Brain vs Mind: The Evidence Pointing to a Creator - FAS2612

SPEAKER A Your brain contains 100 billion neurons, more than all the stars in the Milky Way. Each neuron connects to thousands of others through 100 trillion synapses. Information travels at around 268 miles per hour or 431 kilometers per hour through your nervous system. Your brain processes sensory data, stores memories, controls movement, and generates consciousness. All simultaneously. This isn't just complexity, this is integrated information processing that requires every component working together from day one. Welcome to Faith and Science. I'm Kaysie Vokurka. Joining me to discuss this topic is Dr. John Ashton. Welcome once again, Dr. John. SPEAKER B Hello, Kaysie. SPEAKER A Dr. John has written a book called The Big Argument: Does God Exist? And in today's program, we'll be drawing on some insights from this book. And we are continuing to talk a little bit more from Chapter 5, where Frank Sherwin talks a lot about the human body and evidence in the human body for intelligent design. And in this section, it explains that the brain must process sensory input, motor control, and consciousness all simultaneously. Could a simple brain do just one of these functions? SPEAKER B Well, that's a question that we can certainly speculate on. We know that animals have simpler brains than humans, but they all have multiple functions. One thing that comes to mind, for example, is if we say look at a bacteria. Now, we don't usually consider a bacteria to have a brain, but it has a logic system. And that is an amazing system, for example, where it can take in and sense different concentrations of nutrient and therefore move towards the greater concentration. And it can actually direct the direction of its flagella so that it propels itself. Now, the logic system in that has been worked out, and it's, it's amazing. And then when you think the components of that logic system have to be assembled by code, we can see that even a little bacteria has extremely complex systems. Now, when we look at the brain itself, it's composed of a number of different logic systems that have specific functions. Specific functions, as you talk about, in terms of processing different forms of sensory data that come in through our eyes, our hearing, taste, smell. Also plays a role of regulating homeostasis, as you mentioned, blood pressure and and so forth, the level of our body temperature, all these sort of things are controlled subconsciously by components in our brain. So it's a pretty amazing organ, really. And of course, the current evolutionary theory is that our brains evolved. And of course, the traditional exercise that zoology students are given, often biology students as well, is to draw a map of the brain, you know, of a fish through to an amphibian, to a reptile, and so forth, up to a human. And show the changes in size and components. And within an evolutionary sort of educational context, the student can jump to, oh, well, this is evidence for evolution. But all it is really is a series of fully formed brains that have been put in that particular sequence, right? SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER B They could have— and of course, my understanding is they were all created at the one time. And one of the reasons is, of course, is the function of ecosystems. We need ecosystems and so forth. So it's powerful evidence that you just can't have individual evolution of things occurring. But if we look at the structure of the brain, again, it's extremely complex. And all those particular functions, we look at the different parts and components of the brain, have to be assembled according to the DNA code and all the functions. But The way the brain operates with all those neurons and all the connections in those neurons gives amazing capability, particularly to the human brain. So we're talking about the human brain then, the size of the human brain. Mm-hmm. SPEAKER A So in terms of the human brain, there are at least 100 billion neurons and they have 100 trillion connections between them. What does that actually mean? SPEAKER B Well, what it means is that the human brain has amazing processing power. And very rapidly, that's why— and a number of things, for example, just the other day I was watching the cricket. And when you think that, you know, they're bowling those balls at amazing speeds. Yes. And the batsman, his brain can take in that coordination. To, you know, hit that ball. And the other guy can be running, looking up, jump up, move his hand to just the right position to catch that ball that's, you know, moving very, very fast. And we know that this occurs in a number of different skills. The human body can move, you know, hands, fingers, playing a piano very rapidly, taking information. Even people reading a new piece of music they haven't played before that's very fast. They read it, the brain can interpret that into hand movements. So we can process information very fast. There have been people such as savants that we call that can solve mathematical problems very quickly, like what is the 73rd root of 5,228? You know, things like that, and just run the answer out sort of thing. I'd need to look up log tables to do that, you know, so, or use a computer. So The— this amazing function, the ability of the brain to be able to make, you know, certain split-second decisions and so forth and process information very quickly and also taking a lot of information from the environment, you know, fighter pilots, these sort of people. It's amazing. And that uses a lot of connections that are built up in the brain through training usually, or practice as we call it. So the human brain is certainly, has an amazing computing power. And one of the things that certainly fascinates me is these mathematical savants that can do these amazing, well, I believe they're amazing calculations that normally we would need log tables or take quite a while to work them out by hand even with a calculator. Of some kind. SPEAKER A Yeah, incredible interconnectedness, isn't there, between the neurons in order to make these functions a reality in our life? SPEAKER B Yes, yes. SPEAKER A That all of this is happening physiologically. SPEAKER B Yes, and people with amazing memories that can train them, that can remember huge pieces of information word by word and so forth. SPEAKER A Yeah, yeah. So there's a— with the brain, there's an incredible anatomical, physiological system setup that enables the brain to function. But what is the difference between the brain and the mind? Because that's kind of like another dimension here. SPEAKER B Yeah, so the brain and mind connection certainly is something that challenges evolution, or we call consciousness. And so, you know, we often think, well, and I've mentioned this in programs before, You can weigh your brain. Your brain can be cut out. We can weigh it. Yes. Just over a kilo. We can squash it into a measuring cylinder, measure its volume and so forth. But we can't weigh our thoughts. And yet by our thoughts is how we make certain decisions to do. So the, the batsman on the, at the cricket wicket there, the ball is hit. He makes a decision. Am I going to run? Am I not going to run? Right. Yes. Now, if he doesn't have a mind that can process that information, he has to make that decision, you know, was he programmed to make a particular decision on that day? You know, is his brain set up so that it operates in a circular way? So this is a mechanistic approach. But we see, I think we have so much evidence, particularly from creativity, people's ability to create a poem, a love letter to their spouse, these sort of things that demonstrates that we have a mind that who is us, that we make choices, we can make those choices. Environmental influences can affect us in a particular way, but we also know that we can have choices to overcome those things as well with the mind. And this is one of the fascinating things is that when we particularly look at the human brain, it seems actually made in a way, particularly with a very large frontal lobe. This seems to be the part of the brain our brain that is connected with spirituality or this non-material existence. And this seems to be the part of our brain that would connect with the creator. So I guess from my position, and I say we have overwhelming evidence that we've talked about, for example, from human physiology of amazing design. We have integrated systems that are irreducible, that all work together involving amazing molecular machines. That come about by amazing molecular codes that we have no known mechanism how those codes can form. Absolutely impossible from a mechanistic chemistry point of view to produce randomly codes that work. So we have this overwhelming evidence of supernatural creation. We also then have our mind, and the human mind seems quite different from other minds, the other animal minds. In terms of we can understand nature. So scientists have been able to understand, discover these molecular machines. We've been able to discover the laws involved in the forces of the nucleus of an atom and so forth, the properties of light and so forth, electromagnetic fields. And so we seemed, our mind seems to be designed to be able to understand these things and in a way communicate with a creator. So we're, We're not quite there in that we can't solve all the problems, but we can understand them. And I think there's another aspect that people get very uncomfortable talking about, and that's things like answers to prayer, premonitions that have warned people of danger, these sort of things. I've done quite a bit of research in these areas and looked at the probability of these sort of things happening, looked at the environmental situation. And my conclusion is that there's overwhelming evidence of a supernatural mind that can interact with our mind. And maybe more than just one as well. Yeah, maybe. And there are accounts, physical accounts of people talking about angels and these sort of things that are recorded. Now, it's interesting that materialists, of course, try to deny this because you can't go and set up an experiment and make an angel appear, you know, and they get frustrated about this. But I think we have overwhelming evidence from so many witnesses and reliable people You know, people who in modern times are scientists and these sort of things that have had these experiences that say, yep, there's overwhelming evidence that there's more to our existence than just this physical world. There's evidence of a non-material existence. And it seems that our mind is the, is how we connect with that. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER B And I think I talked about in one of our earlier sessions that When we look at all the non-material things that encode information, right? We have information itself is a non-material entity, but it has to be encoded for in some material form. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER B Right? Whether it's chalk on a blackboard, ink on a paper, you know, code in a, on a computer memory stick, this sort of thing, right? They're physical objects, but the information is, non-material, like the message written in the sand, stranded on island, you know, sort of thing. It encodes information and nothing to do with the sand. So it seems that our mind has the ability then to interpret information and to act on it and make decisions. So I think this is again, very important evidence that unfortunately in our secular education system, we are trying to suppress that, hang on, there is evidence for, powerful evidence for, a superior non-material mind that has set up this system that we know as our material universe around us and us and is responsible for us. And I think one of the important things of this is it behoves us to say, well, if that mind is there, and a lot of people claim that that mind has made contact with us, we have the Bible as a record of people a number of people that wrote down their experiences and the history of people that were involved with this supernatural creator. I think it behooves us really to look at that evidence. And my view is that when we look at the evidence, there's overwhelming evidence for the biblical account of a superior supernatural creator mind. SPEAKER A Being. Well, thank you for drawing that connection between our brains and the mind and the evidence for supernatural. Yeah, I think that's something that, as you say, we should, we should consider more because as a society we, we have for so long tended to deny that. And yet just by examining the brain, it's a reality that we cannot deny. You know, we have a mind as well as, as the physical part of the brain, so it's all integrated. So thank you for sharing those thoughts. Have you ever struggled with doubts about God's existence or known someone who has? What helped you through it? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments. Your journey could inspire someone else searching for answers.