Big brain evolution: Evidence of trading 300,000 years ago (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, March 18, 2018, 11:49 (2223 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The s/s/c learns from experience, and that is an ongoing process, but the concept always has to precede the implementation, and that is what causes expansion/complexification.

DAVID: Yes, concept precedes implementation, but that in no way proves it is the reason the brain expanded. It is just your hypothesis.

Yes, it is a hypothesis, just like your belief that your God expanded the brain before hominins could think up new concepts. However, modern science has demonstrated that thought changes areas of the brain through complexification and limited expansion, which would seem to support the dualism you claim to believe in, i.e. the hypothesis that the self/soul/conscious mind is a separate immaterial entity which in life works with and controls the brain (the will being an integral part of the s/s/c) but in death remains itself. This clearly runs directly counter to the hypothesis that the immaterial s/s/c is incapable of THINKING without the material brain.

DAVID: And you keep forgetting my theory that in life the only way original thought occurs is if the s/s/c is interfaced with the brain.

Not forgotten at all. The question is how the two function in life. If your dualism is correct, the s/s/c does the THINKING, and the brain provides information and implementation. If, as you frequently agree, the s/s/c USES the brain, the thoughts of the s/s/c have to PRECEDE the activities of the brain. It is therefore illogical to claim that the s/s/c cannot have its THOUGHTS until the brain is ready to implement those thoughts. See above for the evidence provided by modern science. (NB that does not mean modern science supports dualism, and eventually I hope to explain how I believe the two hypotheses can be reconciled.)

dhw: We are talking specifically about brain enlargement, and you insist that your God enlarged the pre-sapiens brain before it was able to come up with new concepts, i.e. the brain is the source of thought. And that is a complete contradiction of your dualistic belief that the s/s/c is the source of thought.

DAVID: My concept of how brain and s/s/c relate: In life the s/s/c and the brain must work together. Your interpretation of my theory is totally incorrect.

There is no disagreement over the fact that they work together in life. But if it is “totally incorrect” that you believe your God had to expand the implementing brain BEFORE the thinking s/s/c had the ability to think up new ideas, i.e. that new thought was impossible without prior expansion of the brain, then I apologize but have no idea what we are arguing about. (But see my next post on the "Big brain evolution" thread.)