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What Henke Responded - up to "Henke2022aa" (with ab and ai looked up in advance, since referred to in previous) · Ah, Some New · Back to Philosophy · Beginning on Henke2022az? Nope. · Why Catalogue the Supernatural? Why Catalogue Fiction? · Henke(2022bi) Starts It Today! But I only get to Henke(2022bk) For Now. · New Batch of Henke Essays · Resuming at Henke(2022bL) after Interruption, up to 2022br. · Why Did I Bring Up Greek Myth? · Historicity of Certain Religious Stories, Notably Genesis

Henke (2022au): “Lundahl (2022j): Miracles: Past and Present?”

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.

If our brains are certainly living matter, if our thoughts were electrical, and nothing else, we would understand nothing.

Unlike what Henke pretends on my relying only on an outdated book - but philosophy is not outdated - I have checked of neurology has made any advance in explaining why we experience anything like understanding, and the "hard problem of consciousness is still hard" -

... The problem of consciousness, Chalmers argues, is two problems: the easy problems and the hard problem.

The easy problems are problems concerned with behaviour, and mechanistic analysis of the relevant neural processes that accompany that behaviour. Examples of these include how sensory systems work, how such data is processed in the brain, how that data influences behaviour or verbal reports, the neural basis of thought and emotion, and so on. These are problem can be analyzed through "structures and functions".[19]

Chalmers' use of the word easy is "tongue-in-cheek".[23] As Steven Pinker puts it, they are about as easy as going to Mars or curing cancer. "That is, scientists more or less know what to look for, and with enough brainpower and funding, they would probably crack it in this century."[24] The easy problems are amenable to reductive inquiry. They are a logical consequence of lower level facts about the world, similar to how a clock's ability to tell time is a logical consequence of its clockwork and structure, or a hurricane is a logical consequence of the structures and functions of certain weather patterns. A clock, a hurricane, and the easy problems, are all the sum of their parts (as are most things).[19]

The hard problem, in contrast, is the problem of why and how those processes are accompanied by experience.[3] It may further include the question of why these processes are accompanied by this or that particular experience, rather than some other kind of experience. In other words, the hard problem is the problem of explaining why certain mechanisms are accompanied by conscious experience.[19] For example, why should neural processing in the brain lead to the felt sensations of, say, feelings of hunger? And why should those neural firings lead to feelings of hunger rather than some other feeling (such as, for example, feelings of thirst)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness#Easy_problems

Unless the wiki has been vandalised, which seems not to be the case, we get these references from wiki.

3) Chalmers, David (1995). "Facing up to the problem of consciousness" (PDF). Journal of Consciousness Studies. 2 (3): 200–219.
19) Chalmers, David (1996). The Conscious Mind. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. xii–xiii, 95–106, backcover.
23) "Episode 83, The David Chalmers Interview (Part I - Consciousness)". The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast. Retrieved 2020-09-05.
24) Pinker, Steven (29 January 2007). "The Brain: The Mystery of Consciousness". Time. Retrieved 19 December 2018.

So, the latest update is actually from Monday, Jan. 29, 2007 - but C. S. Lewis was in 1960 crediting people like Pinker too much with the capacity of solving this. He presumed the only thing he would eventually need the supernatural for were reason and ethics with valid universals, going far beyond what we have experience and therefore immediate consciousness of.

The Hard Problem is explaining how subjective experience arises from neural computation. The problem is hard because no one knows what a solution might look like or even whether it is a genuine scientific problem in the first place. And not surprisingly, everyone agrees that the hard problem (if it is a problem) remains a mystery.

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.

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.

He doesn't write English better than I did with POTUS or give heed to people's other frames of reference than his own, he never explains what a PDA is, I have to look it up.

Presumably it means : "Personal digital assistant, a mobile device" but check all the possible meanings on the wiki disambiguation page PDA.

Now, I would actually agree, the soul is not using the brain as a "personal digital assistant" ... rather soul and brain combine to form the thoughts we experience, with soul as ultimate cause of consciousness, and with brain as regulator of its interaction with the body, which - by the providence of God - makes for different qualities of consciousness, for instance, I was a few minutes ago in hypnosis, because I needed to rest and rewind in a cyber, where sleeping is not allowed. The altered brain state is a beneficial rest for the body and it feels differently from being fully awake. Thank you very much, Diane Vibert!

For a computer, we have our full consciousness without it. In this life, our souls do (at least usually) not have it without brain states. This does not add up to thoughts being the activity of the brain, whatever Pinker thinks of it.

SCIENTISTS HAVE EXORCISED THE GHOST FROM THE MACHINE NOT because they are mechanistic killjoys but because they have amassed evidence that every aspect of consciousness can be tied to the brain. Using functional MRI, cognitive neuroscientists can almost read people's thoughts from the blood flow in their brains. They can tell, for instance, whether a person is thinking about a face or a place or whether a picture the person is looking at is of a bottle or a shoe.

The conclusion does still not follow. A regulator is always causing or responding to an effect, without being the ultimate cause of it, like the gearbox is regulating a car propulsion that comes from something else, that something else being the motor. Given consciousness tied to a body, a regulator of its states and the resulting influences (or lack thereof) on body functions and body movements is a fairly useful thing. And given the nature of the concept regulator, we cannot exclude that the thought is there by the soul, it is only regulated in relation to senses and emotions and states of waking and sleep by the brain. A regulator would also always accompany the thoughts.

So, C. S. Lewis overestimated what could be left to a nature starting out in lifeless atoms and states of energy and changing only in response to causalities described by laws of nature.

Now, the thing he did not see is, naturalism is not necessarily deterministic. However, Henke's naturalism is: he describes natural laws as what controls all of reality. This leaves no fluke by which consciousness could arise, and also no fluke by which consciousness once arisen could become a tool for logic exploration of reality far away from the reasoner who is conscious about his reasoning.

The observations offered by Pinker on what in our consciousness can be an illusion, and then the word "rationalisation" if anything underline C. S. Lewis' point. Such things, if in less detail, were known already in 1947 when CSL made his first and in 1960, when he made his second edition of Miracles.

Lewis (1960, chapter 3, etc.) questioned the ability of humans to rationally understand our surroundings through naturalism ...

No, Lewis did very much not question Henke's ability to understand Henke's surroundings while Henke is naturalist. Lewis questioned Henke's ability to understand beyond the surroundings if naturalism is true. Irrespectively of Henke's beliefs. And concludes from there that Henke's belief in naturalism is at odds with Henke's claim that this belief is a species of understanding. Because you see, naturalism or supranaturalism are very definitely not about our surroundings. The correct assessment of whatever experiments Pinker based his views on (Pinker's or the Christian one) is also not about our surroundings. And the moment when the Castile formation was formed is not included in Stef Heerema's or Kevin R. Henke's surroundings. Any claim to understand that is a claim of understanding beyond the surroundings.

For instance by rules of logic, like the one given in previous post:

Some animals are dogs,
Lions are animals,
Therefore, lions are dogs.

The improper combination is technically known as an invalid syllogism. The middle term cannot be twice undistributed in a valid one. Now a term can be distributed in two ways : by being subject in a sentence with "all" or "no" or by being predicate in one with "no" or "not all" for the subject. In the major, it is undistributed because it is in a proposition with "some" and not one with "all" and in the minor, it is undistributed as predicate of a proposition that is affirmative and not negative.

That a middle term needs to be distributed in at least one of the premisses of a syllogism is precisely a rule of logic that is universally valid.

... and he argued that we should seriously consider that miracles occur.

Could occur, as per these chapters. He then gave a consideration of the miracles that are in the Gospels, and whether the treatment on the historical side is jejune or not, it is there. C. S. Lewis knew the genres of fiction likely to be found in the First Century AD, and the Gospels aren't one of them. And with historic claim documents, you need a plausible fraud, not just a general observation that frauds occur, or a plausible misunderstanding, not just a general observation that things have been misunderstood.

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.

Henke is looking at the wrong type of investigators. They don't usually go around and find stories about medical cases fraudulent. Because there aren't all that many? May contribute. But there are some, and these investigators seem to shun those.

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.

The exact problem : if our brains and thoughts were ultimately controlled by such laws (or rather causalities described by them!), we would not be able to confirm conclusions, only expectations about what turns up around ourselves. And this view of reality is not an expectation of what turns up next to Mr. Henke, it is a conclusion.

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.

Our interaction with other humans may certainly impact our more or less perfect acquisition of objective and universally valid rules - but cannot produce them. Precisely as our acquisition of a native language is highly impacted by interaction with people (usually parents) already having such a thing. This is a very good reason why humanity could never have acquired language from scratch, as I argued in a question (open like an "open letter" but somewhat closed in possibility of answers, like a "rhetoric question") that I posed to David Peterson. No, not the shrink Jordan Peterson, but the inventor of Dothraki (more than GRRM himself, who only provided stray words). And precisely as grammar cannot arise from even animality (much less mere matter "self organising"), so logic and moral universals cannot so.

We can send spacecraft to Moon, understand why severe earthquakes occur in certain areas and not others, and we understand what causes influenza, etc.

Indeed.

The supernatural is not needed to explain these discoveries.

It is, insofar as the discoverer is only explainable as a supernatural being (within a natural one).

Although I would agree with that there is no evidence of psychic powers or haunted houses, Lundahl (2022j) doesn’t explain why they would not be considered miraculous or supernatural if they are real. That is, why wouldn’t ghosts, if they exist, be just as supernatural as angels?

In the case of psychic powers, I would definitely consider them as a (possibly poisoned) gift by angelic beings. And ghosts being real would also qualify as an exception granted by God Himself to certain souls from either Hell or Purgatory. It is just that the phoney versions most often encountered aren't that.

Psychic powers and haunted houses can be tested for their claims because they supposedly occur in the present and are accessible to investigation, while the Resurrection is a claim set in the past. We don’t have a time machine to go back and investigate it. All of the relevant evidence of the Resurrection, if it ever happened, is long gone.

Except it is preserved in historic narrative.

Contrary to Mr. Lundahl’s suggestions, I have no association with the Masonic Lodge or any of their teachings.

Henke says this in a slightly varied version of previous : Henke (2022av): “No Evidence that Magic is Involved in the Ability of Humans to Reason”

The fact that Henke had actually recently reread Miracles came as a fairly shocking surprise to me, considering how dense he is on its actual contents. Babble in environments similar to a lodge would be a guess I'd not rule out in such a case.

The laws of biochemistry and physics most certainly allow our brains to function and our functioning brains allow us to interact with our environments, make observations, reason and philosophize. People cannot reason and philosophize if their brains are dead or malfunctioning.

As far as "allow" - no problem. Give the brain the status of a tap, fine. But it is not the source, under pain of any statement on it (as not included in the surroundings even animal brains can for some natural reason investigate) being invalid.

Now, there’s absolutely no evidence that the supernatural is involved in the functioning of the human brain or our ability to reason, including philosophize (e.g., Harris 2010; Dennett 2006; Henke 2020ap).

Already read Henke2022ap, see above. Pinker gives no account for our ability to philosophise validly. The titles of Harris and of Dennett seem to deal with a totally different problem, how some kind of morality (not moral universals) and some kind of religion (which is distinct from logic universals used in philosophising) arose. A title like The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Hunan Values: doesn't even seem to investigate how morality arose, only how science can change morality - of which we have very painful pretty recent examples why it shouldn't do so. Say eugenics 100 years ago.

Henke (2022aw): “Where’s the Evidence of Anything Beyond Our Environment (Universe)?”

When I talk about the environment, I’m referring to our Universe. For example, astronomers look at the chemistry of stars and see the same elements that we see on Earth (e.g., Delsemme 1998). They also see the same physics going on in distant stars and galaxies. Human societies and everything else on Earth are also part of our Universe.

Sorry, but that is NOT our environment. My environment involves a computer and two mugs of caffeinated drinks in front of me, and a wall beyond these (plus some plywood attraptions to support the computer's table and keep it from squeezing computer vires to the wall), and what is beyond the wall is no longer "environment" - that is the extent which animality could know without universal laws of reason.

Now, before Lundahl (2022j) can talk about anything “beyond our environment”, he first needs to demonstrate that anything actually exists beyond our environment; that is, beyond our Universe. Lewis (1960) failed to demonstrate that Heaven or any other supernatural realm exists and, so far, Mr. Lundahl has not done any better.

He wasn't talking about supernatural realms, he was talking about such parts of the "universe" that are outside what normal people normally mean by our environment. The universe isn't part of it. China isn't part of my environment or of Henke's though news and products from it sometimes are. The rooms in the building beyond this wall is not part of my environment, right now. When you say "universe" you have gone very far beyond "environment" - if this was not apparent, this is because you were not attending to what C. S. L. or what I were actually arguing, you were second guessing what we mean, and such second guessing obviously destroys any communication, even from a masterful writer as C. S. Lewis. While Henke provided a review stating CSL's writing was "vague" or whatever it was, it was arguably by a natural scientist with similar communication problems on texts written outside his own very narrow culture.

The point that CSL is making is, supposing Delsemme were correct, he could only be so by successfully going beyond his environment, and any success in doing so depends on universally valid rules of logic.

Henke (2022ax): “Lundahl (2022j) and Lewis (1960) Continue to Fail to Demonstrate that There is Anything Beyond Nature (Our Universe)”

The equation of "nature" with "our universe" neither follows from what we observe in our environment, nor from the context given in the meaning of my own or Lewis' texts. It is a very gigantic conclusion of logic applied to observations. I am not denying that the logic is misapplied here. But Henke is. So, Henke is proposing we can apply logic beyond our environment.

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.

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.

While we can measure electrical activity in the human brain as it thinks

And how about checking with J. Goodenough, R.A. Wallace, and B. McGuire what difference it makes in the measures of electric brain activity whether the thinker is making a logical mistake or reasoning coherently in full observance of all the rules of formal logic?

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.

There is evidence that they needed logic to do so. And logic is only a necessity for discovery when we go beyond our environment, as these formulations very clearly do. Therefore it cannot be reduced to reactions that "developed over evolutionary eons" to help us adapt to our environment. And the question whether that something other it should be traced to is "a god" or "heaven" is for the purpose of that argument not yet posed. We only get to God by a further process of narrowing down.

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

It is easier to give a reference than to cite actual arguments from it. Because if Henke here actually cited Dennett, this bodes very ill for the qualifity of "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, v. 373, 20170342." Which I suppose to be as easy to access (not very) as Finkelstein, I. and N.A. Silberman. 2001. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts: if not even less so.

Henke (2022ay): “Where do Morality and the Universally Valid Rules of Reason Come From? Not Where Lundahl (2022j) and Lewis (1960) Claim”

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).

And the proposition you were supposed to argue against was not that we needed anything beyond human reason. The proposition was that human reason needs to have other properties than nature could provide it with. And this is not dealt with.

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.

You have just made a very persuasive case against going even one step beyond tradition as it stands, since morality is about trial and error and passed on knowledge, and not about universally valid premisses. On your view.

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 most certainly did use the Bible (notably the Epistle to Philemon) and what you refer to as rational debate most certainly also did use what's at stake here : appeals to universally valid moral principles.

When it comes to "cohesion within the tribe" (your proposed origin of morals) that very obviously would have spoken in favour of all the traditions (even the most recent and worst ones) of the tribes of slave owners.

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.”

That's a different case, the moral universal is the same as previously, the application varies bc of different knowledge. Itself improved due to universally valid rules of logic. Yes, going beyond the environment.

There’s no evidence that any of our advances in reasoning and technology came from God or something “beyond Nature.”

Except of course the evidence already mentioned a few times of universally valid rules of either morality or logic cannot develop as a part of nature. Or the universe cannot share its laws of being with us simply by the process of our pretended evolution from apes, who do not enjoy language and also do not enjoy logic.

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.

If man was not the kind of being to care about universal rules to start with, man could not develop them from human activity. All human activity that we observe already presupposes the existence of universally valid rules.

We then use the rules we’ve learned to solve additional problems and mysteries.

Once these go beyond the environment, surroundings, and no, this does not mean the universe, this already presupposes the existence of universal validity for rules of logic. And that universal validity cannot be guaranteed by human activity.

The evidence indicates that we humans have no gods, angels or extraterrestrial intelligences helping us.

W h a t 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.

No doubt, there were certainly people in Finland that prayed for God to deliver them from the Soviets in 1939-1940 and 1941-1944. That didn’t work. Finland lost those wars and they lost a lot of lives and territory to the Soviets. So, the majority of Finns were probably smart enough not to try the religious options again. Instead, the history of 1939-1944 told them that their military could not stand up to Russia alone. Joining NATO was the logical option.

Let me answer with a quote from wiki:

Eugenics programs including forced sterilization existed in most Northern European countries, as well as other more or less Protestant countries. Other countries that had notably active sterilisation programmes include Denmark ("that country's forced sterilization of 60,000 people in 1935-76"),[73][203] Norway,[204][205][203] Finland[206][207][208][209]("In Finland, to change one's gender markers in the juridical system (also known as gender recognition), trans people are, still, forcibly sterilised. In the laws regarding gender recognition, this requirement is called the 'inability to reproduce', a choice of words that makes it sound a lot less threatening than 'forced sterilisation'"),[209] Estonia,[210] Switzerland,[211][212] Iceland,[213] and some countries in Latin America (including Panama).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization

The pulling in of trans persons into this, is ludicrous, since the victims of forced sterilisations in the 30's were not asking for any legal recognition, that could only be had by allowing such a procedure, they were asking for release from hospitals, or sometimes perhaps even forced while in such hospitals. As said, a sad story about what "science providing the moral landscape" can do to it.

It would have been smarter of them to not presume to adress God against tyranny, while exercising one over large parts of their population. And indeed, not to think Protestantism is the ideal mindset for adressing God.

I think Finland's losses of territory through the Soviets are somewhat roughly proportional to losses of fertility through Finland's own policies. And even more, some who would under Finland have been threatened with sterilisation were under Soviet rule no longer so threatened.

As I previously stated in Henke (2022ai), as far as cosmologists and astronomers know, the laws of chemistry and physics are universal. They’ve found no exceptions. Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation is indeed universal and explains the gravitational relationships between even the most distant stars and galaxies. Spectral analyses of stars have the same elements in them as we find on Earth (Delsemme 1998). So, chemistry is also universal. If Lewis (1960) and Mr. Lundahl want to say otherwise, the burden is on them to produce the evidence that the laws of chemistry and physics are not universal.

Since this universality, if it is such, goes beyond our environment, it can only be known, if known, from logic.

Humans invented mathematics and logic to quantify and describe how the Universe behaves, and to develop technologies to make our lives better.

When it comes to systems of mathematics or systems of logic, fine as far as it goes, but all these systems do presuppose universally valid logic rules. They could only be reached with such already in place.

For example, geometry is essential in architecture.

Meaning that architecture is a byproduct of an activity that cannot produce as a novelty, since it depends on it from start, universally valid rules of logic.

Mathematics did not come from the book of Numbers

Totally beside the point as far as CSL's or my statements of the argument go. We never said it did.

Interestingly, we see animals using primitive mathematics. Predators, for example, can tell the difference between a field without any prey and a field with a single prey. That is, they can tell the difference between zero and one.

Zero is not a mathematical entity anyway.

They can also tell the difference between one and many. If a cat in a field sees a single mouse on its left and a group of mice on its right, unless the single mouse is noticeably disabled, the cat is probably going to go after the group thinking it’s more likely to get a meal from one of them rather than trying to track down the mouse on the left and risk having it get away.

And this is apparent immediately, before any mathematical reasoning. Proof enough we did not get reason from cats or from ancestors with abilities like the cats. Because these guys are never observed to get into mathematical reasoning. They use immediate perception of immediate environment for immediate purposes. Without universally valid rules of logic (not given to cats) we do not have any reliable guide when going beyond the immediate.

So, predators going back to Tyrannosaurus rex and the Paleozoic seas were probably primitive counters.

For differences immediately apparent, counting is not needed.

People simply expanded and improved mathematics/logic to solve different problems.

Mathematics and logic are neither interchangeable, nor are they things we have in common with beasts. As language. You need to have logic in order to improve your use of it. Cats don't have it.

There’s nothing supernatural here.

Except that it goes beyond what nature could possibly provide.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
15th Lord's Day after Pentecost
18.IX.2022