Friday, December 17, 2021

Defending the Hallucination Theory - Part 21: Evaluation of Another Key Premise of Objection #5

 WHERE WE ARE

In Part 20 of this series, I showed that premise (C), a key premise in the argument constituting Peter Kreeft's Objection #5 against the Hallucination Theory, was not only DUBIOUS (because Kreeft failed to show it was true), but that this premise was in fact FALSE.  Thus, Objection #5 (Returned Many Times) FAILS, just like Objection #4, Objection #3, Objection #2, and Objection #1 all FAILED.

Before I move on to examine more of Kreeft's objections against the Hallucination Theory, I will examine the other key premise of Objection #5 and evaluate that premise.  Here is the core argument in Objection #5:

C. IF the Hallucination Theory were true, THEN some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each had at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.  

D. It is NOT the case that some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each had at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.  

Therefore:

A. The Hallucination Theory is FALSE.

I have already shown that this argument is UNSOUND because premise (C) is FALSE.  But there are also problems with the other key premise in this core argument, premise (D). 


IS PREMISE (D) TRUE? 

Based on my previous analysis of the argument constituting Objection #5, the argument includes support for premise (D):

1E. Whenever a mentally normal person experiences a hallucination, there is at least a 60% chance that that person will experience that hallucination only that one time.

Thus:

B. If a mentally normal person who was a follower of Jesus experienced a hallucination of the risen Jesus, there is at least a 60% chance that that person would experience a hallucination of the risen Jesus only that one time. 

Thus:

D. It is NOT the case that some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each had at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.  

Kreeft, following the horrible example of Josh McDowell, provides NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER in support of the empirical generalization in premise (1E).  Since Kreeft has no expertise in the field of psychology, the fact that Kreeft asserts and believes that premise (1E) is true provides no reason at all for anyone else to believe this empirical generalization.  So, premise (1E) is DUBIOUS, and since premise (B) is supported by (1E), premise (B) is also DUBIOUS.  Premise (D) is DUBIOUS because the only reason that Kreeft's argument gives in support of (D) is premise (B) which is a DUBIOUS claim.  

But there is another problem with this argument supporting premise (D).  Even if, for the sake of argument, we grant premise (B), this does not show that premise (D) is true.

First of all, premise (B) asserts a fairly weak correlation between being a mentally normal follower of Jesus who has a hallucination of the risen Jesus and having only one such hallucination. Premise (B) would be true even if 40% of mentally normal followers of Jesus who had a hallucination of the risen Jesus had three or more hallucinations of the risen Jesus. 

Suppose that ten of Jesus' apostles were mentally normal and that each of them experienced at least one hallucination of the risen Jesus.  Suppose that six of the ten apostles experienced only one hallucination of the risen Jesus, but four of those ten apostles each experienced at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.  In that case, 60% of the ten apostles would have experienced only one hallucination of the risen Jesus and 40% of the ten apostles would have experienced three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.  In scenario premise (B) could be completely correct, and yet premise (D) would be FALSE, because the four apostles who each had at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus would make it TRUE that "some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each experienced at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus."

Clearly, premise (D) does NOT follow logically from premise (B).  The inference here is logically INVALID, and so the sub-argument supporting premise (D) is based on an illogical inference.  

The main problem with this inference is that (B) leaves open the possibility that 40% of mentally normal followers of Jesus who experienced a hallucination of the risen Jesus could each experience three or more hallucinations of the risen Jesus.  The conclusion, however, is NOT stated in terms of a percentage; the key quantifier in (D) is the word "some", which would be correct if just two or three mentally normal followers of Jesus each experienced three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.

That means the more mentally normal followers of Jesus there were who experienced at least one hallucination of the risen Jesus, the more likely it is that at least two or three of these people each experienced three such hallucinations.  More specifically, if ten or more mentally normal followers of Jesus each experienced at least one hallucination of the risen Jesus, then (B) would be completely compatible with it being the case that two or three of those people experienced three hallucinations of the risen Jesus, and in that case (D) would be FALSE even if (B) were true.

I have not shown that premise (D) is FALSE, but I have shown that it is based on a DUBIOUS premise (B), and that it also does NOT follow logically from premise (B).  So, Kreeft's argument in support of (D) is clearly an UNSOUND argument, so premise (D) itself remains DUBIOUS.


WHAT IF KREEFT MEANT "AT LEAST A 70% CHANCE"?

In Kreeft's UNCLEAR statement of the argument constituting Objection #5, he used the VAGUE quantifier "usually":

1. Hallucinations usually happen only once, except to the insane.

I have clarified this premise and interpreted "usually" as meaning "at least a 60% chance":

1E. Whenever a mentally normal person experiences a hallucination, there is at least a 60% chance that that person will experience that hallucination only that one time.

Someone might object that Kreeft might have intended to make a stronger claim than (1E).  Let's increase the chances of a hallucination happening just one time to 70%, and see if that allows Kreeft to show that premise (D) is true:

1F. Whenever a mentally normal person experiences a hallucination, there is at least a 70% chance that that person will experience that hallucination only that one time.

Thus: 

B1. If a mentally normal person who was a follower of Jesus experienced a hallucination of the risen Jesus, there is at least a 70% chance that that person would experience a hallucination of the risen Jesus only that one time. 

 Thus:

D. It is NOT the case that some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each had at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.  

The same objections that I raised above apply to this enhanced version of Kreeft's argument. As with the previous version, Kreeft provides NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER in support of premise (1F).  So, premise (B1) is just as DUBIOUS as premise (B).  Furthermore, premise (D) does NOT FOLLOW from premise (B1), just like it did not follow from premise (B).

Suppose that ten of Jesus' apostles were mentally normal and that each of them experienced at least one hallucination of the risen Jesus.  Suppose that seven of the ten apostles experienced only one hallucination of the risen Jesus, but three of those ten apostles each experienced at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.  In that case, 70% of the ten apostles would have experienced only one hallucination of the risen Jesus and 30% of the ten apostles would have experienced three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.  In this scenario premise (B) could be completely correct, and yet premise (D) would be FALSE because the three apostles who each had at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus would make it TRUE that "some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each experienced at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus."

The same objection still works even if we increase the chances of having a hallucination only one time to "at least 80%."  

Only if we increase the chances of having a hallucination only one time up to "at least 90%" does it begin to be somewhat unlikely that two or more out of ten apostles would experience at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.  A claim that strong, however, seems rather implausible, and clearly goes beyond what is suggested by the vague quantifier "usually".


EVALUATION OF OBJECTION #5

The core argument in Objection #5 is as follows:

C. IF the Hallucination Theory were true, THEN some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each had at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.  

D. It is NOT the case that some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each had at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.  

Therefore:

A. The Hallucination Theory is FALSE.

I have shown that premise (C) is FALSE, so this argument is UNSOUND.  I have also shown that Kreeft's argument in support of premise (D) is based on a DUBIOUS premise and on an INVALID inference from that DUBIOUS premise, so the argument supporting (D) is UNSOUND, and thus premise (D) is itself DUBIOUS.

The argument constituting Objection #5 against the Hallucination Theory is clearly a BAD argument, and therefore Objection #5 FAILS, just like Objection #4, Objection #3, Objection #2, and Objection #1 all FAILED.


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