scientists have evidence confirming those expectations in, for example, the discovery of the fine tuning and temporal beginning of the universe and the digital code and information processing systems in living cells, evidence from the world provides confirmation of the theistic hypothesis and positive support for its causal adequacy as an explanation.

God hypothesis response

In the blog I just posted that included Meyer’s comments, I wish to apply his comments to points made in my writings. God’s attributes indeed include His Mind with its intelligence, creativity and free will. He is a personal God who desires a bidirectional communion with Man whom He created. His causal powers that resulted in the creation of the universe and the fine tuning of its constants and laws made human beings possible whose cognitive minds were created in the image of the Mind of God. God is Spirit and immaterial, and we have seen in my writings that the immaterial mind of Man and Mind of God interact with the material synaptic networks of the brain, transmitting specified information within neural codes to achieve goals. Likewise the DNA code is digital and transmits specified information instantiated by the intelligent design of our Creator God for a multitude of purposes. As Meyer has stated so well, the specification of information is improbable, selected by the willful design of God as well as by the design of the will and intention of Man. Information is only generated by a mind, and its immaterial reality is ultimately derived from the Mind of God. These are observed phenomena, events that give testimony to the validity of the God hypothesis by the scientific process clearly explained by Meyer, inference to the best explanation. These phenomena also give testimony to dual interaction between that which is immaterial and is material.

Waves in Our Brains, Part Three

 I am posting a new third part of the blog, “Waves in Our Brains,” previously posted in two parts.  My research continues, and I find it important to supplement what I shared in that two-part blog in relation to the hypothesis I recorded in my first book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man through Neural Synaptic Networks. I will continue to expand on this third part in subsequent blogs, drawing from both neuroscientific literature and applicable Scripture.

The Hypothesis

The Mind of the personal God interacts with the immaterial mind of Man by the atoning grace of God through the living Jesus Christ in our time.  His Holy Spirit indwells a receptive, repentant human spirit with the power to interact with the chemical neural synaptic network of the cerebral cortex, the predominate site for cognition.  Synaptic transmission is stochastic, and it proposed that a nonmaterial energy from the Mind of God induces the synaptic transmission of specified information to the mind of Man by quantum tunneling across presynaptic vesicular grids and synaptic clefts.  Information specified in variable expressions is transmitted with a statistically small probability and is distributed through synaptic networks as encoded spike trains of action potentials, a mechanism without violation of the energy conservation law.  The human mind has the unique capacity to interpret meaning and purpose within the linguistic neural codes developed through lifelong learning and archived in memory.

Expansion of The Hypothesis

Drawing upon the blog posts composed from my more recent studies, the content of my books and from books by Stephen C. Meyer and William A. Dembski, I am expanding on the hypothesis presented above.  

Stephen Meyer discusses a universal wave function that is resident in the Mind of God (Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries that Reveal the Mind behind the Universe).  It existed before the beginning of time, space, energy and matter and consisted of all possible wave forms of position and momentum, amplitude, frequency and shape in a vast probability distribution.  By God’s design He selected specific wave forms from all the possible presentations of the universal wave function to actualize His goals for the design, structure, fine tuning, meaning and purpose of the universe as well as for sustaining it over time.  It is the process by which He selected wave forms to transmit specified information content for the creation of human life, including the immaterial, cognitive mind of human beings and its interaction with the physical human brain.  It is an outcome that provides for personal communion between mankind and with God.

It is the selection of outcomes derived from the universal wave function that defines specification, the process by which information generated via the Mind of God has been actualized within His creations by His will and design. The outcomes chosen have small probabilities, or put another way, are improbable considering the infinite options God has had from within the universal wave function.  A nondeterministic universe as given by quantum mechanics is informationally open, and in previous blog posts and in my books we have seen how quantum mechanics applies to the dualist interaction between the immaterial mind and the material synaptic networks of the physical human brain.  To quote William A. Dembski, “Such a universe will produce . . . random events [from which are chosen by a mind’s intent] patterns [Italics added] of events that stand out against the backdrop of randomness (as a signal stands out from noise).  Such patterns . . . could reasonably be interpreted as constituting novel information inputted from outside the system.  Accordingly, in a nondeterministic universe, divine action could impart information into matter without violating any physical laws by which matter operates.” Dembski goes further, stating, “Nondeterminism means that God can substantively affect the structure and dynamics of the physical world by imparting information . . . a nondeterministic universe can be informationally porous and thus open to action by a deity able to impart information without imparting material [Italics added] energy.  Quantum mechanics, when interpreted as a fundamentally probabilistic theory, offers such a picture of the universe, allowing God free play at the quantum level” (Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information, Ashgate, 2014 and my books).  As discussed in “Waves in Our Brains” the most recent research in neuroscience is identifying how waves are transmitted via quantum tunneling through the synaptic networks of the human brain in the form of linguistic neural codes, or patterns.  The waves emanate from the immaterial, cognitive mind of humans and from the Mind of God.  By causal interaction with the networks of the brain outcomes result with meaning and purpose.

In his book Meyer cited these comments made by Dembski: “Systems, sequences, or events that exhibit two characteristics at the same time – extreme improbability and a special kind of pattern called a ‘specification” – indicate prior intelligent activity.  According to Dembski, extremely improbable events that also exhibit ‘an independently recognizable pattern’ or set of functional requirements, what he calls ‘specification,’ invariably result from intelligent causes, not chance or physicochemical laws.”  Meyer states that “our uniform experience affirms that specified or functional information . . . always arises from an intelligent source, from a mind [that is immaterial].”  And we now understand that the ultimate Source of all information instantiated into the universe and all within it is the immaterial Mind of God, who is Spirit. (John 4:24)

Meyer stated that “In using language the human mind routinely ‘finds’ or generates highly improbable linguistic sequences to convey a preconceived idea.  In the process of thought [or cognition], functional objectives precede and constrain the selection of words, sounds, and symbols to generate functional (and meaningful) sequences from a vast ensemble of meaningless alternatives. . . . Intelligent agents can select functional goals before the goals are physically instantiated. . . . They can then actualize those goals in accord with a preconceived design plan or set of functional requirements.” The linguistic patterns are then transmitted by wave forms into neural codes within spike trains of action potentials interpreted by the cognitive mind of humans and archived in memory.

Meyer provided evidence of “the causal adequacy of intelligent agency as a cause of the kind of specified digital information [and fine tuning] needed to produce life [and I would add dualist interaction between mind and brain] . . . including the unique causal adequacy of a transcendent and intelligent agent as the best explanation.” 

In his concluding remarks, Meyer stated, “Since theism holds that a benevolent God possessing a rational intellect created our minds, we have good reason to expect the basic reliability of our belief-forming cognitive equipment.  Since most versions of theism hold that the same benevolent and rational God who created our minds created them in God’s image and also created a rationally ordered universe, we have good reason to think we can understand and perceive the order built into that universe. . . . Our beautiful, expanding, and finely tuned universe and the exquisite, integrated, and informational complexity of living organisms bear witness to the reality of a transcendent intelligence – a personal God.”  And we can have confidence in what neuroscientists are learning about the orderly interaction between the human mind and the synaptic networks of the brain via the application of good, unprejudiced scientific methodology unconstrained by methodological naturalism and materialism.  The comments I have shared given by Stephen Meyer and William Dembski provide a foundation for accepting the validity of dualist interactionism between that which is immaterial and material, the mind and the brain.

Information, matter, design and intelligence

In my books and my blogs on this website I have often referred to information, matter, design and intelligence. I have endeavored to explain both what the terms mean and how they relate, fundamentally to our Creator God. This is a challenging task. Dr. William A. Dembski has made significant contributions to intelligent design and how information and energy are related. In the next series of blogs I will post excerpts from his article, “An Information-Theoretic Proof of God’s Existence.” (https://billdembski.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/) He identified the most troubling word in the title, “proof,” a word that derives etymologically from the Latin probare, which means to test and to approve or esteem as good that which has passed a test. It is in this sense that he describes how information theory approves God’s existence. By citing the writing and work of Dr. Dembski in this article I believe these terms will be clarified as few people can.

Design argument

The design argument begins with features of the natural world that exhibit evidence of purpose and from there attempts to establish the existence and attributes of an intelligent cause responsible for those features. (W. A. Dembski)

Creation and design

We need here to draw a clear distinction between creation and design. Creation is always about the source of being of the world. Design is about arrangements of preexisting materials that point to an intelligence. Creation and design are therefore quite different. . . . Creation asks for an ultimate resting place of explanation - the source of being of the world. Design, by contrast, inquires not into the ultimate source of matter and energy but into the cause of their present arrangements, particularly those entities, large and small, that exhibit signs of intelligence. (W. A. Dembski)

Information and matter

Matter is raw stuff that can take any number of shapes. Information is what gives shape to matter, fixing one shape to the exclusion of others. . . . Information (from the Latin verb informare) literally means to give form or shape to something. Unlike passive or inert matter, which needs to be acted upon, information is active. Information acts on matter to give it its form, shape, arrangement, or structure. . . . The relation between matter, with its potential to assume any possible shapes, and information, with its restriction of possibilities to a narrow range of shapes, is fundamental to our understanding of the world. (W. A. Dembski)

Design and nature

Dr. Dembski points out in his article that the relation between matter and information can become controversial when they are mixed with design and nature. “. . . designing intelligences are not the only causal powers capable of structuring matter and thereby conferring information. Nature, too, is capable of structuring matter and conferring information. . . . Nature and design therefore represent two different ways of producing information. Nature produces information, as it were, internally. . . . design [consists] in capacities external to an object for bringing about its form with outside help. . . . nature [consists] in capacities internal to an object for transforming itself without outside help. . . . information is conferred on an object from outside the object and that the material constituting the object, apart from that outside information, does not have the power to assume the form it does. . . . Nature produces information not by imposing it from outside but by growing or developing informationally rich structures from within. . . . an information-theoretic design argument contends that the art of building certain information-rich structures in nature (like biological organisms) is not in the physical stuff that constitutes these structures but requires a designer.” (W. A. Dembski)

Information and meaning

Ordinarily when we think of information, we think of meaningful statements that we communicate to each other. The vehicle of communication here is language, and the information is the meaning communicated by some utterance or linguistic expression. . . . For information to be generated . . . means identifying one possibility and ruling out the rest. The more possibilities get ruled out and, correspondingly, the more improbable the possibility that actually obtains, the greater the information generated. . . . To generate information is therefore to rule out possibilities. (w. A. Dembski)

Complex specified information

Complex specified information . . . requires a dual ruling-out of possibilities, one by an intelligent agent who identifies a pattern [such as a linguistic neural code with structure, meaning and purpose] and one by physical processes that induce an event [such as spike trains of action potentials that transmit neural codes through neural synaptic networks to bring about specific actions]. Provided these coincide, the probability is small, and the pattern can be identified independently of the event, we say the event exhibits complex specified information. Complex specified information reliably detects design. (W. A.Dembski)

Choice and intelligent agency

The principal characteristic of intelligent agency is choice. “Intelligent” derives from two Latin words, the preposition inter, meaning between, and the verb lego, meaning to choose or select. Thus, according to its etymology, intelligence consists in choosing between. For an intelligent agent to act is therefore to choose from a range of competing possibilities. . . . Actualizing one among several competing possibilities, ruling out the rest, and specifying the one that was actualized encapsulates how we recognize intelligent agency, or equivalently, how we detect design, (W. A. Dembski)

Nature and existing information

. . . when natural systems exhibit intelligence by producing complex specified information, they have in fact not created it from scratch but merely shuffled around existing information. Nature is a matrix for expressing already existing information [e.g. acorn to an oak tree]. . . . the ultimate source of that information resides in an intelligence not reducible to nature. (W. A. Dembski)

The designer

Complex specified information refers to patterns embodied in physical structures. But if the designer is not a physical structure, the designer, though capable of bringing about complex specified information, would not in turn exhibit complex specified information. . . . The designer responsible for the complex specified information in nature is, as best we can tell, not an event, object, or structure. . . . Who is the designer? . . . Design inferred from complex specified information in nature is compatible with Christian belief but does not entail it. This is as it should be. Nature is silent about the revelation of Christ in Scripture. At the same time, nothing prevents nature from independently testifying to the God revealed in the Scripture. . . . An information-theoretic design argument therefore removes us from the paths of atheistic materialism that lead away from God and takes us a modest distance toward an intelligence behind nature who, from the vantage of Christian theology, can be no other than God. In this way, information theory (ap)proves the existence of God. (W. A. Dembski)

Mystery of the mind

In his preface to his book, Mystery of the Mind: A Critical Study of Consciousness and the Human Brain, Dr. Wilder Penfield shared his experience listening to a lecture by Sir Charles Sherrington as a medical student in Oxford. He said, “I realized that there was a thrilling undiscovered country to be explored in the mechanisms of the mammalian nervous system. Through it, one might approach the mystery of the mind, . . . there was always a restless wondering within me about the working of the brain and its relation to mind. . . . the primary duty of each of us is to give an account of his own intriguing expeditions into this undiscovered country and to pass on his own record accurately and hopefully to others who follow on these explorations that have now become a fateful pilgrimage.

In the blogs to follow I will show how prescient the neurosurgeon, Dr. Penfield, was in elucidating the interaction between the mind and the brain through his studies conducted on live patients.

Brain mechanisms and the mind

Quoting Dr. Penfield, “Throughout my own scientific career I, like other scientists, have struggled to prove that the brain accounts for the mind. But now, perhaps, the time has come when we may profitably consider the evidence as it stands, and ask the question: Do brain-mechanisms account for the mind? Can the mind be explained by what is now known about the brain? If not, which is the more reasonable of the two possible hypotheses: that man’s being is based on one element, or on two? . . . But it is, I believe, a mystery that science will solve some day. In that day of understanding, I predict that true prophets will rejoice, for they will discover in the scientist a long-awaited ally in the search for Truth.

Distinctive reality of mind

Charles W. Hendel wrote the Foreword for Dr. Penfield’s book. He said, “. . . I find the last pages are an eloquent, convincing justification of your hypothesis and belief that mind has a being distinct from body, though intimately related to and dependent on body. . . . mind is a very distinctive reality.”

Mind's energy

I continue with an excerpt from the Foreward to Dr. Penfield’s book written by Charles W. Hendel:

“[Dr. Penfield] became more and more convinced that the mind is something in its own right, that it did things with the mechanisms at hand in its own way, that it had an ‘energy’ of its own. . . . [He aligned himself] with the prophets, the poets, and the philosophers who have emphasized the spiritual element in man.”

Mind's continuing existence

I continue with another excerpt from the Foreward to Dr. Penfield’s book:

“. . . the mind must be viewed as a basic element in itself. One might call it a medium, an essence, a soma. That is to say, it has a continuing existence.”

The mind's energy

In Chapter 12 Penfield makes the following statements:

By taking thought, the mind considers the future and gives short-term direction to the sensory-motor automatic mechanism. But the mind, I surmise, can give direction only through the mind’s brain-mechanism. It is all very much like programming a private computer. The program comes to an electrical computer from without. The same is true of each biological computer. Purpose comes to it from outside its own mechanism. This suggest that the mind must have a supply of energy available to it for independent action.

The mind has energy

But the mind has energy. The form of that energy is different from that of neuronal potentials that travel the axone pathways. (Wilder Penfield)

Highest brain mechanism

In my book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man through Neural Synaptic Networks, I share Dr. Penfield’s comments about what he called “the brain’s highest mechanism.”

“The highest brain mechanism . . . should itself understand, and reason, and direct voluntary action, and decide where attention should be turned and what the computer [brain] must learn, and record, and reveal on demand.”

I posit in my book that Penfield’s highest brain mechanism interacts with the will, intention and attention of the individual Self. . . . Penfield refers to the highest brain mechanism as the mind’s executive. By some means the executive accepts direction from the mind and passes it on to various mechanisms of the brain conforming, I suggest, to the liaison brain proposed by Eccles and Popper that serves as the resource for neural codes specified for certain neural functions. Penfield goes on to say that decisions come from the mind, and “in conformity with the mind’s decision, the highest mechanism sends neuronal messages [encoded] to the other mechanisms in the brain,” again in conformity with Eccles’ and Popper’s liaison brain. . . . Penfield posits that the messages go as neuronal potentials arranged in a specified pattern [linguistic neural codes] to the appropriate target grey matter, requiring the subject’s mind to interpret what the pattern represents in terms of meaning and purpose.

What the mind does

But what the mind does is different. It is not to be accounted for by any neuronal mechanism that I can discover. (Wilder Penfield)

Mind is the person, the Self

Dr. Wilder Penfield commented on the mind’s being the person. In my first book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man through Neural Synaptic Networks, I share a discussion of the inner person of the Self. This discussion gives validity to the mind’s being not only transcendent of the material brain but also being the “inner core” that is each individual that survives physical death.

Doctor James Le Fanu has presented a discussion of the “self” that is an excellent lead-in to the work of Eccles. . . . Le Fanu describes the Self as the “inner person” composed of several distinct attributes. These include a unique subjective experience of the world that is the Self’s alone, that the Self is an autonomous agent with freedom to choose [via the will of the cognitive mind], that it is founded upon a rich autobiographical inner record of memory, an accumulated subjective experience extending back to childhood and that it possesses powers of reason and imagination expressed through language extending beyond the boundaries of personal experience. The “self” is non-material with no substance, and it cannot be weighed or measured. Its non-material attributes collectively form the “inner core” [of the mind] that is each unique individual. Self is grounded in the human brain which facilitates its formation through cognition and memory, but it has a coherent, durable, transcendent reality that cannot be explained by ever-changing, transient electrical activity of neuronal circuits.

Nature of the mind and the mind's energy

When we come to understand man, we will see that the nature of the mind and the nature of the mind’s energy is simple and easily comprehensible. However, that shows only that I am an optimist. (Dr. Wilder Penfield)

It is my hope that the information shared in my books and blogs makes our mind more understandable as being created in the image of the Mind of God who is Spirit and that our understanding of the human mind as being irreducible to the physical brain becomes clear. The human mind transcends our brain, has a distinct energy and is eternal. Along with our will, emotion and conscience, it is our soul.

The attention of the mind

From Dr. Penfield’s book, Mystery of the Mind:

One can only conclude that conscious attention adds something to brain-action that would otherwise leave no record. It gives to the passage of neuronal potentials an astonishing permanence of facilitation for the later passage of current, as though a trail had been blazed through the seemingly infinite maze of neurone connections. . . . Permanent facilitation of a patterned sequence in these brain mechanisms is established only when there is a focusing of attention on the phenomenon that corresponds to it in consciousness.

If previous decision regarding the focusing of attention is made in the mind, then it is the mind that decides when the facilitating engram is to be added. One may assume that it is the highest brain mechanism that initiates the brain action associated with that decision. One may assume, too, that the engram is simultaneously added to conditioned reflexes and to the sequential record of conscious experience.

Is there any evidence of the existence of neuronal activity within the brain that would account for what the mind does?

My two books and the blog, “Waves in Our Brain,” Parts One and Two, address these comments by Dr. Penfield in considerable detail. In contemporary terms he is addressing the function of the liaison brain and its linguistic codes (facilitating engrams) established through a lifetime of experience and archived in memory. The attention, will and intention of the immaterial mind possess a nonclassical energy that works through the linguistic codes of the liaison brain (Penfield’s highest brain mechanism) to effect functional neuronal activities via synaptic networks, such as lifting an arm, speaking a phrase or expressing an idea.

The attention of the mind

From Dr. Penfield’s book, Mystery of the Mind:

One can only conclude that conscious attention adds something to brain-action that would otherwise leave no record. It gives to the passage of neuronal potentials an astonishing permanence of facilitation for the later passage of current, as though a trail had been blazed through the seemingly infinite maze of neurone connections. . . . Permanent facilitation of a patterned sequence in these brain mechanisms is established only when there is a focusing of attention on the phenomenon that corresponds to it in consciousness.

If previous decision regarding the focusing of attention is made in the mind, then it is the mind that decides when the facilitating engram is to be added. One may assume that it is the highest brain mechanism that initiates the brain action associated with that decision. One may assume, too, that the engram is simultaneously added to conditioned reflexes and to the sequential record of conscious experience.

Is there any evidence of the existence of neuronal activity within the brain that would account for what the mind does?

My two books and the blog, “Waves in Our Brain,” Parts One and Two, address these comments by Dr. Penfield in considerable detail. In contemporary terms he is addressing the function of the liaison brain and its linguistic codes (facilitating engrams) established through a lifetime of experience and archived in memory. The attention, will and intention of the immaterial mind possess a nonclassical energy that works through the linguistic codes of the liaison brain (Penfield’s highest brain mechanism) to effect functional neuronal activities via synaptic networks, such as lifting an arm, speaking a phrase or expressing an idea.

What the mind does

It is what we have learned to call the mind that seems to focus attention. The mind is aware of what is going on. The mind reasons and makes new decisions. It understands. It acts as though endowed with an energy of its own. It can make decisions and put them into effect by calling upon various brain mechanisms. It does this by activating neurone-mechanisms [linguistic neural codes of the liaison brain transmitted with meaning and purpose through the synaptic neural networks]. This, it seems, could only be brought about by expenditure of [both nonclassical, nonphysical, and classical electrochemical] energy. (Dr. Penfield)

What the mind does, continued

. . . to expect the highest brain-mechanism or any set of reflexes, however complicated, to carry out what the mind does, and thus perform all the functions of the mind, is quite absurd. . . . there is, in fact, a second fundamental element and a second form of energy. . . . the mind makes its impact upon the brain through the highest brain-mechanism. The mind must act upon it. . . . The mind must remember by making use of the brain’s recording mechanisms. The mind is present whenever the highest brain-mechanism is functioning normally.

If there are two elements, then energy must be available in two different forms. There is force that is made available through neuronal conduction in the brain. Is there a force that is available to the mind, which has no such circuits? (Wilder Penfield)

The focus of my research over almost 30 years has been to address Dr. Penfield’s question in the last sentence. It is a force/energy used by an immaterial mind that could also include the Mind of God.

Dualist hypothesis

. . . the nature of the mind presents the fundamental problem, perhaps the most difficult and most important of all problems. For myself, after a professional lifetime spent in trying to discover how the brain accounts for the mind, it comes as a surprise now to discover, during this final examination of the evidence, that the dualist hypothesis seems the more reasonable of the two possible explanations [the other being that the brain explains the mind]. . . . What a thrill it is, then, to discover that the scientist, too, can legitimately believe in the existence of the spirit. (Wilder Penfield)

Mind-to-mind communication

Dr. Penfield addressed the question of whether the human mind survives after death and how it relates to energy:

. . . it is clear that, in order to survive after death, the mind must establish a connection with a source of energy other than that of the brain. If not, the mind must disappear forever as surely as the brain and the body die and turn to dust. If, however, during life, when brain and mind are awake, direct communication is sometimes established with the minds of other men or with the mind of God, then it is clear that energy from without can reach a man’s mind. In that case, it is not unreasonable for him to hope that after death the mind may waken to another source of energy. I mean that if the active mind of a man does communicate with other active minds, . . . it could do so only by the transfer of some form of energy from mind to mind directly. Likewise, if the mind of man communicates with the mind of God directly, that also suggests that energy, in some form, passes from spirit to spirit.

Again, I refer you to my two books and my blogs, especially that posted above entitled, “Waves in Our Brains,” Parts One and Two. This important and challenging question posed by Dr. Penfield has been addressed over nearly 30 years of my research. By the grace of God perhaps our understanding is becoming a little closer to the truth.

The mind-brain problem

It was Sir John C. Eccles who first understood the importance of quantum mechanics for resolving the mind-brain problem. He proposed that mental events can cause brain events. I cite Danko D. Georgiev who said, “Indeed if one considers the wave function of a quantum particle as a non-observable mental state of pre-probabilities and the actualized position in space and time as an observable mental state, then the dualistic interactionism proposed by Sir John Eccles is consistent with the modern vision of what the physical world is.” Perhaps the afore mentioned “non-classical energy” of the mind conforms to the “non-observable mental state” and the spike trains of encoded action potentials to the “actualized position in space and time as an observable mental state.” I quote Rene Descartes who 400 years ago said, “Cartesian dualism postulates that the immaterial mind and the material brain, while being ontologically distinct substances, causally interact.”

 

Energy conservation law

Alvin Plantinga addresses the workings of natural laws in a closed versus an open universe. He points out that the conservation laws derived from Newton’s laws are stated for closed or isolated systems. In closed systems there would be nothing to prevent God from changing the velocity or direction of a (quasi)particle, but if he did so energy would not be conserved. Moreover, it would not be a truly closed system, and the law of conservation of energy would not apply. He states that classical science does not claim that the universe is causally closed. His statement is entirely consistent with special divine action in the world. Just as God, who is immaterial and Spirit, can act in the physical universe, so too can the immaterial minds of human beings. There is no objection to special divine action or for human free action, dualistically conceived.

 

Quantum mechanics and divine action

Plantinga finds that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics offers less of a problem for divine action than classical science. “…special divine action…is by no means incompatible with quantum mechanics…because…quantum mechanics doesn’t determine a specific outcome for a given set of initial conditions, but instead merely assigns probabilities to the possible outcomes.” Special divine action is not restrained. It is free to select via a nonmaterial energy (wave forms interacting via quantum tunneling in the case of synaptic transmission) certain outcomes according to what has been termed “small probabilities” by William A. Dembski, giving definition to specificity [which is meaning for the information we receive as recipients from the Mind of God].

 

Mind-brain interaction

At this time, I will post a “take away” from all that has been presented to this point about the tremendous complexity of dualist interactionism. Along the way I have endeavored to make the posts as understandable as possible, but neurophysiology and quantum mechanics are . . . complex!

Dualist interaction involves a nonmaterial mind with the capacity to cause a probabilistic, directed transmission of synchronous action potentials through coherent synaptic networks of the physical brain. It occurs by quantum tunneling, which induces conformational changes in the protein scaffolds, vesicles, vesicular pores and ionic channels of the components of synaptic networks. By this process neural transmitters are released from vesicular pores into synaptic clefts. The transmitters stimulate linguistically encoded spike trains of action potentials that are conducted through a network of postsynaptic downstream neurons. Synaptic transmission of specified (meaningful) information occurs by this process and is interpreted by a mind through a lifetime of learning. When the intention, attention or will of one’s mind generates encoded neural impulses the mind interprets the codes as Eccles’ “percepts” in real time so that one knows what one is thinking and intending. The linguistic code generated is by an immaterial energy of the mind.

 

Relation of information and energy

 

It is important to consider the relationship between information and energy and how information is transmitted through synaptic networks. I am citing the important work of Dr. William A. Dembski, who has stated that information is dynamic, passing in, through and out of matter. Matter itself can be reduced to the information instantiated within its design, construction and function. “Anything that exhibits information needed at some point to be imparted with information. What causes information to undergo such dynamic transformation? . . . Energy.” Energy is always inferred from information and is the “causal glue” that connects items of information in an informational universe. Material energy is a form of energy but not the whole of energy as stated by Dembski. He asked if there are information transfers that transcend material media and take a nonmaterial form of energy for transmission. The question applies in the context of quantum tunneling which depends upon the material media of synaptic networks for transmission of information encoded with meaning and purpose within spike trains of impulses but cannot be reduced to the synaptic networks themselves. If the energy of an information relationship actualized within wave forms cannot be justified as being material, then it must be nonmaterial.

 

God's free play at the quantum level

 

Dembski has posed the question to traditional theism of how God, who is immaterial and Spirit, can interact with the material world, imparting information into it without applying material energy. Quantum mechanics gives nondeterminism to the universe which characterizes it as being informationally open and accommodating free will, as Alvin Plantinga has pointed out. I am posting a quote from Dembski in Chapter Five of The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, that elaborates on this question:

“. . . in a nondeterministic universe, divine action could impart information into matter without violating any physical laws by which matter operates. . . . A deity capable of co-opting randomness would impart information by arranging outcomes [with small probabilities and specification], but do so by channeling material energy in ways that violate no principle governing matter. If divine action takes this form, the problem of finding the missing material energy by which God introduces novel information into the world simply does not arise . . . . information is then being transferred without any transfer of material energy . . . . Quantum mechanics . . . offers such a picture of the universe, allowing God free play at the quantum level . . . . In a world of irreducibly chance or random events, as some interpretations of quantum theory allow, God can channel such events toward preordained ends.”

In Part Two of “Waves in Our Brains” we see how the specified, encoded frequencies and amplitudes of wave forms generated by the immaterial mind become synchronized with the wave frequencies and amplitudes of selected cerebral modules generated by lifelong learning and archived in memory. The synchronized wave forms in turn stimulate the synaptic transmission through coherent neural networks of the encoded meaning, purpose and intended action of the cognitive mind.

 

Divine action in the framework of quantum events

I am posting an excerpt from a doctoral dissertation by Christoph Lameter that applies to the theme of the last several posts on my blog. It is a quotation included in Chapter Five of The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story:

If God can act in reality through coordinating large amounts of quantum events for a purpose at a higher level then it is possible to assume that the same can be done with the human brain. God can effectively communicate with humans by direct stimulation of neurons in the human brain generating images and memories. God is able to communicate with humans in a direct way. May this be an explanation for the working of the Holy Spirit? Visions and other religious experiences could be understood through this process.

Visions, memories and other experiences alluded to by Lameter would be interpreted as Eccles’ “percepts” within linguistic neural codes by the immaterial mind of Man. The percepts would be products by the "working of the Holy Spirit.”

 

Renewed direct interaction between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit

Both the immaterial Mind of the Holy Spirit and the immaterial mind of Man have the capacity to direct synaptic networks in the cerebral cortex and associated regions of the brain to transmit specified information within linguistic neural codes. The human mind of the God-Man Jesus Christ during His life on Earth was in an intimate communion with God the Father through His indwelling Holy Spirit. He was in full obedience to the counsel of the Spirit through His human spirit, even to death on the cross. The information that has been shared provides compelling reasons to believe from the neurosciences that the same process exists in our time through the human spirit in the mind of Man. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ glorified has given a renewed direct access to the human spirit and repentant soul by the indwelling counsel of the Holy Spirit by God’s grace and boundless love.

 

Our hunger for communion

In Chapter Six of my second book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, entitled “Our Hunger for Communion Today,” I cite discussions by Calvin Miller who has given confirmation that the plan of God has always been to have an intimate, personal, bidirectional communion with Man. Miller stressed the importance of seeking union with the Holy Spirit in our inner being. We learn how to listen in silence for his counsel so we can grow in righteousness and in obedience by his power as mentored by the life of Jesus Christ. Miller emphasized that the holy communion of prayer is “two-way.” Meaningful communion with God through the Holy Spirit is not only a voice but also an ear. Listening is the most valuable part of prayer. Our focused silence is key to blocking out the inner and outward chatter, or noise. The Holy Spirit wants us to be open to him, and our silence is a door for him to enter into our souls. Our silence is an ear for us to hear, and we have seen the beauty within the linguistic neural codes transmitted through synaptic networks that give “voice” to his counsel.

ultimately, the reason i am compiling key blog posts that summarize my research goals and findings from nearly 30 years is to document that bidirectional communion between the holy spirit and the spirit and soul of man is real in our time. i am sharing findings from neuroscience that show how this process occurs, at least in part. by discussing how the findings stem from both scripture and neuroscience, i am giving reasons to believe in this personal communion with our creator and savior to grow the kingdom of god. after going through all my posts and selecting key ones, i shall consider compiling them into a final paper. thank you for your interest.

Communion with the Holy Spirit

It was by God’s love and grace that direct communion lost at the Fall has been restored between the Holy Spirit and the spirit and soul of repentant Man by God’s grace through the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ. God’s eternal purpose has eternally been for direct, dualist interaction between His Holy Spirit and mankind’s spirit and soul. We can pray directly to Him, and we can hear directly from Him in our time. The physical mechanisms that make this possible are God’s created neural synaptic networks in our brains.

 

Human mind in the divine image

Carl F. H. Henry stated that Man was created in the divine image for an intelligible, interactive communication with God. . . .God created Man as a rational creature whose forms of thought correspond to the laws of logic subsisting in the Mind of God. That God endowed humans with His image includes a structure of reason that reflects God’s own reason. . . . human beings as rational creatures possess innately and uniquely the capacity to think creatively and to use advanced language. Language is a gift that facilitates the personal and cognitive communion between God and humans. We shall see that communion between individuals and with the Holy Spirit is enabled by the semantic transmission of linguistic neural codes learned during a lifetime and archived in memory.

 

Energy of the mind

Wilder Penfield studied the human mind and acknowledged a spiritual element in Man when he accepted the dualist hypothesis. . . . He ultimately proposed a form of energy within the mind that enables its action on the brain. . . . He . . . asked if there is a force available to the mind which does not depend on such electrochemical circuits but is interactive with it. He posited that the mind has energy, the form of which is different from that of electrochemical action potentials that traverse the axonal and dendritic pathways of neural networks.

 

Energy from the Mind of God to the mind of Man

 

Penfield suggested that a transmitting energy from the mind of an external source, whether another person or God, can reach a man’s mind. He further suggested that energy in some form must pass from the Holy Spirit to the human spirit to interact with the mind through patterned, [semantic, with meaning] neuronal potentials transmitted through synaptic networks.

What a thrill it is, then, to discover that the scientist, too, can legitimately believe in the existence of the spirit! (Wilder Penfield)

 

OCD opens the door

The studies of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) reported by Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley have provided compelling evidence that the human mind is an independent entity that can shape and control the functioning of the physical human brain by the process of synaptic plasticity that occurs throughout life. Dr. Schwartz’ four-step process for treatment of OCD resulted in significant and lasting corrective changes in their brain’s neural pathways with significant improvement of their symptoms. The changes were induced by the active focusing of attention away from negative behaviors and toward more positive ones without the administration of drugs. Patients learned to reassess the significance of their OCD feelings with the result that the activity of the brain regions underlying their OCD was changed both physically and functionally. The physical changes were documented by positron emission tomography. Dr. Schwartz postulated that the human will generates a force that effects the physical changes he observed in the brain. Mind and matter interact, and the force involved is most likely explained by application of quantum mechanics from his collaboration with Dr. Henry Stapp. More will be posted about the role of quantum mechanics and wave functions in this regard.

 

Instructions codified in neural action potentials

 

The immaterial mind does effect physical and functional changes in neural synaptic networks. Action potentials are transmitted along the axons of neuronal pathways as spike trains that transmit instructions. We are learning that the instructions are codified within the spike trains of action potentials with both syntax and semantics, or meaning. The cognitive mind interprets the neural codes through a lifetime of learning archived in memory.

 

Quantum tunneling and synaptic transmission

 

Like the Mind of God, who is Spirit, the human mind is an immaterial entity. Action by the Mind of God and the cognitive mind of Man on the brain’s neural networks depends on a nonmaterial, nonclassical energy (which will be discussed in succeeding blogs). The immaterial mind triggers synaptic transmission through the quantum mechanical process of tunneling. In the tunneling process molecular conformations of synaptic proteins in ion channels, synaptic vesicles and pores are probabilistically altered by a nonmaterial energy of the mind. As a result, nerve impulses are generated as action potentials and transmitted across synaptic clefts. The impulses are transmitted as spike trains consisting of neural codes. The spike trains are directed in an integrated, coherent fashion through specific synaptic networks established by learning to transmit meaningful, or specified, information as instructions.

 

Synapse, a frontier for information

A nonmaterial energy, or power, of the Mind of the Holy Spirit acts through the human spirit and mind to trigger the synaptic transmission of patterned action potentials having meaning. The neural synapse is considered to be a “frontier” across which interaction flows in both directions, and the flow is comprised of information. Since Man has been uniquely gifted with the capacity for language it is a linguistic neural code that transmits information from sender to recipient. The energy is capable of interacting with the classical electrochemical processes of synaptic transmission.

 

Five components of information

 

In my books I share that Werner Gitt defined information as “a fundamental entity on equal footing with matter and energy,” though often disregarded in academic discourse. He has identified five components of information that include structure (syntax), meaning (semantics), and purpose. A fourth is the transmission of information from a sender with the expectation of a response, or intended action, in the recipient who must have the capacity to interpret the information received. Finally, the fifth component refers to the intentional selection of information to be transmitted from an essentially infinite resource so that information selected is with a small probability. The selective process consists of a statistical or probabilistic component that gives it specification.

 

Information in coded form

 

Gitt identified the one prerequisite of information, that it must be in coded form, the neural patterns described by Penfield. For human beings it is a linguistic code, and the essential aspect of all information is its mental content. The recipient evaluates the message after decoding it, and the code must be known both to the sender and the receiver if the information is to be understood. Matter cannot generate codes. A thinking being exercising free will, cognition and creativity is required. Gitt concluded that there is no known natural law by which matter can give rise to novel information. Neither can any physical process nor material phenomenon do this. Only a mind, including the Mind of God, can generate information, but in our space-time it may require material media for actualization, transmission or storage. Neurons of the human brain serve as the medium for both the transmission and storage of information.

 

Ultimate source of information

 

When reference is made to John 1: 1-3 (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.”) we see that the Mind of God is the ultimate Source of all information. He is the Sender of information actualized in all five levels in the creations by the Son, Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

Wave forms and the immaterial mind

 

In the above blog posts I have addressed wave functions AND THEIR FORMS. In Parts One and Two of “Waves in Our Brains” very current information has been included about waves. The question to be asked is how wave fORMs CAN trigger synaptic transmission by the quantum tunneling of quasiparticles, including electrons, along specific pathways in the brain to transmit specified information. Ultimately how might the immaterial mind be involved in the generation and propagation of wave fORMs and quasiparticles in the tunneling process? Answers to these questions are complex and incompletely understood, but progress is being made in current neuroscience, AND BLOGS TO COME WILL ADDRESS THIS QUESTION. The more that is being learned by scientific investigation, the more we realize how awesome is our Creator God, and how much more there is to know!

 

Wave fields and particles

 

At this point I will share some concepts about quantum fields and atomic particles. In my second book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, Chapter Five, I cite von Baeyer who stated that the universe is filled with quantum fields and that there is a field for every elementary particle. He further stated that quantum fields are joined at each point in space-time by intimate bonds that allow them to exchange energy.” He gives the example of an electron being “a ripple in the electron field. A proton, located elsewhere and carrying a different amount of energy as a wave frequency [also with amplitude and shape], is a separate ripple in the proton field.” Each interacts with the other like water waves [with both facilitation and inhibition depending upon their phase relationship]. It is now compelling that mental intention is causally effective in transmitting information with meaning and purposeS THROUGH MATERIAL MEDIA, THE SYNAPTIC NETWORK. The causality appears to be associated with the nonclassical energy of wave fORMs given direction through neural synaptic networks. To come to an understanding of neural transmission it is important to examine neural networks at the quantum level. More to come.

 

Eccles' microsite hypothesis

Now I turn attention to the how of neural synaptic transmission, drawing upon the neural synaptic model which was the focus for Sir John C. Eccles’ microsite hypothesis. How can interaction between a nonmaterial spirit and mind and the material brain be explained? Just what is the energy that induces synaptic transmission, and how is it related to information? To what degree can a nonmaterial energy be identified in mind-brain interaction, and where does it exert its effect? (I address these questions in detail in Chapter Four, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man through Neural Synaptic Networks.)

 

Neural electrophysiology and subjective experiences

 

In the 1860’s Paul Broca and Karl Wernicke identified two regions of the human brain that function in language and bear their names. There are indistinguishable histologic structures and electrochemical activities in these parts of the brain. The localization of sensory circuits to these discrete parts offers no insights into how neuronal electrophysiology translates into such subjective experiences as watching sunsets or listening to a Bach cantata.

 

Neuronal networks in liaison with the immaterial mind

 

Eccles hypothesized that the brain’s neuronal network structure enters into a liaison with the immaterial mind and serves the function of a “detector.” Active pyramidal neurons of cerebral cortical modules of the neuronal network interact with the unique function of human cognition. The modules act as “detectors” selectively scanning for consciously willed influences with which they are in synchrony in terms of wave frequency, amplitude and shape. An intention expresses itself through the generation of a pattern of encoded neuronal impulses initiated within pyramidal modules with meaning and with which the mind is in liaison. The pattern generated is as a neural code that provides for operative effectiveness by its transmission through semantically integrated, coherent synaptic networks of the brain.

 

Intentions and the brain

 

Eccles hypothesized that the immaterial Self can effectively control the brain through intentions and attentions. Neural responses are induced by mental action by increasing the quantum probability of exocytosis, or the release, of the contents of synaptic vesicles from presynaptic vesicular grids (PVG). The vesicular contents are neurotransmitters that are released into and across very narrow synaptic clefts, a process that has been observed by electron microscopy. Their release is from the opened pores of vesicles that are docked on the PVG and occurs in a semantically integrated fashion within neural networks associated with specified intentional thoughts and actions. Their release stimulates adjacent postsynaptic densities of neurons to induce action potentials that are transmitted as encoded spike trains that the immaterial mind interprets through a process of lifelong learning archived in memory. These induced spike train impulses are transmitted downstream along the axonal efferent pathways of synaptic networks in coherent, synchronized fashion in terms of wave frequencies, amplitudes and shapes.

 

Specified information

 

Specified information that is encoded within the transmitted spike trains of action potentials emanates from the cognitive mind of a human or the Mind of God. Since humans were created with the unique capacity for advanced language the codes transmit linguistic information in multiple manifestations. These include concepts, intuition, dreams, visions, discernment, verbal communications and intentions. All are linked with cognitive or physical action. As with the Morse code, the codes must be learned over a lifetime and remembered, being archived in memory.

 

The Self

 

Sir Eccles defined the Self as an experienced unity linked by the memory of conscious states experienced over an entire lifetime. For the Self to exist there must be some continuity of mental experiences that bridges the gap of unconsciousness. Self-consciousness achieves public status by symbolic communication through language between individuals.

 

Unity of the Self

 

The neural synaptic process gives a central role to the experienced unity of the Self and the interpretive function of the immaterial mind. The self-conscious mind integrates what it reads out perceptually from an immense diversity of encoded neural activities transmitted through what Eccles called the liaison brain There is displayed before the mind from instant to instant the entirety of the complex neural transmissions. Through directed attention, intention or will it selects from this vast ensemble of encoded, synchronous neural impulses within the liaison brain. It coordinates and interprets in coherent fashion the meaning of linguistic codified readouts from many different areas of the cerebral cortex and other functionally associated regions of the brain. in this way the self-conscious mind achieves a unity of experience.

 

Liaison brain

 

In both of my books I cite John C. Eccles’ use of the term “liaison brain.” At the time of his writing and research on mind-brain interaction the precise explanation of what the liaison brain is was not known. I offer in my writing based on further research in neuroscience that it most likely corresponds with the ensemble of linguistic neural codes, the immense diversity of patterned, or structured, neural impulse activities with semantics, meaning and purpose.

 

Supplementary motor area

 

I am including a detailed discussion of the supplementary motor area (SMA), a bilateral region of the cerebral cortex that functionally includes what Eccles termed the liaison brain. It is now well known that the mental act of intention acts on the SMA’s where there is an inventory of a vast number of the stored, encoded subroutines of all learned motor programs, including those for speech. It provides an entre into specific motor activities that implement particular intentions. More specifically, a mental intention stimulates appropriate modular programs so that nerve impulses are activated from the library, or archive, of encoded programs, the liaison brain of Eccles. The mere thought of a motor action in the absence of a deliberate motor response, such as moving a finger or limb, bilaterally stimulates the SMA’s. This relationship has been confirmed by transcranial magnetic stimulation during PET imaging. It is a prime example of interaction between the immaterial mind and the neuron based codes of the physical brain.

 

Mind's "finger" on the trigger

 

Quantum tunneling has been identified as a “trigger” for directed synaptic transmission when the immaterial mind activates selected encoded programs in the SMA’s (also pre-SMA’s according to more recent studies). Hiley and Pylkkanen have proposed a relationship between wave functions and forms and quantum tunneling. Based on their proposal it can be asked if the immaterial mind activates the “trigger” by generating quantum wave forms that transmit quasiparticles, including electrons, by tunneling through the voltage potential barriers of synaptic networks in the cerebral cortex and associated regions of the brain. We are seeing that mind and matter interact and are coming closer to understanding the process.

 

Power of the Holy Spirit

 

We recall that Eccles called the neural synapse a “frontier” across which interaction flows in both directions, and that the flow is comprised of information, not of classical electrochemical energy. The discussions in blogs to follow can lead one to consider how the form of energy relates to the power of the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 2:4 the Apostle Paul declared, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power.” The energy discussions that follow offer support for communion between the Holy Spirit and the mind of Man through the human spirit via the synaptic networks of the brain.

 

Explaining the "trigger"

 

I continue my posts taken from Chapter Five in The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, expanding on each where appropriate by including explanations based on more current neuroscientific investigations. My two earlier blogs entitled “Waves in Our Brains,” Parts One and Two, include more current neuroscientific findings that relate quantum mechanics and wave functions to synaptic transmission. These are complex processes, and in subsequent blogs I will introduce even more recent interpretations of these processes of dualist interactionism.

What explains the triggering mechanism that induces molecular conformational movements within synaptic vesicles, their vesicular pores that open into synaptic clefts and within ionic channels so that the release of synaptic transmitters, the process of exocytosis, is stimulated? Each of these structures consists of molecular configurations of proteins and lipids. Eccles developed the concept that operations of the synaptic microsites involve probabilistic displacements of particles so small that they were in the range of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. The vesicle was identified as the key structure on which quantum tunneling caused the release of neural transmitters across synaptic clefts. Eccles and his associate, Friedrich Beck, presented evidence that exocytosis is governed by a trigger mechanism involving quantum level transitions between metastable molecular states. The mechanism involved the motion of a quasiparticle, an electron, possibly carried within a traversing quantum wave of nonmaterial energy at a specific frequency and amplitude. The process corresponds with electronic transitions, such as electron transfer or changes in molecular bonds. The electrochemical process would generate nerve impulses propagated across the synapses of neural networks in which voltage potential barriers are crossed by the quantum tunneling of waves and electrons. Impulses within the spike trains of action potentials are now believed to involve synchronization of propagated wave amplitudes and frequencies comprising neural codes.

 

Quantum probabilities

I offer an explanation of “quantum probabilities” taken from my second book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story.

The neural model based on Eccles’ and Beck’s work introduced into the cerebral cortex a quantum probabilistic aspect giving expression to intentional choices that would increase probability amplitudes across synaptic networks selected for functional outcomes from memory archives. Mental intention would become effective by momentarily increasing the probabilities for exocytosis by quantum tunneling in specified neural networks. Large numbers of small probability amplitudes within cerebral modules sufficient collectively to generate action potentials as spike trains with synchronized frequencies would be coordinated to produce a coherent, linguistically encoded transmission of specified information. The information would be sent or received by an immaterial mind, including the Mind of God.

 

Mind's trigger of tunneling

The question must be asked, what is it that the mind generates to trigger quantum tunneling? Does the mind generate a nonclassical energy? Does this apply to the Mind of God who is Spirit? “Waves in Our Brains,” Part Two, discusses the nonclassical energy in terms of wave functions OR FORMS having frequencies, amplitudes and shapes that are MATCHED in synchrony WITH PYRAMIDAL COLUMN WAVE FORMS so that encoded information is transmitted through selected neural networks with meaning, purpose and intended action. WHERE in the pyramidal columns does the nonclassicAL, IMMATERIAL ENERGY INITIALLY ACT? tHIS QUESTION WILL BE ADDRESSED IN SUBSEQUENT POSTS.

Dwelling of the Holy Spirit

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2: 19-22)

 

On the Trinity

Kallistos Ware, in Reclaiming the Great Tradition, has stated that the Trinity is the “heart of our life.” I am posting more quotes by him from that book, showing how the Holy Spirit relates to the triune God:

God is a triunity of persons loving each other, and in that shared love the persons are totally “oned” without thereby losing their personal individuality. In the phrase of St. John of Damascus, . . . the Three are “united yet not confused, distinct yet not divided.” . . . The Father is the “fountainhead” within the Trinity, so that the Son and the Spirit find their unity in him and are defined by their relationship to him: the Son is begotten,” the Spirit “proceeds.” . . . In the case of the Trinity . . . every divine operation is one and undivided, and the Trinity has but one will and not three. In this manner the three persons of the Trinity are one in a way that three human persons can never be.

 

Supernatural - natural interaction

I am sharing a selection taken from C. S. Lewis’ book, Miracles: How God Intervenes in Nature and human Affairs. It gives substantiation to interaction between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit, soul and body/brain. Though Lewis died before the most current findings of neuroscience that I cite in my two books and in many blogs, his comments are prescient for what we are now beginning to understand about this interaction.

. . . we do not know in advance that God might not bring two Natures into partial contact at some particular point: that is, He might allow selected events in the one to produce results in the other. There would thus be, at certain points, a partial interlocking; but this would not turn the two Natures into one, for the total reciprocity which makes a Nature would still be lacking, and the anomalous interlockings would arise not from what either system was in itself but from the Divine act which was bringing them together.

 

The supernatural human mind

Human minds, then, are not the only supernatural entities that exist. They do not come from nowhere. Each has come into Nature from Supernature; each has its tap-root in an eternal, self-existent, rational Being, whom we call God. Each is an offshoot, or spearhead, or incursion of that Supernatural reality into Nature. (C. S. Lewis, Miracles)

 

God the Son, the Word

This quote from C. S. Lewis’ book, Miracles, speaks to the unity of Jesus Christ, the Son, the Word, to the Father God:

The title “Son” may sound “primitive” or “naif.” But already in the New Testament this “Son” is identified with the Discourse or Reasons or Word which was eternally “with God” and yet also was God. (John 1:1) He is the all-pervasive principle of concretion or cohesion whereby the universe holds together. (Col 1:17) All things, and specifically LIfe, arose within Him, (John 1:4) and within Him all things will reach their conclusion - the final statement of what they have been trying to express. (Eph 1:10)

 

Uncreated, unconditioned supernatural reality

In this quote C. S. Lewis speaks to the reality of the supernatural:

For me the Christian doctrines which are “metaphorical” - or which have become metaphorical with the increase of abstract thought - mean something which is just as “supernatural” or shocking after we have removed the ancient imagery as it was before. They mean that in addition to the physical or psycho-physical universe known to the sciences, there exists an uncreated and unconditioned reality which causes the universe to be; that this reality has a positive structure or constitution which is usefully, though doubtless not completely, described in the doctrine of the Trinity; and that this reality, at a definite point in time, entered the universe we know by becoming one of its own creatures and there produced effects on the historical level which the normal workings of the natural universe do not produce; and that this has brought about a change in our relations to the unconditioned reality.

The resurrected Jesus Christ sent as He promised the Holy Spirit to indwell believers in repentance, bringing “a change in our relations to the unconditioned reality,” to the Holy Spirit, to God the Father, by His grace through Jesus Christ.

 

God, a concrete fact

But if God is the ultimate source of all concrete, individual things and events, then God Himself must be concrete, and individual in the highest degree. Unless the origin of all other things were itself concrete and individual, nothing else could be so; for there is no conceivable means whereby what is abstract or general could itself produce concrete reality. . . . If anything is to exist at all, then the Original Thing must be, not a principle nor a generality, much less an “ideal” or a “value,” but an utterly concrete fact. (C. S. Lewis, Miracles)

 

God, the Absolute Being

I continue with a quote taken from Miracles by C. S. Lewis:

Let us dare to say that God is a particular Thing. Once He was the only Thing: but He is creative, He made other things to be, He is not those other things. He is not “universal being”: if He were there would be no creatures, for a generality can make nothing. He is “absolute being” - or rather the Absolute Being - in the sense that He alone exists in HIs own right. But there are things which God is not. In that sense He has a determinate character. Thus He is righteous, not a-moral; creative, not inert. The Hebrew writings here observe an admirable balance. Once God says simply I AM, proclaiming the mystery of self-existence. But times without number He says, “I am the Lord - I, the ultimate Fact, have this determinate character, and not that. And men are exhorted to know the Lord,” to discover and experience this particular character.

By the restoration of direct communion between the Holy Spirit and the spirit and soul of repentant mankind through the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ on behalf of fallen mankind we can come to a personal, intimate knowledge of God the Father.

 

God becoming man

C. S. Lewis discussed in depth God’s becoming man in Miracles. I am sharing a series of comments from his book that speak to this reality. I refer the reader to his chapter entitled, “The Grand Miracle”:

What can be meant by “God becoming man?” In what sense is it conceivable that eternal self-existent Spirit, basic Fact-hood, should be so combined with a natural human organism as to make one person? And this would be a fatal stumbling-block if we had not already discovered that in every human being a more than natural activity (the act of reasoning) and therefore presumably a more than natural agent is thus united with a part of Nature: so united that the composite creature calls itself “I” and “Me.” . . . In other men a supernatural creature thus becomes, in union with the natural creature, one human being. In Jesus, it is held, the Supernatural Creator Himself did so. . . . We cannot conceive how the Divine Spirit dwelled within the created and human spirit of Jesus: but neither can we conceive how His human spirit, or that of any man, dwells within his natural organism. What we can understand, if the Christian doctrine is true, is that our own composite existence is not the sheer anomaly it might seem to be, but a faint image of the Divine Incarnation itself - the same theme in a very minor key. . . . We catch sight of a new key principle - the power of the Higher, just in so far as it is truly Higher, to come down, the power of the greater to include the less.

I address extensively in my books, especially in The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, the “how” of this “composite existence,” drawing upon current findings of neuroscience and information theory to obtain at least a partial understanding. Most of all we now have the ability to understand that the “coming down” of the Holy Spirit to indwell the human spirit to give Counsel to the human soul is a reality in which we can have evidential faith in our time.

 

C. S. Lewis on dualist interactionism

In my books I consider in detail the concept, and I believe the reality, of what is called dualist interactionism, a concept that materialism and naturalism do not accept. What is it? Simply put, it is the interaction between what is immaterial and what is material, or physical. That which is immaterial can exert causal effects on that which is physical, and the dualist relationship I address through over 20 years of apologetics research is that between the Mind of God and the mind of Man, the human spirit and soul, through God’s created neural synaptic networks and their linguistic neural codes. Let us read selected comments by C. S. Lewis from Miracles that address this interactionism. My blog posts collectively address this concept, expanding on the points made in my books.

In the Walking on the Water we see the relations of spirit and Nature so altered that Nature can be made to do whatever spirit pleases. This new obedience of Nature is, of course, not to be separated even in thought from spirit’s own obedience to the Father of Spirits. . . . One thing at least we must observe. If we are in fact spirits, not Nature’s offspring, then there must be some point (probably the brain) at which created spirit even now can produce effects on matter not by manipulation or technics but simply by the wish to do so.

 

Causality of dualism

It is useful to remember that even now senses responsive to different vibrations would admit us to quite new worlds of experience: that a multi-dimensional space would be different, almost beyond recognition, from the space we are now aware of, yet not discontinuous from it: that time may not always be for us, as it now is, unilinear and irreversible: that other parts of Nature might some day obey us as our cortex now does. (C. S. Lewis, Miracles)

i refer you to my earlier blog posts entitled, “Waves in Our Brains, Parts I and II,” that extend the findings shared in my books from the neurosciences to those acquired by my continued research that relate to Lewis’ “senses responsive to different vibrations.”

 

Life in the Sonship of Christ

Most certainly, beyond all worlds, unconditioned and unimaginable, transcending discursive thought, there yawns for ever the ultimate Fact, the fountain of all other facthood, the burning and undimensioned depth of the Divine Life. Most certainly also, to be united with that Life in the eternal Sonship of Christ is, strictly speaking, the only thing worth a moment’s consideration. . . . I allow and insist that the Eternal Word, the Second Person of the Trinity, can never be, nor have been, confined to any place at all: it is rather in Him that all places exist. But the records say that the glorified, but still in some sense corporeal, Christ withdrew into some different mode of being about six weeks after the Crucifixion: and that He is “preparing a place" for us. (C. S. Lewis, Miracles)

As I state in my books, by God’s grace in our repentance we have had the direct, personal communion with the Holy Spirit restored by the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In this sense we “already” have a real glimpse of the eternal Life to come in the Sonship of Christ, but it is “not yet” fulfilled in our present space-time. It is our eternal Hope.

 

Man, the supernatural and the natural

What follows is a series of posts of what C. S. Lewis said about the duality of Man in Miracles:

When we are considering Man as evidence for the fact that this spatio-temporal Nature is not the only thing in existence, the important distinction is between that part of Man which belongs to this spatio-temporal Nature and that part which does not: or, if you prefer, between those phenomena of humanity which are rigidly interlocked with all other events in this space and time and those which have a certain independence. These two parts of a man may rightly be called Natural and Supernatural: in calling the second “Supernatural” we mean that it is something which invades, or is added to it, the great interlocked event in space and time, instead of merely arising from it [the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as Counselor sent to believers in repentance by the resurrected Jesus Christ - added by the blog author]. On the other hand this “Supernatural” part is itself a created being - a thing called into existence by the Absolute Being and given by Him a certain character or “nature.” . . . There is, however, a sense in which the life of this part can become absolutely Supernatural, i.e. not beyond this Nature but beyond any and every Nature, in the sense that it can achieve a kind of life which could never have been given to any created being in its mere creation. . . . The rational part of every man is supernatural in the relative sense - the same sense in which both angels and devils are supernatural. But if it is, as the theologians say, “born again,” if it surrenders itself back to God in Christ, it will then have a life which is absolutely Supernatural, which is not created at all but begotten, for the creature is then sharing the begotten life of the Second Person of the Deity. . . . Finally, Christian writers use “spirit” and “spiritual” to mean the life which arises in such rational beings when they voluntarily surrender to Divine grace and become sons of the Heavenly Father in Christ. . . . the regenerate man will find his soul eventually harmonized with his spirit by the life of Christ that is in him.

This series of quotations concludes the posts taken from C. S. Lewis’ book, Miracles, that strongly support the concept of dualist interactionism between the immaterial Mind of God and mind of Man through God’s created neural synaptic networks of the brain.

In the beginning was the Word

In John 1:1-3 it reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.”

William Dembski has stated that Information is required for the start of any controlled process. Information itself is preceded by the prime source of all information, a mind. By the Word the Apostle John was referring to the person who is the Prime Cause, the Mind of God who is the Sender of information actualized in all creations by the Son, Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

Dualist interactionism supported

I cite Danko Georgiev in my book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, who said:

“Indeed if one considers the wave function of a quantum particle as a non-observable mental state of pre-probabilities and the actualized position in space and time as an observable material state, then the dualistic interactionism proposed by Sir John Eccles is consistent with the modern vision of what the physical world is.”

 

The dualistic interactionism take away

Mind-brain interaction occurs and is dualistic. Interaction involves a nonmaterial mind with the capacity to cause a probabilistic, directed transmission of action potentials through coherent synaptic networks of the physical brain (see “Waves in Our Brains, Part Two”). It occurs by quantum tunneling which induces conformational changes in the protein scaffolds, vesicles, vesicular pores and ionic channels of synapses. By this process neural transmitters are released from vesicular pores into synaptic clefts. The transmitters stimulate encoded spike trains of action potentials conducted through a network of postsynaptic downstream neurons. Synaptic transmission of specified information occurs by this process and is interpreted by a mind. When the intention, attention or will of one’s cognitive mind generates encoded neural impulses the mind interprets the codes as “percepts” in real time so that one knows what one is thinking and intending. The linguistic code generated is likely by an immaterial energy of the mind.

 

Plantinga on dualism

Alvin Plantinga was cited in my book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, stating that classical science does not claim that the universe is causally closed. His statement is entirely consistent with special divine action in the world. Just as God, who is immaterial and Spirit, can act in the physical universe, so too can the immaterial minds of human beings. There is no objection to special divine action or for human free action, dualistically conceived.

 

Miracles in our time

In an interview of Roger F. Olson, Ph.D. by Lee Strobel, Dr. Olson commented on the reality of miracles in our time. I included his quote in my second book:

No question…I continue to believe that God speaks to his people today, although I concede that sometimes I find myself feeling pretty alone on this….Often Christians object to the legitimacy of these ‘God things’ because they say people don’t need God to speak anymore. After all, they insist, the canon of Scripture is complete, and today God chooses to speak through preachers to communicate messages based on those biblical teachings. Personally, I find that absurd…If God was gracious enough to give personal guidance, comfort, and correction to individuals and groups ‘back then,’ why would he stop?

 

Connection to God via Holy Spirit

I am posting a quote from Shawn Bolz relevant to points I make in my books and blogs for our good and God’s glory:

“…we are all given access to the will of God and connection to God through the Holy Spirit. Jesus restored our connection with God! We no longer need a proxy through which we commune with our loving Creator. Jesus built a bridge that crosses the chasm of our sin to connect us directly with the Father’s love….We now have Jesus and His Spirit of truth, revelation, wisdom, and knowledge living inside of us.”

 

Spirit of Jesus

From F. F. Bruce’s Commentary on the Book of Acts:

Since His ascension it is by His Spirit that Jesus communicates with his people; we may recall Paul’s description of Him as “the last Adam: who became a “life-giving spirit” (1 Cor. 15: 45)

In my two books I consider at least in part how the Spirit of Jesus communes with us via linguistic neural codes distributed through coherent neural synaptic networks, showing concordance between neuroscience and Scripture.

 

THe Holy Spirit

The next posts will feature quotes in italics from Billy Graham’s book, The Holy Spirit: Activating God’s Power in Your Life. Doctor Graham’s worldwide evangelical ministry was guided by the Holy Spirit through prayer and with unrelenting faith, explaining to millions the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Before he died, Pope John was asked what church doctrine most needed emphasis today. He replied, "The doctrine of the Holy Spirit.” Billy Graham asked Dr. Karl Barth what he thought the next emphasis on theology would be. He replied without hesitation, “The Holy Spirit.”

Doctor Graham expressed concern over the misunderstanding and even ignorance in some Christian circles concerning the Third Person of the Trinity. How the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit relate is explained as follows: …we say that we pray to the Father through the Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit. …functionally the Father came first, then the Son became incarnate, died and rose again. Now the Spirit does His work in this age of the Spirit….trinitarianism preserves the unity of the Godhead, and at the same time it acknowledges that there are three persons in that Godhead which is still of one essence. God is one, but that oneness is not simple - it is complex. God the Father is fully God. God the Son is fully God. God the Holy Spirit is fully God. The Bible presents this as fact….although the Father is the Source of all blessing, it is through the Holy Spirit at work in us that all truth becomes living and operative in our lives.

 

Pentecost

Pentecost in the New Testament marked the commencement of the present age of the Holy Spirit. Believers are under the guidance even as the disciples of Jesus were under Him. From heaven Jesus still exercises lordship over us, but, not being physically with us now, He transmits his directions by means of the Holy Spirit who makes Christ real to us. Since Pentecost the Holy Spirit is the link between the first and second advents of Jesus. He applies the work of Jesus Christ to men in this age. (Billy Graham)

 

Christ in us

 

…consider Romans 8:10 (KJV), which says, “If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin.” Or consider Galatians 2:20, “Christ lives in me.” It is clear in these verses that if the Spirit is in us, then Christ is in us. Christ dwells in our hearts by faith. But the Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity who actually dwells in us, having been sent by the Son who has gone away but who will come again in person when we shall literally see Him. (Billy Graham)

 

Holy spirit in history

 

…the operations of the Holy Spirit among men in the three periods of human history may be defined by three words: “upon,” “with,” “in.” In the Old Testament He came upon selected persons and remained for a season (Judg. 14:19). In the Gospels He is represented as dwelling with the disciples in the person of Christ (John 14:17). From the second chapter of Acts onward he is spoken of as being in the people of God (1 Cor. 6:19). (Billy Graham)

 

Marks of the holy spirit

 

I conclude this series of quotes from Billy Graham’s book, The Holy Spirit: Activating God’s Power in Your Life, with these comments:

There should be no more distinctive mark of the Christian than love. . . . The Holy Spirit is the one who reproves, convicts, strives, instructs, invites, quickens, regenerates, renews, strengthens, and uses. He must not be grieved, resisted, tempted, quenched, insulted, or blasphemed. He gives liberty to the Christian, direction to the worker, discernment to the teacher, power to the Word, and fruit to faithful service. He reveals the things of Christ. He teaches us how to use the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. He guides us into all truth. He directs in the way of godliness. He teaches us how to answer the enemies of our Lord. He gives us [direct] access to the Father.

 

Holy Spirit is personal

…the Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit performing tasks that only persons can perform. The Spirit comforts, guides, and teaches the elect (see John 16). These activities are done in a manner that involves intelligence, will, feeling, and power. He searches, selects, reveals, comforts, convicts, and admonishes. Only a person could do these things. The response of the Christian, then, is not mere affirmation that such a being exists, but rather to obey, love, and adore the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity. (R. C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith)

Sanctification by the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit fulfills the role of the sanctifier. To be sanctified is to be made holy, or righteous. Sanctification is a process that begins the moment we become Christians. The process continues until death when the believer is made finally, fully, and forevermore righteous….Our sanctification is a cooperative venture. We must work with the Holy Spirit to grow in sanctification. (R. C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith)

The Human Self

Sir Karl Popper and Sir John C. Eccles defined “self” in their work published in 1977, The Self and Its Brain (1). 

“…the self is not a ‘pure ego,’ that is, a mere subject.  Rather, it is incredibly rich. …it observes and takes action at the same time.  It is acting and suffering, recalling the past and planning and programming the future, expecting and disposing.  It contains…wishes, plans, hopes, decisions to act, and a vivid consciousness of being an acting self, a center of action.  And it owes this selfhood largely to interaction with other persons….”

The highest mental experience is “knowing that one knows,” self-awareness or self-consciousness. (2)   It is the most fundamental characteristic of the human species (3) and emerges from levels of linguistic communication not shared by non-human animals. (4)   Mind and language are more than physical entities.  Distinctively human language enables Man to bridge the gulf between mind and matter, the immaterial and the material.  Human language reflects a spiritual component in humans that does not exist in other creatures and lifts them to a unique eminence in the cosmos, made in the triune image of God with spirit, soul and body. (5)  Bruce M. Miller stated that “…it may be deflating to some people that the very essence of who they are – including their beliefs and values – is merely another anatomical process.”  This statement reflects the common reduction made of the mind to the physical brain.  The sense of self, according to his studies, could be localized to one area of the brain. (6) 

            William A. Dembski (7) points out that a full material account of mind needs to understand localized brain excitations in terms of other localized brain excitations.  Anger, for example, has to be explained in terms of semantic contents, such as insults.  The admixture of brain excitations and semantic contents hardly constitutes a materialist accounting of mind or intelligent agency.  The human soul mediates between the spirit and body and correlates with the self, or self-consciousness, our “I.”  The self remains in continuity with the past and into the future.  No matter how extreme the circumstances of our experiences one remains the same self, durable through a lifetime. (8,9) The self makes Man distinctively human.  We are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world. (10)

            Fundamental to the Gospel is the teaching from Jesus Christ that Christians need to die to self.  What does this mean?  The human self is durable and defines our unique human identity.  Dying to self as a term can generate confusion and angst among Christians.  Jan Johnson has addressed the issue of “dying to self” by explaining the term based on Scripture. 

“Jesus described the dying-to-self process (to ‘deny self’ is the exact scriptural phrase) as part of following Him: ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me’ (Matthew 16:24, NASB). Sometimes people mistake dying to self for death of self. But self-denial is not self-rejection. God treasures your divinely created self. He doesn’t want to obliterate the part of you that makes you uniquely you. God works within you and reshapes you into the person your renewed-in-Christ self is meant to be.” (11)

The following teachings of the Apostles Peter and Paul are representative “scriptural phrases” alluded to by Johnson:

1 Peter 2:24 …and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds, you were healed.

Galatians 5:24-25 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. 

Ephesians 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

            It is of unique importance that human beings can communicate with their Creator God through the human spirit and receive Counsel from the Holy Spirit restored to repentant mankind by the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  We remain distinct human selves in interactive harmony with God’s Spirit by His grace through the death and resurrection of Jesus, His Son.

References

1.      Karl R. Popper and John C. Eccles. The Self and Its Brain (Berlin, Heidelberg, London, New York: Springer-Verlag International, 1977), 120.

2.      John C. Eccles. Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Soul (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), 224.

3.      T. Dobzhansky. The Biology of Ultimate Concern (New York: The New American Library, 1967).

4.      Eccles, Ibid, 71.

5.      Joseph W. Poulshock, “Language-Wonder: Theory, Pedagogy, and Research,” Christ and the World, the Journal of Tokyo Christian University, 8 (1998).

6.      Bruce L. Miller, “Finding One’s Self,” Presented at the American Academy of Neurology, 53rd Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, P/a, May 5-11, 2001.

7.      William A. Dembski, “Are We Spiritual Machines?” First Things, 96 (1999), 25-31.

8.      Henry Margenau, The Miracle of Existence. Woodbridge, Connecticut: Ox Bow Press, 1984).

9.      John C. Eccles, “Do Mental Events Cause Neural Events Analogously to the Probability Fields of Quantum Mechanics?” Proc. Royal Soc. London (Biol), 227 (1986), 411-428.

10.  Eccles, Ibid, 241.

11.  Jan Johnson, Dying to Self and Discovering So Much More, August 25, 2011 (https://decisionmagazine.com/dying-self-discovering-much-more/)

 

Information Transmission between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man

              

In my second book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, I cited Christoph Lameter who stated in his doctoral dissertation, “God can effectively communicate with humans by direct stimulation of neurons in the human brain generating images and memories.  God is able to communicate with humans in a direct way.” (1) In his book, Being As Communion, William A. Dembski presented a scheme adapted from Claude Shannon that serves as a template for information transmission between the Mind of God and the mind of Man by means of the indwelling of the human spirit by the personal Holy Spirit. (2)  I am presenting the scheme in this blog as a foundation for subsequent blogs that will address how this interaction may occur drawing from current studies from the neurosciences.  In this scheme the identification of the Sender, or Information Source, is the Mind of God, and the Recipient, or Receiver, is the mind of Man.  God intended it as an intimate, personal communion of love.            

Information Source (Mind of God) generates a            

Message (the Word – specified information, the Word also being Jesus Christ) that is given to a            

Transmitter (Holy Spirit) that directs a            

Signal with meaning and purpose to the            

Receiver (mind of Man) in the form of            

Spike patterns of action potentials transmitted through the  

Destination, the neural synaptic networks as            

Linguistic codes in various manifestations (dreams, visions, perceived words, intuition, discernment) interpreted by the

Receiver, or recipient, the immaterial, cognitive mind of Man

Noise in the communication channel reflects the distorting or blocking effects by evil, sin or focus on self on the            

Message of the Information Source            

Effective error correction of the distorted or blocked Message is provided by the            

Word, the life and teachings of Jesus Christ through the Bible and through the conscience given by the Transmitter, the indwelling Holy Spirit, who gives discernment of God’s general revelation            

It is my hope that the evidence presented in my two books that is derived from Scripture, neuroscience, quantum mechanics and information theory for dualist interaction between the Holy Spirit and the soul of Man through the human spirit and neural synaptic networks is compelling.  In subsequent blogs I will explain how the interaction may occur drawing upon concordance between science and theology..  

References

1.     Christoph Lameter, Divine Action in the Framework of Scientific Knowledge: from Quantum Behavior to Divine Action, A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the School of Theology at Fuller Seminary in candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Apologetics and Philosophy, Newark, CA. (October 20, 2000)

2.    William A. Dembski, Being As Communion: A Metaphysics of Information (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014)       

 

Waves in Our Brains

 

Part One

In the fifth chapter of my book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, I cited Mortimer Adler’s discussion of the mind’s relation to the material brain.  He stated that the intellectual mind is superior to matter and cannot be reduced to it.  It is an immaterial component of human nature.  He said, “The intellect cannot normally function without dependence on the activity of the brain, but the brain is not the physical organ of intellectual thought.” (1)  According to Adler human behavior consists of two substances, mind and physical brain, and the two interact with one another. 

Neural impulses are the same in electrochemical character.  They consist of action potentials transmitted across and through neural synaptic networks as spike trains with distinctive frequencies and amplitudes, as we shall see.  Neural structures are histologically and anatomically similar, or even identical.  Distinguishable concepts that reflect intellectual and cognitive processes cannot be embodied in matter that is so similar or identical!  The power of conceptual thought must be an immaterial energy,  and energy is expressed as waves.  We are aware that light and sound are transmitted by waves.  Likewise, waves are transmitted across synaptic clefts by quantum tunneling with specified frequencies,  amplitudes and trajectories.  Going further, it is now recognized that elementary particles at the atomic level, electromagnetism, gravity and the strong and weak nuclear forces are . . . waves.  Even space consists of unique vibrational signatures!  In this and my subsequent blog I will discuss the flow of waves within and across our brains. 

One more point merits emphasis.  John C. Eccles maintained that the human mind is not causally closed to nonmaterial stimuli as claimed by materialists. The neural synapse is considered to be a frontier across which information flows in both directions. (2) The billions of interconnections between neurons and trillions of synapses in neural networks constitute an information processing system.  William A. Dembski has stated that matter itself is reducible to the information instantiated within its design, construction and function.  It is energy that causes information to undergo such dynamic transformations.  Energy is inferred from information and is called by Dembski the “causal glue.” (3)  Werner Gitt stated that information is a fundamental entity on equal footing with matter and energy. It is required for the start of any controlled process whether energy or matter.  Gitt identified the one prerequisite of information, that it must be in coded form. (4)  Information itself is preceded by the prime source of all information, a mind.  In John 1:1-3 it is said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.”

The electrochemical activity of neural networks translates into the riches of the human mind.  James Le Fanu presumed that there has to be a code within the patterns of the activity, ensuring that the firing of the visual cortex, for example, gives rise to the perception of trees and birds seen from one’s window. (5)  The neural code requires an intelligence to establish the rules of syntax, meaning and purpose, human or divine.  Anything with high information content must be interpreted by the intellect of a mind.  It is the immaterial mind that interacts cognitively with encoded information within the spike trains of neural synaptic networks.  It is a perceptual process by which linguistic neural codes are interpreted by a human mind with the unique capacity for expressing and understanding advanced language.

The application of increasingly sophisticated technologies to the study of the human mind has generated more understanding of waves that are transmitted through the brain.  Initial observation of brain waves was by electroencephalography which recorded waves transmitted across the skull with relatively poor resolution and no directional components.  Human brains can now be studied by electrocorticography (ECoG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging.  ECoG applies to direct studies of live neural tissues in responsive patients such as those undergoing neurosurgery for epilepsy.  Multiple monitors can be placed over larger surfaces of the brain itself to study the characteristics and routes of neural transmission.  In Part Two of this blog I will share what I have learned from more current neuroscience literature.  There is yet a dominant perspective that the human mind is not immaterial and can be reduced to the functional activities of the physical brain.  Much of the literature of neuroscience does not acknowledge the human mind with causal and cognitive power but equates the function of the brain to computation.  The mind is considered to be an epiphenomenon by some.  By reviewing points I make in my books in the paragraphs above I have provided an introduction that shows the merit of dualist interaction between the immaterial mind and the material brain and its neural networks.  I will soon post Part Two of this blog.  In the blog that follows, “Minds in Communion,” I will focus on the dualist interaction between the mind of Man and the Mind of God.

References

1.        Mortimer J. Adler, Intellect: Mind over Matter (New York: Collier Books, MacMillan Publishing Company, 1990)

2.       John C. Eccles, How the Self Controls Its Brain (Berlin, New York, London: Springer-Verlag, 1994)

3.       William A. Dembski, Being As Communion: A Metaphysics of Information (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014)

4.       Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information: A Scientist Explains the Incredible Design in Nature (Green Forest, Arizona: Master Books, 2007)

5.       James Le Fanu, Why Us? How the Self Controls Its Brain (New York: Pantheon Books, 2009)

 

Searching for the Mind

In his article, “Searching for the Mind,” (jonlieffmd.com/blog/neuronal-networks-brain-waves) Dr. John Lieff discusses neuronal networks and brain waves. I am posting a paragraph from his article that is descriptive of the synchronicity of brain waves in neural synaptic networks and its significance.

The changing dynamics of wide-ranging neuronal circuits occurs throughout the brain in milliseconds at the level of individual neurons and groups of neurons. Neurons join a circuit one moment and another the next moment. Groups of neurons fire action potentials in very specific rhythms that rapidly change. Groups of neurons produce brain waves - synchronous oscillations - that communicate information from one section of the brain to another. Synchronous brain waves couple with other frequencies to connect multiple regions.

 

Matter and Mind

I will be posting a series of brief blogs that highlight contents of chapters in my book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man Through Neural Synaptic Networks. The blogs will march through the book contents. The first blog, “Matter and Mind,” includes excerpts from two articles by William A. Dembski entitled “Are We Spiritual Machines?” and “Conflating Matter and Mind.” I cite both articles on page xxi. They are in response to the question I raised, “But if mental activity includes a functional immaterial component, how can the immaterial mind of Man relate to physically based brain activity and to the Mind of God, who is Spirit? How might the Holy Spirit interact with the human mind, will and emotion - the soul?”

Within [a] richer world of both material and nonmaterial things, physical laws lose their status as absolutes and become subject to principles that may be quite metaphysical, (principles like intelligent agency and divine providence).

The brain is a physical system which captures intelligence . . . which is metaphysical, created by God as part of our mind, soul and “heart” before we were even placed in the womb. Our brains are interactive processors of this distinctive human gift, an incorporation of the divine Logos.

 

God Is Spirit and Personal

In His meeting with the woman at the well in the Book of John Jesus explained what had been proclaimed in the Old Testament, that God is Spirit, a living Person. He existed before the natural. He created the natural and continues to this day to give it life and breath, and He penetrates the natural. The Bible defines life of spirit as a God-given capacity in human beings to form a relationship with God, to serve and to please Him.

Communion with the Holy Spirit

It is important to understand that to be led by the Spirit it is necessary to communicate with Him, to have “spiritual ears.” It is through the Holy Spirit that Man has communion and communication with God. The spirit of Man comes in contact with and unites with the Holy Spirit as one. The Holy Spirit is divine, and the fallen human spirit is not, but the two are united as one so that the repentant human spirit is reborn to new life in Jesus Christ. The new spirit is none other than God’s indwelling Spirit Who will enable God’s people to follow His decrees. It is the presence of God Himself. The Holy Spirit is in you/us.

 

Holy Spirit and the human spirit

With the Fall of Man (Genesis 3) the image of God in humans was corrupted. Intimate communion between the soul of Man and the Holy Spirit was lost. In sin Man thereby experienced spiritual death, loss of communion between the human spirit and the Holy Spirit. Man’s mind became governed by his soul, by the will of his own self-centered focus.

The relationship between God and Man was and is designed to be a bidirectional, interactive one. Man’s capacity is to use all the communicative attributes of his Creator God, his mind being created in the image of the Mind of God. The restoration of this interaction depends upon Man’s repentance and the soul’s choice to follow the Counsel of the Holy Spirit through his human spirit. As the human spirit rules over the soul led by the indwelling Holy Spirit, the soul in turn expresses itself through the cognitive attributes of the human brain.

 

Self-Conscious Mind

I am citing work of John C. Eccles addressing dualist interaction between the self-conscious mind and the cortical neurons in the anatomical and physiological entities called modules. These entities are comprised of ensembles of many hundreds of neurons acting in a collusive patterned array. In Part Two of “Waves in Our Brains” we shall see how prescient Eccles was when he coauthored his book with Karl Popper in 1977. Some of the terms he used are changed but the functional relevance remains to this day.

The self-conscious mind is actively engaged in reading out from the multitude of active centers at the highest level of brain activity, namely the [modules] of the … cerebral [cortex]. The self-conscious mind selects from these centers according to attention, and from moment to moment integrates its selection to give unity even to the most transient experiences. Furthermore, the self-conscious mind acts upon these neural centers modifying the dynamic spatiotemporal patterns of neural events. Thus, we propose that the self-conscious mind exercises a superior interpretative and controlling role upon the neural events….Thus we conjecture that the self-conscious mind is scanning the modular activities in the liaison areas of the cerebral cortex…from moment to moment it is selecting modules according to its interest, the phenomenon of attention, and is itself integrating from all this diversity to give the unified conscious experience.

 

Inner person of the self

I cite Dr. James Le Fanu’s discussion of the “self” in this post which reference is included in my book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man through Neural Synaptic Networks.

“…the Self is an autonomous agent with freedom to choose, … founded upon a rich autobiographical inner record of memory, an accumulated subjective experience extending back to childhood, and that it possesses powers of reason and imagination expressed through language extending beyond the boundaries of personal experience. The Self is nonmaterial with no substance, and it cannot be weighed or measured. Its non-material attributes collectively form the “inner core” that is each unique individual. Self is grounded in the human brain which facilitates its formation through cognition and memory, but it has a coherent, durable transcendent reality that cannot be explained by ever-changing, transient electrical activity of neuronal circuits.”

 

Neural Codes and Information

Because human beings are uniquely gifted to express and understand language, neural codes transmit linguistic information (as does the genetic code) with small probabilities defining specification. The information has structure, meaning and purpose. The intention of the immaterial mind of a sender transmits information to a recipient, whether that be the mind of a person or muscles of a limb with an intended action, or result.

 

Silent thinking

Sir John Eccles defined thinking as a process of mental concentration on some anticipated sensory input, on some particular task or on some particular learned program. There is an internal generation of thinking in the absence of any signaling to the brain by sense organs.

 

Gift of language

Of significance is that human beings through the capacity for language not only can describe the material world around us with a high degree of accuracy but can easily overreach the entire scope of the space-time in which we live in order to express ideas that touch the unseen eternity of abstract ideas. That eternal, unseen realm is accessible to us through the gift of language.

 

Energy, frequency, wavelength

I cite William Dembski in my second book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man Through Neural Synaptic Networks, who commented on God’s imparting of information into His created universe and its constituents: Energy in quantum events is proportional to frequency and inversely proportional to wavelength. Since there is no upper limit to wavelength there is no lower limit to energy required to impart specified information with structure, meaning and purpose into the codes of neural impulses. The Designer could impart information into the universe and its constituents, including components of the neural synaptic mechanism, without inputting any energy at all.

 

Waves in Our Brains

 

Part Two

An Introduction

In this blog I describe in detail what has been learned by neuroscientists about the waves in our brains.  It is a lengthy composition intended to replace what would have been a very technical book.  I include information derived from more recent neuroscience investigations to expand on points I made especially in my first book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man Through Neural Synaptic Networks.  I endeavor to make the content understandable to lay readers, but it has been necessary to include some technical language which I try to explain along the way as accurately as I can.  I have directed this blog to individuals who are interested in seeing the concordance that exists between neuroscientific data and applicable Scripture relevant to dualist interaction between the immaterial mind of Man and the physical brain.  Ultimately, I shall address interaction between the Mind of God and the neural networks of the human brain that enable a bidirectional, personal communion between the Holy Spirit and the spirit and soul of Man.  That part of my composition will expand on material I presented in my second book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story.  God created mankind to have an intimate, personal communion with Him.  It was a communion that was lost at the Fall but restored by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who sent as He promised the Holy Spirit to indwell the spirit and soul of mankind in repentance.  My next blog, “Minds in Communion,” will expand on this latter point.  Let us see what neuroscience has learned about waves in our brains that will help us understand this interaction.

Brain Waves Description

Brain waves, also referred to as oscillations, are periodic fluctuations of electrical excitability in neurons, singly or in groups.  Fluctuating changes in the membrane potential of neurons create an extracellular current which can be measured by electrical recordings from the brain.  The electroencephalogram (EEG) has been used to study the brain waves of humans for many years.  They are of multiple frequencies including in order from lowest to highest delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma.  The frequencies range from 0.05 Hertz (Hz) to as high as 500 Hz. (1) They have spatial and temporal relationships with brain functions and brain states (and we shall see with cognitive activity).  However, EEG’s are monitored through the skull and have poor resolution and correlation with specific cognitive activities.  They also do not show the trajectories of brain waves through the brain which are being increasingly documented.

As was pointed out in Part One of this blog, it is now possible to monitor brain wave frequencies and amplitudes directly by electrocorticography (ECoG) by placing monitors directly on the cortex of the brain during certain surgical procedures.  ECoG can be done in awake patients undergoing surgery for epilepsy.  Trajectories of waves can be traced through the monitored parts of the brain.  The procedure can be coordinated with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and spectrograms.  Technological advances that are becoming increasingly available allow investigators to learn more about cerebral cortical function within and between functional regions of the brain and how it relates to cognition and sensorimotor functions.

Brain waves are reflective of nerve impulses that consist of propagating action potentials referred to as spike trains.  They are immensely complex as we shall see.  Waves generated within certain parts of the brain may have specific relationships with the waves of other parts of the brain such as the cerebral, frontoparietal or visual cortex, so their trajectories are of interest.  Nerve impulses are continuously active within nerve cells constituting a stochastic, or random, background of wave activity.  At rest neural networks stay at various subthreshold levels of polarization insufficient to stimulate action potentials.  This status makes them highly responsive to electrochemical inputs that are sufficiently strong to cause depolarization and the generation of action potentials.  Spike trains of action potentials are transmitted with specified trajectories by a process to be discussed.  The fluctuations of brain waves can be switched within milliseconds between different states of amplitude and frequency in response to inputs of wave trains accounting for the fluidity of cortical activities and of the mind.  By a process such as cross frequency coupling (CFC) a neural network with a theta frequency can be linked with a network of impulses with a higher gamma frequency to facilitate a very rapid change in the trajectory of a train of spikes from one region to another.  Spike trains of action potentials transmit specified information (explained in both of my books) within neural codes to functional parts of the brain so that, for example, the aroma of a rose is sensed or an arm is raised.  We have seen in Part One of this blog that the immaterial mind interacts causally and receptively with this process.  Most current neuroscience studies are confirming this dualist relationship.

The Mechanics of Synaptic Transmission

Synaptic exocytosis serves as the regulator of the activity that generates coherent patterns of impulse transmission.  Quantum mechanical action is the switch, or trigger, within microstructures of ionic channels and synapses that stimulates exocytosis.  Because quantum processes involve signal times smaller than the pico- and femtosecond scale they correspond to electronic transitions.  These include electron transfers and changes in molecular bonds in ionic channels and synapses that cause the release of synaptic vesicles across synaptic clefts. The probability of synaptic vesicle exocytosis per excitatory impulse is less than 100% due to voltage potential barriers within the microstructures.  An incoming nerve impulse excites electronic configurations to metastable levels at these sites.  It is in this way that neural networks stay close to instability with subthreshold levels of depolarization that are insufficient to stimulate action potentials.  The microstructures of groups of neurons can be switched to new states by the collective action of incoming action potentials sufficient to cause depolarization leading to synaptic exocytosis and the transmission of brain waves along neural networks. Quantum tunneling triggers this process by which wave impulses are able to pass through voltage potential barriers to cause exocytosis.  (2)  I elaborate on the details of synaptic transmission and quantum tunneling in my book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man through Neural Synaptic Networks.

An Historical Review

For a historical understanding of brain waves I refer to the pioneering work of the Nobel Laureate Sir John C. Eccles.  In his book published in 1977 with Karl R. Popper, The Self and Its Brain (3), how cortical modules of pyramidal cells relate to the self-conscious mind is considered.  They proposed that the self-conscious mind actively scans and reads out the wave forms and frequencies of the multitude of cerebral modules in the neocortex, the principal site of cognition that act as detectors of specific scanning wave patterns.  They describe this as the highest level of brain activity.  The self-conscious mind selects from the background wave patterns of modules by focusing attention, or interest, on specific objects or activities integrating what is selected from moment to moment to give unity to experiences.  Matching of wave frequencies, amplitudes and phases of the mind with the modular wave functions is selected by the scanning process of the mind resulting in neuronal synchronization.  Moreover, the self-conscious mind can modify the spatiotemporal wave patterns of modules, thereby exercising both an interpretive and controlling role upon the impulses.  The authors stressed that the integrating unity of conscious experience is determined by the self-conscious mind and not by the neural machinery of the cerebral cortex and its modules.  Not only does the mind read out selectively from the ongoing activities of the modular machinery but it also modifies these activities, a causal interaction.

Perception and intention are characterized by dynamic, coherent actions of specific areas in the brain with increases in regional blood flow.  Activation generates spatiotemporal patterns of nerve impulses with specific frequencies, amplitudes and phases.  These patterns draw upon memory codes maintained in neural networks, including the learned inventory of pyramidal cells.  Cortical modules consist of many thousands of modifiable synapses which can act coherently with other neural bundles to generate action potentials that bring about specific functions.  Exocytosis probability can be increased in neural modules since there is a constant subthreshold background activity that can be modulated by exocytosis in large numbers of synapses that generate top-down inputs of impulses that can stimulate spike trains of encoded information in recipient networks.  (2)  Coupling of wave frequencies between networks can establish oscillatory synchronization that can also increase the probability of neural exocytosis.  So we see that waves do characterize brain function in specific ways.  It has been suggested that mentation is also accompanied by wave oscillations, a topic that will be elaborated upon in paragraphs to come.

Bringing Up to Date

I now turn our attention to the more recent work of neuroscientists.  As these articles are discussed we shall have reference to cortical modules, their structure and function as detectors, how they relate to neural wave patterns and codes, focused attention, how what is perceived by modular scanning is interpreted by the mind and how the causal effects of the mind are accomplished within the context of brain waves.  We will consider what gives direction to the trajectories of brain waves, how the trajectories are formed and how they relate to cognition of the immaterial mind.  I will do my best to make the content understandable, but waves in our brains is a complex and dynamic study.

Gyorgy Buzsaki and Brendon Watson (1) published an artlcle in 2012 that discussed brain rhythms and neural syntax and the implications for efficient coding of cognitive content.  Brain rhythms, or oscillations, can interact with each other by several mechanisms.  One example is phase coupling that involves the entrainment of oscillators with similar frequencies in which the phase of a given frequency is entrained by another.  When multiple rhythms are present simultaneously, the phase of the slow rhythms, e.g. theta, modulates the power of the faster ones, e.g. gamma.  A second interaction referred to as CFC creates packets of higher frequency waves that transmit information from one region of the brain to another conforming to syntactical rules.  So we see that the various types of synchronization appear to serve the transmission of information from region to region, and the causal role of the mind is also to be considered.  The syntactical rules apply to both sender and recipient so that encoded communication is meaningful and with purpose. 

The temporal pacing of neuronal waves is accomplished by rhythmic inhibitory volleys of impulses.  The balanced activity between stimulatory and inhibitory impulses is important to the generation of shorter frames of encoded messages. Oscillations have well-defined onsets and offsets with maximum and minimum spiking activity in the information-transmitting neural cells.  Coupled with CFC this activity serves to establish syntactical rules within codes.  Packets of gamma oscillations may be grouped by slower theta oscillations via CFC to associate linguistically encoded letters with words, and the theta waves can combine the words into sentences so that meaningful information can be transmitted across larger brain regions.  CFC is considered the backbone of a neural syntax which induces segmentation and the linkage of spike trains into cell assemblies that transmit encoded oscillations. The words to which we refer are the oscillations of linguistic codes within neural wave patterns that vary in timing and rate that the mind learns to interpret over a lifetime, archiving them into memory by neural plasticity.  Information trajectories and processing depend on the synchronization of neuronal oscillations, including those of the pyramidal neurons.  It is believed that gamma cell assemblies constitute a useable packet of information with specific content with meaning and purpose.

There is a staggering number of ion channels in neural networks.  This great number allows neurons to encode information within trains of action potentials with a wide range of frequencies, amplitudes, phases and shapes.  The different channel types determine the diverse firing behavior of neurons that can change on a sub-millisecond timescale as was pointed out above.  Action potentials serve a wide range of functions in neuronal networks by encoding information in their frequencies and patterns.  The rich firing behavior of neurons depends on the numerous voltage-dependent ion channels and synapses and accounts for the incalculable number of neural codes that are generated over a lifetime and archived in memory. (4)

Let us revisit the dynamics of neuronal circuits.  Neurons join a circuit one moment and another the next moment.  The firing of action potentials also can rapidly change, as can the attentional focus of an immaterial mind!  The waves of groups of neurons can entrain the waves of other neuron groups to form synchronous oscillations so that encoded information can be communicated between brain regions.  For any task multiple brain networks may be active and integrated by the process of synchronization.  Also of great complexity is the coupling and uncoupling of different wave frequencies transmitting information between local and global regions of the brain.  Coherent brain waves can be changed in milliseconds!  Doctor John Lieff has noted that there is no known center in the brain that directs this complex circuitry of rhythms and frequencies.  Absent a center for this complexity isn’t the best explanation an immaterial mind interacting with each molecule, each cell and each brain region, with each neural code? (5)  There is an important question to be asked.  Does the mind itself generate waves? I shall address this important question as you read on.

Challenge to Neuroscientists

It is a challenging goal of neuroscientists to interpret, or to decode, the mental content of brain activity.  Kendrick Kay and coworkers (6) designed a decoding method to characterize the relationship between visual stimuli and fMRI activity in visual areas.  Their model consisted of a tuning of individual voxels for space, orientation and spatial frequency, estimated directly from neural responses evoked by natural images viewed by study subjects.  Distinct voxel activity patterns were obtained for each subject.  The stimulus related information that was decoded from voxel activity remained stable over time.  fMRI signals contained a considerable amount of stimulus-related information that could be decoded.  The ultimate goal of the investigators is to reconstruct the actual images seen by an observer from neural response patterns.

Another challenge to neuroscientists is to understand the role of neural oscillatory activity in sensory and cognitive functions.  These include focused attention and intent to generate specific functions such as verbal communication, movement of an extremity or forming an original idea.  Erol Basar and coworkers (7) have studied oscillatory brain activity and have identified a new trend in neuroscience, to understand the mechanisms by which the immense number of neurons interact to produce higher cognitive functions.  Theirs is an important and detailed article that sheds much light on how cognition relates to brain waves.  Neuronal populations interact across extended regions of the brain through large nerve bundles in modules and in tracts of axons.  Each part of the brain has specific dynamics based on the history of life experiences and the input of neural stimulations.  Their interactions generate new neural patterns which are dynamic flows with continuous distributions and trajectories through the brain.  Brain oscillations are basic events with natural frequencies reflected in EEG oscillations.  Most functions require an integrated action of neurons in many regions of the brain.  We have seen that gamma oscillations serve to transmit information through brain regions.  Theta, alpha, delta and beta oscillations also have specific functions, and during functional states major operating rhythms can change their functional roles within milliseconds, as we have seen, reflecting the numerous brain functions of the cognitive mind to which we are coming closer!   

Neuronal Synchrony and Trajectories

Sensory input consists of the transmission of specific wave frequencies, amplitudes, phases and shapes.  Brain areas exist that share these wave characteristics and can be entrained by the sensory input setting up synchronous wave patterns across areas of the brain that transmit information.  One mechanism mentioned above is CFC.  Wave frequencies may also involve phase and time coupling.  For example, the state of attention is associated with 40Hz wave frequencies.  The coupling of these frequencies with the frequencies of specific sensory modules facilitates the transfer of information within coherent, synchronous wave packets between brain regions that are the focus of attention.  When resting wave frequencies in specialized modules are entrained by matching input frequencies of sensory input the synchronous, coherent oscillations of the generated spike trains are given trajectories through the brain that bring about perception.  Cognitive tasks have been observed to give rise to marked theta band increases in evoked action potential components.  Theta responses appear to serve as carrier signals for cognitive processing.

A unique type of oscillatory activity cannot be given to only one function.  Neural oscillations have multifold functions and provide codes for functional activity.  These are very dynamic activities about which much more will be learned in time.  Evoked brain potentials range from delta to gamma frequencies and are real brain responses that are related to cognitive brain functions. 

Thoughts do give rise to action via an intention network that exists in the human brain.  Conscious motor intention, such as the intent to raise an arm, increases the excitability of target-specific motor circuits in the supplementary motor area. (8) By employing fMRI investigators found in study subjects that movement intentions could be decoded from brain signals.  The conclusion they reached is that cognitive brain activity occurs before any movement execution.  Conscious voluntary intention determines the trajectory of motor representation via oscillatory synchronization, or tuning, of corticospinal excitability specific for a motor response. Goal directed excitation favors the recruitment of specific spinal motor neuron pools to bring about the desired movement.  And it is a mind that establishes a goal!

Dendrites and Traveling Waves

The neocortex is the center for cognition. Cortical modules consist of six laminae which house pyramidal cells and their numerous axons and dendrites.  The apical dendrites in lamina I and II are located in the most superficial part of the cortex and finish in extensive tuft-like branching.  These are the basic anatomical units of the neocortex and are the cortical units for reception, giving them a preeminent role in cerebral function.  Attention is a top-down process that targets apical dendrites in layer I. (9) Dendritic domains have distinct synaptic inputs, excitability, modulation and plasticity, features that allow synapses throughout the dendritic tree to contribute to action potential generation.  These properties support a variety of coincidence-detection mechanisms underlying advanced cognitive functions.  Humans have the most elaborate and spine-rich dendritic trees that receive input from other cortical regions.  Dendritic spines vary in their size and shape and are highly plastic so that they change with experience.  Dendritic synapses appear to work in concert to generate action potentials.  The coincident activation of a sufficiently large number of inputs from dendritic trees can cause pyramidal cells to reach the action potential threshold to generate action potentials, a process of so-called coincidence detection.  The separation of basal and apical dendrites on all pyramidal neurons implies that these dendrites have distinct functions that could include receptivity to cognitive wave train input, especially by the apical dendrites. (10) 

It is often the case that neuroscientists do not address the role of the immaterial mind in cognitive processes that include attention and motor functions.  In the article by Spratling I quote several sentences in his Conclusion to which I will offer a comment. 

“In addition, by influencing activation each dendrite can affect learning in a biologically plausible manner, neurons are likely to learn correlations between the separate information streams targeting the apical and basal dendrites.  Apical inputs can therefore influence learning at the basal dendrite and may be considered a source of reinforcement or supervision.  This interpretation is bolstered by the fact that the apical dendrites in layer I not only receive projections from other cortical regions but are also targeted by the limbic system, a widely projecting set of interconnected brain structures concerned with emotion and memory.” (9) 

The several words in bold type can be attributed to cognitive processes of an immaterial and personal mind.  Instead, the author relegates these activities to computations by the brain, a common thread in reductive materialism where cognitive activities are attributed to the functions of components of the material brain.  The function of neurons cannot account for learning, supervision, emotion and cognitive memory, all of which depend on the interpretation by a mind of neural codes!

The receptor field of dendritic trees of the neocortex selectively initiates action potentials when it detects specific wave patterns.  It has been reported by Stewart Heitmann and coworkers (11) that the dendritic field has spatially organized receptors that act as filters of the input of wave patterns that decode the information contained within their wavelength, coherence and direction.   There is emerging evidence that dendritic integration within cortical modules is sensitive to the relative timing and spatial location of synaptic input on the dendritic arbors.  This observation reflects Eccles’ description of “detector” modules (3) in the neocortex that respond to scanning by the self-conscious mind with, I suggest, its specific wave frequencies. 

The authors describe spatially organized waves of neuronal activity that propagate across the cortex during sensory or behavioral tasks.  Waves of action potentials are given direction in their spike trains by this dendritic receptor mechanism so that motor impulses are directed to specific muscle groups to bring about desired action.  An arrangement of excitatory and inhibitory receptors in the dendritic receptor field acts as the spatial filter of incoming wave patterns, allowing for the discrimination of encoded nerve impulses to be directed through axonal networks to appropriate receptor groups.  The authors describe traveling oscillatory waves that encode information within motor commands from the neocortex (and I add from the intention of the cognitive mind).  The spatial filtering by dendritic trees leads to their decoding to generate the trajectories for propagating downstream neural impulses that induce specified motor activity according to the neural code, such as limb movement and speech. Muller and coworkers (12) suggest that traveling waves have a functional role in associating cell assemblies by phase coupling (13) and activating them in the cortex. They propagate in the direction of maximal information transmission and are considered relevant for human cognition that is supported by neural patterns organized across both time and space.  Traveling waves may have a role in brain connectivity and oscillations of cognition by showing when behavioral information is represented and where impulse signals are propagated.

William A. Phillips (14) has presented evidence for the hypothesis that input to the apical tufts of neocortical pyramidal cells relates to cognition.  Inputs to apical tufts comes from a number of sources including direct feedback from higher cortical regions, indirect feedback from the thalamus and long-range lateral connections within and between cortical regions.  Again, we can look forward to future studies that investigate how the immaterial mind interacts with the apical tufts of pyramidal cells, the predominate cell type in the neocortex for cognition.

Mind and Dualism

We can now see that patterns of wave frequencies are generated by sensory receptors and by cognitive activity that interact with the modular and synaptic networks of the neocortex.  Neural networks are spatially arranged within the neocortex.  Networks express specific wave frequencies that can be entrained by incoming wave fronts with coherent frequencies.  Frequencies are thereby synchronized, such as by CFC or phase coupling, and transmitted along coherent neural networks with specific trajectories to intended final receptors.  It is a complex process that is under active study.  In Part One of this blog it was emphasized that many neuroscientists simply do not address the functional relationship of the mind to these processes, attributing all cognitive activity to the physical brain.  As we proceed focus will be directed to interaction between the immaterial mind and the material synaptic networks of the brain.  We have seen how over time there has been an evolution of understanding of these processes through the work of neuroscientists from across the world.  The main question I ask the reader to consider is, how does the immaterial mind relate to these processes in a dualist interaction?

Cognitive Dynamics

Pascal Fries (15) points out that neuronal networks oscillate with rhythmic fluctuations that produce temporal windows for communication.  Coherently oscillating neuron groups interact since their communication windows for input and output are open at the same time.  The highly flexible pattern of coherence defines the communication structure that provides for our cognitive flexibility.  It does not depend on the anatomical communication structure of the brain.  Only coherently oscillating neuronal groups can communicate effectively since input and output windows for communication are open at the same time.  Cognitive top-down control has flexibility in the routing of signals through the brain within milliseconds on top of the anatomical structure of synaptic networks.  It is coherent oscillation within neuronal groups that are phase-locked or in synchrony that provide the means for effective communication between functional regions of the brain (and with the immaterial cognitive mind, I suggest!).  For a sending group of neurons to communicate a coded message of information to a receiving group the output of the sending group must arrive at the receiving group when it is excitable irrespective of distance and the neuron groups are coherent with each other.  Fries gives the example that in a unidirectional communication sending group oscillations may entrain the oscillation intrinsically generated in the receiving group, as in a cortical module, or it could drive an oscillation in the receiving group.  Communications are facilitated in a selective, structured manner so that spike trains of action potentials are given trajectories down specific networks.   Neuronal coherence causes communication to be selective since it is determined by focused attention, further accounting for the trajectories of neuronal transmission through the brain. 

Fries summarizes the general mechanisms for the preferential routing of selected encoded spike trains. When the oscillatory rhythm of a sending group is passed to other groups of neurons, then the subthreshold membrane potential fluctuations of the receiving neurons become entrained to the selected rhythm.  The entrained neuronal groups are therefore sensitive to the selected input, selectively routed along only coherent groups of synaptic networks.

Earl K. Miller and Timothy J. Buschman (16) have studied brain rhythms for cognition.   They asked what a thought looks like in neurobiological terms.  It is universally considered to involve a neural ensemble that together represents an item of information.  Neurons at the higher areas of the cortex important to cognition are highly multivariate and dynamic, participating in many overlapping ensembles.  The brain has mechanisms that coordinate interactions between neurons to form ensembles and networks of ensembles that produce clear and coherent thought and action.  The flow of neuronal traffic is managed by rhythmic synchrony between neuronal groups so that ensembles are part of a larger functional network primed to transmit specified information.  Changing rhythmic synchronization between neuronal groups alters their communication and thereby changes the direction of flow of information through the brain, a process that can occur within milliseconds as we have seen.  The authors state that there must be some sort of mechanism for selecting specific neurons for membership in specific ensembles.  It is my suggestion that that mechanism is the cognitive mind, giving neurons in the higher neocortex heterogeneity in function so that they can transmit many sorts of information at different times, a process called multiplexing.  Signals that underlie cognition operate discretely with pulses of activity that rout packets of information, shaping the flow of encoded neural signals.  “…the brain’s physical infrastructure (i.e. its anatomy) dictates where neural signals can flow; synchronized rhythms dictate where signals do flow.”

The Neural Codes of Overt and Covert Speech

Through Part Two of this blog references have been made to cognition, attention and intent, and we have seen that waves are transmitted intrinsically through neural networks to bring about specific functions such as to move an extremity.  What is left is to address the question raised above, how does the immaterial mind relate to these processes in a dualist interaction?  Does the human mind generate waves extrinsic to the brain itself that can act causally on it?  Stephanie Martin and eight coworkers published an article in Frontiers in Neuroengineering that addresses this question with exciting findings. (17)  I conclude this blog with a discussion of their findings.

The model used was ECoG in seven epileptic patients who performed an out loud and silent reading task.  Subjects read short stories that were presented to them both aloud and silently.  A high gamma (70-150 Hz) neural decoding model was built “to reconstruct spectrotemporal auditory features of self-generated overt speech.”  The decoding model trained from overt, spoken speech was used to decode the neural activity of covert, silently read speech (which did not involve auditory sensory input, only input from mentation!). Spectrograms were generated in controls and in subjects who used overt and covert speech to reconstruct neural responses with a high statistical accuracy.  Evidence was provided that showed that representations of overt and covert speech could be reconstructed sharing a neural substrate.  In other words, out loud speech and read text could be reconstructed in neural networks monitored via ECoG.  No wires connected the test subjects to the cortical monitors, indicating that the cerebral network responded to waves generated by the mind of the test subjects.  The high gamma band reliably tracked neuronal activity and correlated with the spike rate of the underlying neural population.  The key test of reconstructive accuracy, according to the authors, was the ability to use the reconstruction to identify specific speech utterances.  This was possible especially for overt speech.

This is an important study on which I will base comments in my next blog, “Minds in Communion.”  I will consider how the Holy Spirit communicates with us via the synaptic networks of our brain, a topic I addressed in detail in my book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man Through Neural Synaptic Networks.  We now have evidence that is consistent with dualist interaction between the immaterial mind of humans and the Mind of God and the material neural networks of the human brain.  The mind of Man communicates bidirectionally via the synaptic networks of the brain.  Since the mind of Man is created in the image of the Mind of God it is reasonable that He can enter our dimensions and commune with Man via these same synaptic networks.

Summation 

Humans learn to interpret neural codes transmitted within their brains as perceptions, such as witnessing the beauty of a flower garden or the voice of a loved one, or as intent to move an extremity.  Over a lifetime of experience countless neural codes are established by synaptic plasticity, and they are archived in memory within neural networks.  Cognitive actions of will, for example to move an extremity, draw upon memory stores.  It is increasingly documented that the immaterial mind can exert causal effects on the synaptic networks of the physical brain.  It gives validation to dualist interaction between what is immaterial, the mind, and what is material, the extensive neural networks of the brain.  Neuroscientists are increasingly acknowledging this bidirectional dualist interaction that gives credence to communion between the Mind of God by His Holy Spirit and the mind and soul of Man through the brain. 

References

1.       Gyorgy Buzsaki and Brendon O. Watson, “Brain Rhythms and Neural Syntax: Implications for Efficient Coding of Cognitive Content and Neuropsychiatric Disease,” Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, Vol 14, No. 4, 2012.

2.       Friedrich Beck, “Synaptic Quantum Tunnelling in Brain Activity,” NeuroQuantology, Vol 6, Issue 2, June 2008.

3.       Karl R. Popper and John C. Eccles, The Self and Its Brain: An Argument for Interactionism, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, London, New York, 1977.

4.       Bruce P. Bean, “The Action Potential in Mammalian Central Neurons,” Nature Reviews/Neuroscience, Vol 8, June 2007.

5.       Jon Lieff, “Neuronal Networks and Brain Waves,” Searching for the Mind, December 7, 2014.

6.       Kendrick N. Kay et al, “Identifying Natural Images from Human Brain Activity,” Nature, Vol 452 (7185), March 20, 2008.

7.       Erol Basar et al, “Oscillatory Brain Theory: A New Trend in Neuroscience,” IEEE: Engineering in Medicine and Biology, May/June 1999.

8.       Volker R. Zschorlich and Rudiger Kohling, “How Thoughts Give Rise to Action – Conscious Motor Intention Increases the Excitability of Target-Specific Motor Circuits,” PLOS ONE, Vol 8, Issue 12, December 2013.

9.       M. W. Spratling, “Cortical Region Interactions and the Functional Role of Apical Dendrites,” Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, Vol 1(3), 2002.

10.   Nelson Spruston, “Pyramidal Neurons: Dendritic Structure and Synaptic Integration,” Nature Reviews, Vol 9, March 2008.

11.   Stewart Heitmann et al, “A Dendritic Mechanism for Decoding Traveling Waves: Principles and Applications to Motor Cortex,” PLOS Computational Biology, Vol 9, Issue 10, October 2013.

12.   Lyle Muller et al, “Cortical Traveling Waves: Mechanisms and Computational Principles,” Nat Rev Neuroscience, Vol 19(5), May 2018.

13.   Honghui Zhang et al, “Theta and Alpha Oscillations Are Traveling Waves in the Human Cortex,” Neuron, Vol 98, June 27, 2018.

14.   William A. Phillips, “Cognitive Functions of Intracellular Mechanisms for Contextual Amplification,” Brain and Cognition, Vol 112, March 2017.

15.   Pascal Fries, “A Mechanism for Cognitive Dynamics: Neuronal Communication through Neuronal Coherence,” Trends in Cognitive Science, Vol 9(10), 2005.

16.   Earl K. Miller and Timothy J. Buschman, “Brain Rhythms for Cognition and Consciousness,” Neurosciences and the Human Person: New Perspectives on Human Activities, Political Academy of Sciences, Scripta Varia, Vol 121, Vatican City,  2013.

17.   Stephanie Martin et al, “Decoding Spectrotemporal Features of Overt and Covert Speech from the Human Cortex,” Frontiers in Neuroengineering, Vol 7, Article 14, May 2014.

 

Information, a Fundamental Entity

John C. Lennox refers to information as a fundamental entity. Information and intelligence are fundamental to the existence of the universe and life. Lennox states that “Word” in the 4th Gospel is Logos. It is a word used by Stoic philosophers for the rational principle behind the universe. It was given additional meaning by Christians, who used it to describe the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. “Word” conveys notions of command, meaning, code and communication, thus it conveys information as well as the creative power needed to realize that which is specified by the information. The Word is therefore more fundamental than mass and energy. Mass and energy belong to the category of the created, but the Word does not. Lennox identifies a basic characteristic of information, that it is invisible and immaterial. Carriers of information may be material, but information itself is not material. Since information encodes on something physical the carriers of information are subject to the laws of physics, but information itself is not a physical entity.

 

Thoughts of the Mind of a Sender

The thoughts of the mind of a sender formulated as specified information are transmitted to the mind of a recipient by means of words within a medium (neural synaptic networks) with structure (linguistic neural code), meaning, and purpose with the expectation to stimulate action in the recipient. The codes are interpreted by the cognitive mind learned in a lifetime of experience and archived in memory and are to be understood by both the sender and the recipient.

 

Information and energy

I cited these comments of William A. Dembski in my book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man Through Neural Synaptic Networks:

“For causal, energetic relationships in information transfers to be inferred, the first thing that must be established is an information relationship. One can then establish how energy relates to that relationship. If it cannot be justified that the energy is material, then it must be nonmaterial. But the point I wish to repeat and emphasize is that, as with matter, energy is logically downstream from information. The first thing we always confront is information , and only then do we try to explain it in terms of energy. Energy is inferred from information, not vice versa.”

 

Information and linguistic neural codes

Information creation, according to Claude Shannon, “is essentially a speech act in which an intelligence, to advance a purpose, articulates an item of information and then broadcasts it.” In general, William A. Dembski has stated that all instances of information creation can be represented in language, the universal medium for bringing purposes to realization through the creation and transmission of information. Information is transmitted via a variety of linguistic neural codes, including semaphore and the Morse code. The spatiotemporal spike patterns of nerve impulses, or action potentials, are transmitted through neural synaptic networks as linguistic codes, especially through the predominant chemical synapses of the cerebral cortex, the center for consciousness and cognitive activity.

 

Polkinghorne on Divine Action

John Polkinghorne has commented on divine action*.  He acknowledges that contemporary science accepts a causally open view of nature and that top-down organizing causal principles must be at work to bring about the future.  Active information brings about the formation of a structured pattern of future dynamical behavior.  The notion of information input is necessary to resolve what actually occurs.  It is the vehicle for top-down operating causality and a possibility to accommodate human and divine agency.  He concludes that there should be a flow of information from God to the universe (and to mankind) by which God guides it providentially.  As has also been stated by William Dembski in a previous blog the input of information involves no exchange of energy between God and the universe (and mankind) thus avoiding action that would violate the energy conservation laws.  Polkinghorne sees it plausible that God’s providence acts within the open grain of nature, capable of receiving pattern-forming information (including linguistic neural codes which I have discussed).  Polkinghorne is clear that God is not the active informational principle, and God is not information.  God is the agent that generates active information and transfers it into the system He created.  Polkinghorne gives no explanation for how this causality works and believes it imperative to continue the search for the causal joint where God’s action acts causally on nature’s (and on Man’s) actions, on how the divine and the creature interact.  In my two books it has been the object of my research to inquire into this very question, to conduct this very search.

*Ignacio Silva, “John Polkinghorne on Divine Action: A Coherent Theological Evolution,” Science and Christian Belief, Vol 24, No. 1, 2012

 

Minds in Communion

 

We have seen in “Waves in Our Brains, Part Two” that wave patterns course through the brain in specific trajectories to bring about intentional as well as reflexive activities.  Cognition itself has recently been associated with the generation of specific wave patterns that transmit specified information to and through neural synaptic networks. As advanced technology has been applied to the studies of neuroscientists more understanding has been obtained about these processes, and there is a reasonable likelihood that dualist interaction between the immaterial mind and the material networks of the human brain will be increasingly confirmed. 

I now direct attention to the interaction between the Mind of God and the mind and soul of Man.  It is a relationship I have addressed in my two books and blogs that shows concordance between Scripture and neuroscience in its interpretation.  Evidence has been presented from Scripture, neuroscience, quantum mechanics and information theory for dualist interaction between the Holy Spirit and the soul of Man through the human spirit. There is a hunger for an intimate communion with the biblical God today, and it has been restored by God’s grace through the sin sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ.  Upon the resurrection of Jesus His Holy Spirit was sent as Jesus promised just prior to His crucifixion to indwell people once again who are in repentance and are willing and obedient to follow the Authority and Counsel of the Holy Spirit.

Calvin Miller has taught that the plan of God has always been to have an intimate, personal, bidirectional communion with mankind.  He stresses the importance of seeking union with the Holy Spirit in our inner being, our “center.” It is our option to listen in silence and prayer for His counsel so we can grow in righteousness and in obedience to His power, mentored by the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. But it is a plan that has not been fulfilled because of the pride of Man to live to self, beginning at the Fall of Adam.  We are yet fallen in our time but are blessed to have had the indwelling by the Holy Spirit restored by the grace of God through Jesus in repentance.  We are born again to new life in Jesus Christ to whom we belong.  The indwelling Christ moves into us with a boundless love.  God chooses to make his throne inside our mortal bodies.  It is the soul of Man accessed through the human spirit that serves as the place of rendezvous, of intimate, personal interaction with the Holy Spirit.

Meaningful communion with the Holy Spirit is both a voice through prayer and an ear.  Listening is the most valuable part of prayer, the key to blocking out inner and outer “noise” so we can commune with God and perceive the several ways He communes with us, through dreams, visions, words, intuition and discernment.  By submitting to the authority of Jesus Christ in our lives the Holy Spirit becomes one with us through the human spirit.  In Psalm 119, verses 34-35, it is said, “Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart.  Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight.” Miller states that all of life becomes communion.  By His indwelling Holy Spirit God continuously accompanies us, pervading the world of our cognition. In John 14 Jesus said, “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”

Prayer gives mankind the opportunity to focus on the inner presence of the Holy Spirit, the interactive communion between the Holy Spirit and the mind of Man.  The more earnestly we pray, the more our prayers transcend mere words.  When in prayer we may find ourselves overcome by wordlessness.  He can best communicate with us when we are silent, ceasing to focus on self but on His presence.  We move into Him, and this allows us to receive communion from Him.  Praying continually consists of a “listening prayer,” according to Miller.  It is an abiding in the presence of the Holy Spirit.  When Jesus Christ enters our life, that is the moment when our eternal life begins.  Miller states that “someday pulse or respiration may cease, but not us - we will already have taken the giant step into the pleasure of God!”  We do not live to die.  We die to live!  From the findings of the neurosciences it is now conceivable that meaningful neural codes with purpose are generated by the power of the Holy Spirit in wave patterns of action potentials transmitted through neural synaptic networks with specific direction. We can receive and perceive the gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit by this means.

Jesus declared a new covenant, the law of the Spirit of life which sets repentant people free from the law of sin and death.  The Kingdom of God is within us when in repentance.  It is a foretaste of the eternal Kingdom to come when sin will be forever destroyed.  Its complete fulfillment will occur with the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Since it is being increasingly shown that the cognitive mind of humans can generate wave patterns encoded with specified information that is transmitted through synaptic networks with meaning and purpose, is it not reasonable that the indwelling, personal Holy Spirit can and does also generate such wave patterns to give us counsel?  Minds in communion describes how personal interaction between the Mind of God via His Holy Spirit and the mind of Man is made possible by the human spirit bestowed at the special creation of mankind.  The plan of God has always been to have an intimate, personal, bidirectional communion with mankind. We are having it revealed to us how that occurs, at least in part.  All thanks and praise to God!

 

Spike trains as language

The decoding of a spike train requires an interpolation between the spike train and the continuous stimulus waveforms (including those emanating from a cognitive mind) that induce the spike train through quantum tunneling. The immaterial “observer” of a spike train, the mind, must reconstruct the stimulus, taking the spikes as informational input within neural codes and interpreting the stimulus waveforms with meaning, a process of learning over time.

 

Neural codes are linguistic

We have seen that neural codes are linguistic and must be “read” to have meaning and purpose. These codes are magnificent in their design and complexity, and their meaning cannot be reduced to the functional components of the physical brain. The cognitive capacity of an immaterial mind is required to interpret them, to visualize a meaningful scene. It is a progressive, cumulative learning process that is committed to memory, and it begins at birth.

 

Christ indwelling

I share a statement made by Dietrich Bonhoeffer from The Martyred Christian:

“This is what we mean when we speak of Christ dwelling in our hearts. His life on earth is not finished yet, for he continues to live in the lives of his followers. Indeed, it is wrong to speak of the Christian life: we should speak rather of Christ living in us. I live, and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me. (Gal. 2:20). Jesus Christ, incarnate, crucified and glorified, has entered my life and taken charge. To me to live is Christ (Phil. 1:21). And where Christ lives, there the Father also lives, and both Father and Son through the Holy Ghost.”

 

The Mind of God and the mind of Man

From “The Hypothesis” in Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man Through Neural Synaptic Networks:

The Mind of the personal God interacts with the immaterial mind of Man by the atoning grace of God through the living Jesus Christ in our time. His Holy Spirit indwells a receptive, repentant human spirit with the power to interact with the chemical neural synaptic networks of the cerebral cortex, the predominate site for cognition.

 

Special divine action

Alvin Plantinga states that special divine action is compatible with quantum mechanics because it doesn’t determine a specific outcome for a given set of initial conditions. Instead it assigns probabilities to the possible outcomes. Special divine action is not restrained and is therefore free to select via a proposed nonmaterial energy (acting by quantum tunneling in the case of synaptic transmission) certain outcomes according to what William Dembski terms as “small probabilities” with specificity.

 

Holy Spirit interacts today

There is recognition in the Christian church that the writing of the Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Since 397 AD the church has considered the canon of the Bible to be complete, and the assumption of many is that the Holy Spirit ceased to communicate directly with people as occurred with the writers of Scripture. To the contrary, I present evidence in my second book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, that the Counselor and Helper sent by the glorified and living Jesus Christ continues to interact with the mind of Man through the human spirit. I explain the significance of the torn temple curtain described in Mark 15:38 at the death of Jesus Christ in the ninth hour. It signified the restoration of a direct personal interaction with the Holy Spirit offered as an indwelling to Man by God’s love and grace, and it began with the Apostles at Pentecost.

 

Loss of communion with the Holy Spirit

The mind of Man was created in the image of the Mind of God with whom an eternal, intimate, personal communion was made possible. But communion was lost by the sin of Adam, and mankind faced eternal spiritual death, eternally devoid of communion with the Holy Spirit. It was by the love and grace of God the Father that mankind has been offered redemption with restoration of communion by the atoning sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It was by God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ that mankind has been offered rescue and eternal salvation.

 

Promise of the Counselor

The life of the Spirit in Jesus fulfilled the Law and pointed to the salvation offered in Christ in the days to come. Jesus made this promise to the disciples, “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth. You know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him

The life of the Spirit in Jesus fulfilled the Law and pointed to the salvation offered in Christ in the days to come. Jesus made this promise to the disciples, “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth. You know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him

 

Human spirit and soul

When God created Adam He breathed “the breath of life” into him. (Genesis 2:7) It is this life from God that is identified with the eternal human spirit. It is the soul of Man that is the vehicle through which the mind’s will operates. If a repentant person’s soul wills to obey God, it will allow the human spirit to direct the mind and will of Man as counseled by the indwelling Holy Spirit. As the spirit acts upon the soul of Man, the soul in turn expresses itself through the human brain and body.

 

Mental events cause neural events

Mental events cause neural events, and the mind is differentiated from the material components of the brain. Eccles and his associates postulated that by quantum tunneling molecular conformations of synaptic proteins in ion channels and neural synaptic vesicles and pores are probabilistically altered by a nonmaterial energy as a wave function of the mind’s mental cognitive events. As a result nerve impulses as action potentials are generated and transmitted coherently across series of synaptic clefts in neural networks (see “Waves in Our Brains, Part Two”). The impulses transmitted consist of neural codes within the spike trains of action potentials, giving specification to the information transmitted.