Does Modern Neuroscience Disprove the Existence of the Soul? | Dr. Paul LaPenna

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 5 July 2024

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This lecture was given on April 4th, 2024, at Indiana University.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Paul LaPenna is a neurologist in Greenville, SC and is a Professor of Clinical Medicine at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, Carolinas Campus. Dr. LaPenna completed his neurology residency at Indiana University School of Medicine. His skill set is focused on treatment of neurological emergencies and performing and interpreting electrophysiological studies of the brain and peripheral nervous system. He is currently the Director of Stroke at Bon Secours Mercy Health in Greenville, SC.

As an Associate Professor of Neurology, Dr. LaPenna has won numerous teaching awards, including Clinical Medicine Professor of the Neuroscience Curriculum from 2019-2022. For the 2020-2021 academic year, Dr. LaPenna was awarded Preceptor of the Year. For his care towards patients, he was elected to the Arnold P. Gold Humanism Honor Society in 2016.

Dr. LaPenna has an interest in the relationship between science and faith—in particular, the relationship between neuroscience and the soul, neuroscience and free will, and the overreaching claims of science. In addition, Dr. LaPenna speaks on the problem of suffering and the dignity of the human person. Saint Thomas Aquinas has been a major influence in Dr. LaPenna’s intellectual and faith journey.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast.
0:06.8	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.
0:13.1	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world.
0:19.1	To learn more and to attend these events,
0:21.7	visit us at to mystic institute.org.
0:25.5	So anyone know what this is?
0:27.2	Anyone know what that is?
0:28.6	All right, good, all right, good.
0:29.6	I just want to make sure.
0:30.6	Just want to make sure.
0:31.5	Okay.
0:32.4	Yes, this is the human brain.
0:34.9	This is a real picture of a brain.
0:36.4	And so you're kind of looking down on it from
0:40.1	above. Yeah, so I've spent a lot of my life so far dedicated to studying this organ. And it doesn't
0:49.2	look all that impressive when you just look at it, but there's 86 billion neurons in there, and there's quadrillions
0:56.2	of connections, and then there's billions and billions of support cells in there. So it may well
1:02.6	be the most complex thing in the known universe. So it's a really amazing organ. No one understands
1:10.0	it completely. The complexity of the brain is beyond our grasp. No one understands it completely.
1:11.3	The complexity of the brain is beyond our grasp and likely always will be.
1:16.2	So it is a joy to study it.
1:18.7	So we're going to be talking about this today and we're going to kind of be discussing
	...

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