The Evidence that Lundahl (2022s) Wants is in My Recommended References, but Mr. Lundahl Refuses to Look Them Up and Read Them
Kevin R. Henke
October 17, 2022
In Henke (2022b), I stated:
“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.”
Lundahl (2022j) then replies to my statements:
“The morality is here said to be rooted in reason. Now, the question is not whether an agency external to our reason is needed to enlighten it - it may be the case, and as Christians, both Lewis and I believe after the fall each has some kind of need of that. The questions are rather:
· where do universally valid rules of reason come from?
· does reason deal with any moral rules prior to its own developing of moral rules?
The point of chapters 3 and (I think) 4 is, the laws of chemistry and electronics and physics and the constraints of evolution do not put us into the reach of discovering what is universally valid. For our reason to do this, we need to be more than that. The sentence ‘[o]ur brains, thoughts and surroundings are all ultimately controlled by the laws of chemistry and physics,’ needs to be false, at least if implying ‘and nothing else.’”
In Henke (2022ay), I answered Mr. Lundahl’s question: “Where do universally valid rules of reason come from”:
“The “universally valid rules of reason” that Lundahl (2022j) references are solely human discoveries. There’s no need for anything beyond human reason (Dennett 2006). The rules are “universal” because they happen to work in a variety of circumstances from generation to generation. In ancient times, humans learned to develop morals so that members of the tribe could get along with each other. Otherwise, the tribe would fall apart. People needed to cooperate with each other to survive. They also learned how to make spears, avoid the berries that were poisonous, develop strategies for hunting, etc. Both of their technological and socialization (moral) skills came from reasoning and they passed that knowledge onto their children. Their children added to the knowledge and passed that onto their children, etc. In other words, ancient people discovered morality in the same way that they discovered how to make a spear – through reason and trial and error.
In more modern times, we discovered that slavery was not a good idea from rational debate and empathy for our fellow human beings, and certainly not from prayer and the Bible (Avalos 2011). We also learned that it’s not a good idea to dump toxins into the atmosphere and oceans. Through physics, chemistry and biology, we learned that pollution may not just “go away.” Each generation learns valuable and often painful lessons through reason, trail and error, and debate, and we try to pass that wisdom and knowledge unto the next generation along with our positive technological advances. There’s no evidence that any of our advances in reasoning and technology came from God or something ‘beyond Nature.’
As for the Fall of Adam and Eve that Lundahl (2022j) and Lewis (1960) mention, there’s not a shred of evidence to support it. The young-Earth creationist version of the Fall is especially silly, where stars in distant galaxies supposedly become supernovae solely because Adam and Eve listened to a Talking Snake in Genesis 3, ate the wrong piece of fruit, and plunged the entire Universe into chaos and destruction.
When humans rationalize, we first observe and identify a problem or a mystery. We then thoroughly confirm our observations with more and independent observations from other humans. Did they really do or say that? Did that really happen? Over time through testing, trial and error, and being empathetic to our fellow humans, we developed “universally valid rules of reason”, which are the products of human activity. We then use the rules we’ve learned to solve additional problems and mysteries. The evidence indicates that we humans have no gods, angels or extraterrestrial intelligences helping us. We are alone and we are most effective in solving mysteries and problems when we work together and engage in science, evaluate historical data for accuracy, develop and use mathematics/logic, and strive to come to a consensus through rational debate and not through prayer, prophecy, astrology or other nonsensical methods.” [my emphasis]
Lundahl (2022s) then replies to my bolded section:
“What exact evidence indicates that? The complete analysis of CSL's argument and a rational scenario for how reason could arise from human activity? You are not providing that. Or the complete investigation of the universe by logic? Evolution is not providing the logic. When you make a fake syllogism (except when you are aware of it, I suppose) your brain waves behave exactly as when you make a real one.”
I’ve already provided the evidence. The available evidence is in my recommended references and their references, if Mr. Lundahl would just make a little effort to look them up and read them. As I said before in Henke (2022gy), I will not summarize my recommended references so that Mr. Lundahl can attack my summaries, like he does with the summaries in Wikipedia, and then try to convince himself and others that he has refuted the original authors. He actually needs to read the references for himself and think about their results. For example, Heyes (2012) and her references discuss how human reasoning arose during the biological evolution of humans. Harris (2010) and Dennett (2006) explain how religious explanations for consciousness are outdated and unnecessary. It’s the human brain, which is a product of biological evolution, that provides us with logic and allows us to use it (e.g., Henke 2022ht; Harris 2010, pp. 10-14). Contrary to Mr. Lundahl’s misinformed opinions about “brain waves”, MRI scans demonstrate that our brains function differently depending on whether we are using logic or not, or whether the brain is damaged or not (e.g., Belekou et al. 2022; Rhein et al. 2020; Jolly et al. 2020; Modroño et al. 2019; Schwartz et al. 2017; Fiddick et al. 2005; Goto et al. 2011). Mr. Lundahl also needs to realize that Lewis (1960) is outdated and worthless (e.g., Henke 2022ar). Mr. Lundahl needs to update his reading list and knowledge into the 21st century.
References:
Avalos, H. 2011. Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship: Sheffield Phoenix Press: Sheffield, UK, 331pp.
Belekou, A., C. Papageorgiou, E. Karavasilis, E. Tsaltras, N. Kelekis, C. Klein, and N. Smymis. 2022. “Paradoxical Reasoning: An fMRI Study” Frontiers in Psychology, 13:850491. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.850491.
Dennett, D.C. 2006. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon: Viking Penguin: London, UK, 448pp.
Fiddick, L., M.V. Spampinato and J. Grafman. 2005. “Social Contracts and Precautions Activate Different Neurological Systems: An fMRI Investigation of Deontic Reasoning” NeuroImage, v. 28, pp. 778-786.
Goto, M., O. Abe, T. Miyati, et al. 2011. “Entorhinal Cortex Volume Measured with 3T MRI is Positively Correlated with the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised Logical/Verbal Memory Score for Healthy Subjects”: Neuroradiology, v. 53, pp. 617-622.
Harris, S. 2010. The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Hunan Values: Free Press: New York, N.Y., USA, 291pp.
Heyes, C. 2012. “New Thinking: The Evolution of Human Cognition” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: B: v. 367, pp. 2091-2096.
Jolly, A.E., G.T. Scott, D.J. Sharp and A.H. Hampshire. 2020. “Distinct Patterns of Structural Damage Underlie Working Memory and Reasoning Deficits after Traumatic Brain Injury”, Brain, v. 143, pp. 1158-1176.
Lewis, C.S. 1960. Miracles, 2nd ed., printed 1974: Harper One: HarperCollinsPublishers, 294pp.
Modroño, C., G. Navarrete, A. Nicolle, J.L. González-Mora, K.W. Smith, M. Marling and V. Goel. 2019. “Developmental Grey Matter Changes in Superior Parietal Cortex Accompany Improved Transitive Reasoning”, Thinking and Reasoning, v. 25, n. 2, pp. 151-170.
Rhein, C., C. Mühle, B. Lenz, et al. 2020. “Association of a CAMK2A Genetic Variant with Logical Memory Performance and Hippocampal Volume in the Elderly” Brain Research Bulletin, v. 161, pp. 13-20.
Schwartz, F., J. Epinat-Duclos, J. Léone, and J. Prado. 2017. “The Neural Development of Conditional Reasoning in Children: Different Mechanisms for Assessing the Logical Validity and Likelihood of Conclusions”, NeuroImage, v. 163, pp. 264-275.