Henke 2022ap

Lundahl (2022j) and His Source C.S. Lewis (1960) are Not Experts on Neurology and Consciousness. Mr. Lundahl Needs to Admit It and Get Better and Up-to-Date Sources on Consciousness.

Kevin R. Henke

September 15, 2022

NOTE: This essay may be updated in the next few months if I obtain permission from the publisher of Harris (2010) to quote from the book.

In Henke (2022b), I quote Lundahl (2022a) and admit upfront that consciousness is not my area of expertise:

“Lundahl (2022a) also makes the following statement to me about nature and our consciousness:

“Other takeaway in CSL's [C.S. Lewis’] Miracles, you carry around yourself two very clear indications that nature is not all there is - neither reason nor morality can be reduced to matter and energy affected by each other in accordance with laws of physics and chemistry. The ‘hard problem of consciousness’ - to take it from a somewhat different angle - remains hard. We don't just need an intelligent designer who arranged our brains for optimal consciousness, we need (for purposes we take for granted, like refuting or like blaming) something other than just brain arrangements in our consciousness.”

I fully admit that I’m no expert on consciousness. Contrary to what Lundahl (2022a) and Lewis (1960, his chapter 3, etc.) indicate in this quotation, our thoughts are electrical and our brains are matter. Lewis (1960, chapter 3, etc.) questioned the ability of humans to rationally understand our surroundings through naturalism and he argued that we should seriously consider that miracles occur. However, Lewis (1960) had the burden of evidence to demonstrate his claims for miracles and he failed to do so. Now, investigators are still looking for miracles at revival meetings, among psychics, at supposedly haunted houses, and elsewhere, and not finding any evidence for them.

Who we are, including our reason and moral values, arise from interactions between our brains and our surroundings. We observe, test and confirm with the help of others our conclusions about events in nature. Our brains, thoughts and surroundings are all ultimately controlled by the laws of chemistry and physics. That is, we can imagine what it would be like to be able to magically levitate objects only using our thoughts, but the laws of chemistry and physics don’t actually allow us to do it. Nevertheless, there is a danger that when we recognize that our brains are nothing but matter and energy that we might be tempted to trivialize this electrical activity and think that it has no serious consequences. That is, considering how much damage the electrical activity in Putin’s brain is doing to millions of people in the Ukraine, we cannot underestimate the power of a single human brain to manipulate other humans and weapons in his/her environment. This is why millions of people hope that Putin’s brain soon ceases to function and that more rational and empathetic brains will replace him.

Our morals and reasoning abilities arise in response to our surroundings, including how we interact with other humans. By getting confirmation from our fellow humans and doing experimental testing, we can make reliable discoveries about our environment. We can send spacecraft to Moon, understand why severe earthquakes occur in certain areas and not others, and we understand what causes influenza, etc. The supernatural is not needed to explain these discoveries. Because of the power of the human brain and our ability to adequately understand what’s going on in our surroundings, we can have a huge impact on our surroundings. Unfortunately, humans can also do extensive damage to our environment.

No gods, angels, demons or a Bible are also needed to figure out how people should try to function in our environments. We should develop rules (morality) through reason and not Biblical dogma so that we can live peacefully with each other and our environment. No sane person wants to live in poverty, misery and violence. Ukrainian soldiers are the only sane individuals wanting to move to eastern Ukraine.

We should also recognize that not all brains function well. Mental illness and deficiency are real. As rational research shows, chemicals, traumatic experiences and genetics can certainly cause mental illness. Demons aren’t required.”

Lundahl (2022j) responds to the bolded section with his usual sloppy line-by-line comments:

“Let's break this down.

Kevin R. Henke: ‘I fully admit that I’m no expert on consciousness.’

Are you quite sure you want to admit that?

Kevin R. Henke: ‘Contrary to what Lundahl (2022a) and Lewis (1960, his chapter 3, etc.) indicate in this quotation, our thoughts are electrical and our brains are matter.’

According to the expertise of Henke? Not any, according to own admission.

According to common and obvious, undisputed experience? Not any, since he brought up experts, and the common experience is really not on the side of equating thoughts with electric currents in brain matter.

According to expertise of neurologists? Ah, perhaps ... but would the things they are expert on not work quite as well if thought was accompanied by electric currents in the brain? C. S. Lewis actually considered it possible acts of consciousness usually were electric currents and only direct acts of reason and moral judgement (and freewill) were added onto this. I differ, due to the "hard problem of consciousness" - I have less trust in brain surgeons when it comes to philosophy of consciousness than both Henke and Lewis. But I have equal trust in them when it comes to what parts of the brain can be damaged if certain quirks in the consciousness show up.” [my emphasis]

Here, Lundahl (2022j) is totally confusing a lack of expertise on a topic with not knowing anything about it. I openly and honestly admit that I’m not a neurologist or another expert on consciousness, but that does not mean that I’m totally ignorant of the subject. It means that I must depend on true experts in the field to inform me about the consensus on the topic, such as neurologist Harris (2010) and cognitive scientist and philosopher Dennett (2018). Lundahl (2022j), however, does not make such an open admission. Apparently, he thinks that he already knows everything that he needs to know about consciousness. Not only is Mr. Lundahl not an expert on consciousness, but by Lundahl (2022j) relying on an outdated 62-year-old book written by an expert on English literature (i.e., Lewis 1960) to lecture us on consciousness, his actions demonstrate that he doesn’t even know where to go to find the necessary expertise on consciousness.

Any biologist will tell you that our brains consist of organic and inorganic substances. That is, it is matter. Our thoughts are electrical and they can even be measured (e.g., Goodenough et al. 1998, p. 202). Yes, there’s plenty of unsolved mysteries associated with the human brain and how it functions, but there’s no evidence of anything “spiritual” or “magical” going on here. It’s all very complex biochemistry and physics. Mr. Lundahl does not need to invoke a “God-of-the-gaps” to explain consciousness (Dennett 2018; Harris 2010).

Now, Chalmers (1995) first defined the concept of the “hard problem of consciousness.” However, Dennett (2018), as a typical expert and critic of Chalmers (1995), is not terribly concerned about solving this “hard problem.” His abstract reads:

“The so-called hard problem of consciousness is a chimera, a distraction from the hard question of consciousness, which is once some content reaches consciousness, ‘then what happens?’. This question is seldom properly asked, for reasons good and bad, but when asked it opens up avenues of research that promise to dissolve the hard problem and secure a scientifically sound theory of how the human brain produces the (sometimes illusory) convictions that mislead us.” [my emphasis]

Dennett (2018, p. 1) also argues that the “hard problem” can be solved “without need of any revolution in science.”

Neurologist Harris (2010, pp. 158-159) further summarizes the situation, which does not support Mr. Lundahl, C.S. Lewis and their religious beliefs. He states that religious views of the human mind are becoming less and less viable every day. Over 150 years of brain science has demonstrated that our views of the world really do depend on voltage changes and chemical reactions in our brains and not because we have a “soul.”

References:

Chalmers, D. 1995. “Facing Up to the Hard Problem of Consciousness”, Journal of Consciousness Studies, v. 2, pp. 200-219.

Dennett, D.C. 2018. “Facing Up to the Hard Question of Consciousness”: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, v. 373, 20170342.

Goodenough, J., R.A. Wallace, and B. McGuire. 1998. Human Biology: Personal, Environmental, and Social Concerns: Saunders College Publishing: Harcourt Brace College Publishers: Fort Worth, TX, USA.

Harris, S. 2010. The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Hunan Values: Free Press: New York, N.Y., USA, 291pp.

Lewis, C.S. 1960. Miracles, 2^nd ed., printed 1974: Harper One: HarperCollinsPublishers, 294pp.