Big brain evolution: brain size and intelligence (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, April 23, 2018, 18:40 (2188 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Hands that had a useful thumb required species anatomic changes and learned coordination movements, not the complex thoughts of today. I'll stick to my analogy that the brain is a computer using the s/s/c as software.

dhw: I accept your analogy, which you keep agreeing means that the “soul” (software) provides the thought, and uses the brain (hardware) to implements the thought. I don’t know how your response is meant to counter my argument 1) that making and using tools required complex thought and new use of the brain/body, and 2) that if your theory of brain explosion could have led to speciation, then my theory of brain explosion could also have led to speciation.

But I insist God speciated the various hominins as their pre-frontal cortex grew and their ability to think increased. You prefer a chance natural growth of brain and skull and change in the female pelvis simultaneously coordinated. Only a planning mind could accomplish that task in the time given for the changes. Your alternative of God given the cell communities the intelligence to do it is still God at work, or haven't you noticed.

DAVID:I full well know how the s/s/c interfaces with the brain, and I view the process is that only a more complex brain can permit the s/s/c software to advance to more complex thought.

dhw: Thought is thought, whether more complex or not. If the source of thought is the “soul”, as you profess to believe, then the complexities of the brain cannot be the source of more complex thought. “Soul” software provides the thought, brain hardware implements it, and if you believe in dualism, no amount of obfuscation can justify the claim that the brain must expand (pre-sapiens) or complexify (sapiens) before the soul can think its thoughts, no matter how simple or complex. That is pure materialism.

You separate soul software from brain hardware. I view them as intimately interfaced and inseparable. You must see that the material brain is inseparable from the immaterial soul in life. When will you really accept my analogy as you state above.