Today we’ll look at Wilder Penfield’s ground-breaking work and research in neuroscience, and what it can teach us about the mind.

After a career spent exploring the brain, Penfield concluded that the brain, alone, was not sufficient to create the mind. But is this a consequence of Penfield’s work in the “hard sciences” – the objective outcomes of his direct experiments? Or is Penfield re-telling a story of mind that has been passed down to us from prevailing religious traditions and assumptions from Medieval Europe and before?

This is the first part of a two-part series, providing background on Penfield’s methodology and conclusions.

***SEASON ONE READINGS AND SOURCES***

A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities, by Pierre-Simon Laplace

Consciousness Explained, by Daniel C. Dennett (Paul Weiner, Illustrator)

Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting, by Daniel C. Dennett

Freedom Evolves, by Daniel C. Dennett

Meditations on First Philosophy, by René Descartes

Mystery of the Mind: A Critical Study of Consciousness and the Human Brain, by Wilder Penfield

Subjectivity, Realism, and Postmodernism: The Recovery of the World in Recent Philosophy, by Frank B. Farrell

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