Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, February 26, 2020, 21:11 (1520 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I am pointing out that the only evidence we have points to brains changing in response to new ideas, not in anticipation of them.

But it is evidence from this final finished brain with its sole capacities.

DAVID: You don't answer why we see bigger brain and only then improved artifacts, which always follow the appearance of the bigger brain.

dhw: We find improved artefacts ACCOMPANYING the appearance of the bigger brain! According to my theory, it is the process of production that causes enlargement, so you can only find the artefact when the brain has expanded!

Total illogical thought. The exiting brain conceives of the new object and makes it. The old brain smaller brain has nothing to do with it. It can't conceive of the new idea.

DAVID: Our more thoughtful brains have shrunk, the only example of your theory we have! We do see local enlargements. but that is an attribute of our advanced brain, no basis for applying it to previous lesser brains. Please use logic from the evidence we have.

dhw: You have already agreed that our brains have shrunk as a result of the efficiency of complexification. The evidence we have is that brains change in response to new requirements. There is no evidence that it was any different in past brains. Please use logic from the evidence we have.

DAVID: Did they have a degree of plasticity, probably, as a forerunner of ours, but a lesser ability as consistent with the earlier brain's simplicity. My view is consistent: a brain that allows the development of a spear concept will be able to create that physical spear and will not need enlargement.

Again, you used the spear as an example of the need for a larger brain to conceive it. I continue to be totally mystified by your idea of a brain that “allows” the dualist’s soul to have new ideas, and the confusion is exacerbated by your next comment:

DAVID: Level of concept must be strictly related to level of brain capacity. An earlier brain cannot conceive what a more advanced brain can conceive and create. (dhw's bold)

dhw: Now you unequivocally have the brain both conceiving and creating (I use the word “implementing”). That is absolutely fine with me, because it makes not the slightest difference whether you embrace this totally materialist belief or the dualist belief that ideas are produced by the soul – we still have the known fact that brains are altered by the implementation of ideas, whereas there is no evidence that the CAUSE of pre-Sapiens enlargement is a divine dabble or a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for periodic brain enlargement. But of course each generation builds on what were once the new ideas of its predecessors, and the same would apply to succeeding “species” of hominids and homos. They didn’t need to reinvent the spear. But someone then invented the bow and arrow. And maybe that resulted in another expansion. Neither of us can write a clear history of all this – unless you have discovered your God’s computer programme detailing which inventions caused or followed pre-sapiens brain expansion.

You continue your totally illogical idea. The soul uses a more complex brain to create more concepts and create the new needed artifact. Accept the history that bigger brains have better artifacts found with them. No relation to the older brain which you would like to explode trying to develop a new idea.