Big brain evolution: changes in sapiens skull shape;addendum (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, February 26, 2018, 12:08 (2244 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: My use of the word receives is that we receive the software of s/s/c. In the other sense, the functioning human brain receives thought specific areas of the brain.

dhw: If the thinking self (software) resides in the implementing brain (hardware), and if when the brain dies the s/s/c goes its merry way but continues to be its thinking self (as apparently evidenced by NDEs), how can you possibly argue that thought depends on the functioning brain?

DAVID: You are not looking at the two different stages. Receiving "Living thought" requires a functional brain. The s/s/c as I conceive it has two quantum stages/forms, interfaced with the material brain and after death interfaced with the afterlife.

There are two different stages and what you call “interfaces” but only one s/s/c! In life the s/s/c requires a functional brain so that it can acquire information, implement its thoughts, and “interface” with the material world. In death (according to NDEs) it acquires information (presumably by psychic means) and “interfaces” with whatever world the afterlife consists of. In both cases the s/s/c is you and it does the thinking. That is why in dualism the s/s/c does the thinking and the brain does the implementing.

dhw: Again you are trying to divert attention away from the fact that expression/ implementation of immaterial thought CAUSES changes in the material brain – the exact opposite of your hypothesis that changes in the brain PRECEDE immaterial thought. Why are you so afraid to tackle this issue?

DAVID: I've tackled it over and over. Only advanced brains can produce advanced artifacts/civilizations. Implementation causes more complexity and shrinks the brain.

Agreed. The brain and body produce the artefacts, and the s/s/c produces the concepts of the artefacts. In implementing concepts, we know for a fact that the brain modifies itself (and in Homo sapiens, complexification is so efficient that it also shrinks the brain.) Nobody knows what caused enlargement, but there is no reason to suppose that the process of brain modification would have been the absolute reverse in pre-sapiens – i.e. that the brain was modified BEFORE new concepts were conceived and implemented.

DAVID: I don't know why you are so confused. The brain is a computer and the s/s/c is its software. […]

dhw: “Mechanics for thought” is ambiguous. The confusion lies in your agreement that the s/s/c does the thinking (software), but you say it cannot think without a functioning brain (hardware) – as explained in my first response above. Dualism separates thinking (soul) from implementation of thought (brain).

DAVID: We may be using different concepts of dualism, which is why we are constantly cross talking. I cannot think without using a living brain. I am the s/s/c. My brain allows me to think (immaterial) but my brain is obviously material. Obvious dualism. You seem to add something that is a different concept.

You believe that you, the s/s/c, CAN think without a living brain, as explained above (NDEs). Your material brain does not “allow” you to think: it provides information for you the s/s/c to think about, and it “allows” you the s/s/c to express/implement these thoughts materially, which is the essence of dualism (= mind and body are separate, though they work together), as you have agreed a thousand times.