Lundahl (2022s) Can’t Reasonably Speculate Beyond the Observations
Kevin R. Henke
October 15, 2022
In Henke (2022ax), I made the following statements:
“All of the evidence indicates that the great discoveries that humans have made is solely due to the biochemical activity in our brains despite the groundless claims from Lewis (1960) and Mr. Lundahl that desperately want to believe otherwise. If Mr. Lundahl wants us to recognize that there’s “something beyond nature” before we can even make “a completely naturalistic explanation”, he again has the burden of evidence. While we can measure electrical activity in the human brain as it thinks (e.g., Goodenough et al. 1998, p. 202), there’s not a shred of evidence that anything supernatural or “beyond nature” is required before we can adequately understand human consciousness (Dennett 2006; Dennett 2018; Harris 2010). There’s no evidence that physicists needed any participation from a god or heaven to discover that E=mc2 or F=ma, and to confirm the reliability of those equations. Until Mr. Lundahl or another individual demonstrates otherwise, claims about the supernatural are completely superfluous when effectively doing science and other reasoning.”
Lundahl (2022s) comments on my bolded section:
“The problem is not whether Henke should recognise something beyond nature in order to do so. The problem is, such an explanation is an explanation clearly going outside the observations, outside the environment, as such dependent on logic. Not just on eyesight and the other senses. As such it depends on reality following universally valid rules of being and these being mirrored in universally valid rules of logic accessible to us while we explain. And that access itself is what cannot be explained on naturalistic terms. Proof given. Take your time to think out what I mean, and possibly pose some intelligent challenge about that, but don't repost rubbish about me or CSL wanting you to attach an admission of something beyond nature as a prologue to your naturalistic explanations : the observation is about you, and not about what you believe or say.”
As I discussed in Henke (2022aj), Mr. Lundahl has no basis at all in logic or reality unless he has observations to support his “logic” and his claims of something “beyond nature.” Otherwise, his rantings about the supernatural and something “beyond nature” are just mere speculations. Mr. Lundahl should write science fiction if he can’t base his logic on observed reality and observed reality on logic (Henke 2022aj).
Humans have discovered natural laws with our brains and not because of any evidence of souls, spirits or supernatural inspiration. Mr. Lundahl in Lundahl (2022s) keeps trying to convince himself and our readers that universally valid rules of logic cannot be explained in natural terms. He is so desperate to find some way of justifying the existence of the supernatural, but his claims are baseless. Physics and chemistry work because of the characteristics of the Universe going back to shortly after the Big Bang (Freedman and Kaufmann 2002, pp. 682-685), and not because of anything supernatural. Logic and mathematics are reliable human inventions because they are also consistent with how our Universe functions. Mr. Lundahl does not have a shred of evidence that anything supernatural is responsible for natural laws, logic or mathematics. Scientists have observed the properties of stars billions of light years from Earth and they have measured subatomic particles, and they have found no evidence of anything supernatural. Again, it’s Mr. Lundahl and not me that has the burden of evidence (NOT PROOF!!) to demonstrate that there is anything supernatural or beyond nature.
References:
Dennett, D.C. 2006. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon: Viking Penguin: London, UK, 448pp.
Dennett, D.C. 2018. “Facing Up to the Hard Question of Consciousness”: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, v. 373, 20170342.
Freedman, R.A. and W.J. Kaufmann III. 2002. Universe: 6th ed., W.H. Freeman and Co., New York, NY, USA.
Harris, S. 2010. The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Hunan Values: Free Press: New York, N.Y., USA, 291pp.
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.
Lewis, C.S. 1960. Miracles, 2nd ed., printed 1974: Harper One: HarperCollinsPublishers, 294pp.