Brain complexity: learning new tasks (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, November 27, 2017, 14:29 (2335 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: …in trying to defend your hypothesis of God expanding the brain BEFORE the arrival of new concepts, you are repeatedly forced to contradict your own beliefs! That is why, as above, you keep saying things like more advanced thought is “provided by larger more complex brain”. […] If thought activates the brain, then you cannot argue that thought is provided by the brain! But precisely that is the process required if you argue that the brain had to expand BEFORE homo could THINK of the concept.

DAVID: A larger brain is capable of more complexity to develop with a larger cortex in each jump in size. That is what you miss.

If I’ve understood this convoluted sentence correctly, it means the more cells there are, the more complex the activities. How does that prove that the brain expanded before homo thought of the concept that required expansion?

DAVID: More cortex, more consciousness mechanism received for the soul to use, and as this happens the brain can remake its connections and neurons to more efficiently use its consciousness, and stay the same size for that stage of hominin development.

I thought the soul WAS the consciousness mechanism in your dualistic world. The soul/consciousness mechanism uses the cortex, and the cortex remakes its connections and neurons in order to implement the demands made by the soul. It stays the same size until it can’t cope with the new demands, and then it adds more cells and expands accordingly.

DAVID: But at the smaller size the hominin couldn't think of those tasks and concepts which only appear with the next sized brain, as shown by the artifacts.

Back you go to thought depending on the size of the brain. Once more: according to your dualism the brain does not provide the thought/concept; it provides the implementation, and only after the implementation can the artefacts appear, by which time the brains have expanded. (NB I am dealing only with your contradictions. Not the dualism versus materialism issue.)

DAVID: If they don't have the brain capacity to think of a new concept it can't be implemented. (dhw's bold)

dhw: And back you go to claiming that it is the brain that THINKS of the concept. […]if the brain does not have the CAPACITY to IMPLEMENT the concept, then clearly it has to increase its capacity and expand.

DAVID: You keep ignoring my concept of the brain as a receiver of a consciousness mechanism! Bigger brain receives a larger more complex consciousness.

You keep ignoring it yourself, whenever you talk of the brain’s capacity to think! According to you, the soul thinks and the brain receives. The more the soul thinks, the more the brain has to expand to “receive” it. The thought precedes the reception, which precedes the expansion!

dhw: [..] he may have designed the mechanism enabling organisms to make the changes.
DAVID: And He will be sure His purposes are carried out. Don't you think He has purposes and goals?

If he exists, of course he does. Yet again: I suggest his purpose is to provide an ever changing spectacle, which you call “God lite” and “humanizing”, and you suggest his purpose (in designing billions of species, lifestyles and natural wonders extant and extant) was to produce humans so they would think about him, have a relationship with him, solve the problems he set them, and watch them with interest. Presumably that’s called God heavy and not “humanizing”.