One last thing - Searle and Egnor
I almost forgot to mention: creationists are often accused of “quote-mining”, taking people’s words out of context to make it seem like they support their views. Michael Egnor cites John Searle at the end of his essay. Searle is an analytic philosopher who rejects materialism and weak dualism/epiphenomenalism.* You can find a description of his perspective here, and a review of a recent book he wrote about neurobiology and human freedom here.
Searle’s position is biological naturalism and it relies upon emergence:
…emergence but not emergence as the epiphenomenalist had assumed, i.e. as something radically different from brain processes, but “in the same way as solidity and liquidity are emergent features of systems of molecules” … The fact that mental features are supervenient on neuronal features in no way diminishes their causal efficacy. The solidity of the piston is causally supervenient on its molecular structure, but this does not make solidity epiphenomenal; and, similarly, the causal supervenience of my present back pain on micro events in my brain does not make the pain epiphenomenal…
This means that Searle, who Egnor seems to imply would support him, actually rejects the notion of an immaterial mind. He views intentionality as an emergent property of the brain, but not something radically different (i.e., immaterial). In contrast, the mind is causally supervenient upon the brain!
With this said, it should be apparent why my wasting any more time on this fellow is unnecessary. Unfortunately, quoting philosophers and being a neurosurgeon gives you credibility among the casual reader. Egnor is sadly irresponsible, however, in his representation of the arguments and his citations of the individuals involved.
*In fairness, I should note that Searle’s position is ambiguous to the extent that he claims the mind is not ontologically reducible to the brain, though it is causally reducible. He is quite clear that he thinks he’s arguing against dualism, though, so I still think Egnor is being duplicitous in using him. You can read Daniel E. Palmer’s article “Searle on Consciousness: Or How Not to Be a Physicalist” (1998) if you want more detail.