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)

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)

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)

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.

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 20 years of my research. By the grace of God perhaps our understanding is becoming a little closer to the truth.

. . . 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)

. . . 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 the past 20 years has been to address Dr. Penfield’s question in the last sentence. It is a force/energy used by an immaterial mind. Could this also include the Mind of God?

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 and classical electrochemical] energy. (Dr. Penfield)

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.

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.