Who Said What? A lot of Poorly Formatted Texts in Lundahl (2022s)
Kevin R. Henke
October 7, 2022
Lundahl (2022s) is poorly written and formatted. Because Mr. Lundahl does not use quotation marks or clearly reference each quotation in Lundahl (2022s), it’s often difficult to distinguish his statements from his quotations. Before proceeding into a discussion of consciousness using Lundahl (2022s), I need to point out some examples in Lundahl (2022s), where Mr. Lundahl’s inability to clearly write and reference make it difficult for anyone to follow and accept his arguments. I’m hoping that Mr. Lundahl will accept my criticism and improve his contributions in the future.
The following paragraph appears in Lundahl (2022s) without quotation marks or other indications of who said it:
Although neither problem has been solved, neuroscientists agree on many features of both of them, and the feature they find least controversial is the one that many people outside the field find the most shocking. Francis Crick called it "the astonishing hypothesis"--the idea that our thoughts, sensations, joys and aches consist entirely of physiological activity in the tissues of the brain. Consciousness does not reside in an ethereal soul that uses the brain like a PDA; consciousness is the activity of the brain.
To clarify who wrote what in my essays and Lundahl (2022s), I will add quotation marks to our quotations. I will also put Mr. Lundahl’s statements in red, mine are in black and our quotations of other individuals are in green.
After writing the above paragraph, Lundahl (2022s) then comments on it:
“So, Pinker has a prejudice against "an ethereal soul," and therefore concludes that thoughts are the activity of the brain, and this one obviously analysed as per physical, chemical and biological properties of it.”
So, the following paragraph is from Pinker (2007):
“Although neither problem has been solved, neuroscientists agree on many features of both of them, and the feature they find least controversial is the one that many people outside the field find the most shocking. Francis Crick called it "the astonishing hypothesis"--the idea that our thoughts, sensations, joys and aches consist entirely of physiological activity in the tissues of the brain. Consciousness does not reside in an ethereal soul that uses the brain like a PDA; consciousness is the activity of the brain.”
I agree with Pinker (2007) that the current evidence indicates that consciousness resides in the human brain and not in any “ethereal soul.” However, by just looking at the first paragraph above from Lundahl (2022s), the poor wording and lack of suitable referencing does not indicate who is talking about an “ethereal soul.” Based on the third person language, it can’t be Francis Crick. Only in the second paragraph, does Lundahl (2022s) finally tell us that these are the words of Steven Pinker (2007), a magazine article linked in reference #24 in the Wikipedia article “Hard problem of consciousness.” Lundahl (2022s) frequently cites Pinker (2007) without using quotation marks. Lundahl (2022s) then proceeds to discuss souls as if their existence has been established. I’ll have more to say about that in Henke (2022hc) and subsequent essays.
Reference:
Pinker, Steven (29 January 2007). "The Brain: The Mystery of Consciousness". Time Magazine. (accessed October 7, 2022).