Because scientists can’t find the Mind or memories in the brain, many are beginning to suggest that the Mind isn’t in the brain at all. A sampling of their statements follows.
A physician who has studied near-death experiences: “The brain itself is made up of cells, like all the body’s organs, and is not really capable of producing the subjective phenomenon of thought that people have.”[i]
A professor of engineering and applied science: “The brain is merely a transmitter and receiver of information, but not the main place for storage or processing of information (i.e., memories).”[ii]
A Freudian psychoanalyst, MD, and professor of psychiatry: “I don’t think you can locate the source of consciousness. I am quite sure it is not in the brain―not inside of the skull.”[iii]
One of the foremost brain researchers today: “The mind is a separate entity from the brain, and . . . mental processes cannot be reduced to neurochemical brain processes, but on the contrary direct them. . . . a mind may conceivably exist without a brain.”[iv]
An educational psychologist renowned for his studies of the effect of heredity on intelligence: “The brain is not an organ that generates consciousness, but rather an instrument evolved to transmit and limit the processes of consciousness and of conscious attention so as to restrict them to those aspects of the material environment which at any moment are crucial for the terrestrial success of the individual.”[v]
A neuroscientist, physician, and brain surgeon: “The mind makes its impact on the brain but isn’t in the brain.”[vi]
Three authors, a professor of quantum computing and neural networks, a board-certified physician, and a quantum physicist and cosmologist, writing in the journal Cosmology: “Consciousness creates reality and makes it knowable . . . your consciousness is using the brain as a processing device, moving the molecules where they are needed in order to create the sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell of the world.”[vii]
Neuroscientists can’t tell us how we have a conscious experience, where the Mind is, or where memories are stored. Some scientists have come to the conclusion that the Mind and memories aren’t in the brain at all.
That’s why we know that when the body and brain die, the mind continues to live, happy and healthy, and goes on to the next stage of our eternal lives.
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[i] Sarah Tippit, “Study: Brain Functions in Clinically Dead,” ABC News, June 29, 2001, https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=98447&page=1.
[ii] S. Berkovich, “A scientific model why memory aka consciousness cannot reside solely in the brain,” Near-Death Experience Research Foundation, accessed October 25, 2007, http://www.nderf.org/Berkovich.htm.
[iii] “Life After Death: Episode 8, The testimony of science,” hosted by Tom Harpur, based on his book (Phoenix, AZ, Wellspring Media, 1998), TV documentary. Quoting Stanislav Grof.
[iv] C. Carter, Rebuttal to Keith Augustine’s Attack of “Does Consciousness Depend on the Brain?” Accessed May 30, 2007, http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/articles/carter/augustine.htm.
[v] C. Burt, The Gifted Child (New York: Wiley, 1975).
[vi] Carter, Rebuttal.
[vii] S. Kak, D. Chopra, and M. Kafatos, “Perceived Reality, Quantum Mechanics, and Consciousness,” Cosmology 18 (2014): 231-245.
