11-17 Mar

Q: How did the neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield prove the existence of the soul?

ABSTRACT

The relationship between the soul and the body is one of the most fundamental philosophical problems in medicine. It is widely accepted in Judaism that a human being has two souls-'divine' and 'animal'-closely related and interacting. Genesis 9:4 relates the animal soul with the blood; the Tanya relates the divine soul with the brain. A model schematically describing the relationships between the divine and animal souls and between soul and body is proposed in this study. The model is based on one hand on concepts propounded in the Zohar and on the other hand on conclusions reached by the great neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield. Penfield saw the "brain as computer, mind as programmer." According to our model, if the brain is a computer, then both souls are programmers, and their permanent struggle for the dominant role in determining a person's behavior is the manifestation of free will.

The greatest contemporary neurosurgeon and the founder of the Montreal Neurological Institute, Penfield accomplished a brilliant breakthrough in the study of the human brain. He suggested a concept of studying the human brain and showed two ways of analyzing the projections of brain function onto its cortex. The first way is the experimental study of the brain cortex during neurosurgical operations (electrical stimulation of definite sectors of the cortex). The second way is the analysis of the results of focal epileptic discharges.8, 9, 10 Penfield established that when definite sectors of the brain cortex (primarily in the precentral convolution) receive electrical stimulation, certain muscular activity occurs. This response can be repeated, and the location of these motor areas in different persons is practically the same (with the variability not exceeding 25 percent). When other sectors of the brain cortex (mainly in the postcentral convolution) received electrical stimulation, patients had visual, aural, olfactory, tactile sensations, although at that moment nothing was taking place in the respective sense organ. At the stimulation of certain sectors (especially in temporal lobes) some episodes were suddenly recollected, and sometimes stimulation caused "false memories."

Penfield drew up the first maps of motor and sensor sectors of the brain cortex, which was of an extremely high diagnostic and clinical importance, making it possible to diagnose and operate many pathologies….

Penfield formulated the human self as follows: "Brain as computer, mind as programmer."10 He concluded that there exists something besides purely anatomical and physiological structure that determines intellect. In The Mystery of the Mind Penfield wrote, "What a thrill it is, then, to discover that the scientist, too, can legitimately believe in the existence of the spirit!"

BIOS
Tobiy R. Gurvich was born in Riga, Latvia, and graduated from the Riga Medical Institute and became a clinical researcher in 1977. Since 1980 he has been assistant professor of the Chair of Internal Diseases of the Riga Medical Institute (renamed the Medical Academy of Latvia in 1990). He specializes in internal medicine and cardiology.

Dr. Gurvich has published more than ninety scientific papers, mainly in cardiology, clinical diagnostics, adolescent medicine, medical ethics, medicine in Torah, and medicine in fiction. In 1976 he won the gold medal for the best student research paper in the USSR. In 1978, 1980 & 1985 he received awards from the Riga Medical Institute for scientific achievements. In 1992 he graduated from the Free Jewish University in Riga. He is a member of the editorial board of Gesharim, the monthly newspaper of the Riga Jewish religious community. He is also a member of the Latvian Medical Society Bikur Holim and its auditing commission. Dr. Gurvich holds free reception hours as an internist and cardiologist at the Asvata Medical Center of the SHAMIR Foundation of the Riga Synagogue.

Herman Branover was born in Riga, Latvia, earned his PhD from the Moscow Institute of Aviation in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), and completed a DSc degree in physics and mathematics at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. While a leading scientist at the Latvian Academy of Science, Professor Branover discovered G-d and the Torah, became a Lubavitcher Hasid, and then struggled for the right for Jews to immigrate to Israel.

After settling in Beersheba with his wife and son, in 1977 Professor Branover created the Center for Magnetohydrodynamics Studies at Ben-Gurion University. The Center engages in teaching, research, and the development of a novel MHD electricity generator. He has authored over twenty scientific books and textbooks, thirty technological patents, hundreds of professional articles, and an autobiography, Return (published by Jason Aronson).

As honorary president of SHAMIR, the Israel Association of Religious Professionals from the Former USSR, Professor Branover continues encouraging Russian Jews to observe the Torah and live in Israel. He is the initiator and editor-in-chief of B'Or Ha'Torah, published by SHAMIR. A recipient of the S.D. Bergman Prize for the development of new technology in Israel, he also received the Knesset Speaker's Award in 1991 for his work with Russian immigrant absorption. He chairs the prime minister's committee for solving immigrants' professional employment problems. He is a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences in Moscow and the Latvian Academy of Sciences, a member of the Moscow International Energy Club, and has received honorary doctorates from the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Technical University of St. Petersburg, and Yeshiva University.

shiras@netvision.net.il

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B’OR HA’TORAH  is Published by SHAMIR
Professor Herman Branover, Editor-in-Chief