
Michael R. Egnor, MD, is a Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook, has served as the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, and is an award-winning brain surgeon. He was named one of New York’s best doctors by the New York Magazine in 2005. His forthcoming book, The Immortal Mind: A neurosurgeon’s case for the existence of the soul, co-authored by Denyse O’Leary, will be published by Worthy on June 3, 2025.
He received his medical education at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed his residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital. His research on hydrocephalus has been published in journals including Journal of Neurosurgery, Pediatrics, and Cerebrospinal Fluid Research. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Hydrocephalus Association in the United States and has lectured extensively throughout the United States and Europe.
Archives


We Can Learn About the Mind from Damaged Brains

How a Neurosurgeon Showed That Abstract Thought Is Immaterial
Wilder Penfield, one of the first neurosurgeons to split human brains in half to relieve epilepsy, found much more than a treatment
What Damaged Brains Tell Us About the Mind
They often provide mute evidence that the human mind is not simply the output of the brain
Looking for Consciousness in All the Wrong Places
Reductionism is nonsense, and “consciousness” is not nestled in clusters of neurons
Looking for Consciousness in All the Wrong Places

Rethinking the Relationship Between Mind and Brain: Dr. Angus Menuge

“Multiple Minds” in Split-Brain Patients?

How Can We Know If Patients With Split Brains Have a Single Mind?
Just ask them
Does Brain Surgery Prove That Free Will Isn’t Real?
My fellow neurosurgeon Theodore Schwartz is mistaken in thinking that free will is an illusion. It is quite real
Does Surgically Splitting the Brain Make One Person Into Two?
A prominent neurosurgeon writes of his “amazement” at discovering that the patient with a split brain is still a single individual
Split-Brain Surgeries Reveal Reality of the Soul

What Does Your Brain Do? And What Can It Not Do?

What, Exactly, Does Your Brain Do? What Can’t It Do?
A surprising result of pioneering neurosurgery was the discovery that some mental processes could be stimulated in the brain but others could not be
A Case for the Soul: An Interview with Joshua Farris

Alien Hand Syndrome? Relax. There Is No Alien Mind
The syndrome has been used to argue for the idea that split brain patients really have two separate minds and maybe wills afterward
The Rational Soul: Rethinking Materialism with Neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor

Dr. Michael Egnor: Neuroscience, the Soul, and the Limits of Materialism

The Science of Mind: Debunking Materialism, with Dr. Michael Egnor
