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.

I discuss Penfield’s proposed “energy” in my two blogs posted above entitled, “Waves in Our Brains,” Parts One and Two. I discuss the suggestion he made above extensively in my two books. I update the content presented in my books in specific blogs on this website.

In Chapter 1 of Dr. Penfield’s book the author wrote, “. . . that the engram of experience is a structured record within the brain.”

The structure of the record consists of linguistic neural codes about which I speak extensively in my two books. The codes are maintained in memory, and we are learning how dynamic the memory of the brain is, consisting of spike trains of action potentials retained in specific regions of the brain to be called upon by intention, attention and will.

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.

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.

I am redirecting our attention to the writing of Dr. Wilder Penfield, a notable neurosurgeon who died in 1976, whose writings profoundly influenced my research into dualist interactionism through his book, Mystery of the Mind: A Critical Study of Consciousness and the Human Brain. Published in 1975 shortly before his death it served to redirect research into brain function which had reduced the workings of the mind to the physiological functions of the brain, called materialist reductionism which survives to this day. We shall find his comments revealing of the beauty God created in the human spirit, soul and brain. He “devoted much of his thinking to mental processes, including contemplation of whether there was any scientific basis for the existence of the human soul” [taken from Wikipedia]. Along the way, I plan to insert summaries of current articles from neuroscience I review in my ongoing research. Thank you for your interest.

A final post taken from the letter composed by Nicolae Moldoveanu in Michael Card’s book speaks to how music prepares one for the coming of the Holy Spirit:

Christian or evangelical music prepares the way for the coming of the Holy Spirit in the human heart (2 Kings 3:15). The soul that has the harp of the heart tuned daily by the great Master Musician - the Lord Jesus - has all that is needed for singing the music of the Lord.

A second excerpt from a letter composed for Michael Card’s book, Scribbling in the Sand, was by Nicolae Moldoveneanu:

Music is the gift God gave His believers for praise and worship. There are two gifts from God that will remain with us in the life to come - love and music. God created the earth in the sound of music, and we could say that the whole Universe has been created in the sound of music.

What is integral to music? Frequency, amplitude, rhythm and direction, among other features. In my blog posted earlier and entitled, “Waves in Our Brains,” Parts One and Two, I describe what has been learned about wave forms that transmit specified information through neural synaptic networks as codes which we learn to interpret over a lifetime. Synchronization of waves between the mind and cortical modules is being found to characterize wave frequencies and amplitudes that are transmitted and given direction through specific neural networks to bring about actions and cognitive events. Are we beginning to see the beauty of God’s creation manifested within our minds and brains as “sounds of music?”

Please refer back to my blog entitled, “Reasons to Believe in God through Music,” which was posted on July 6, 2020. Dr. William A. Dembski speaks to how the beauty of God’s creation is manifested in “Sounds of Music.”