Brain Expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 15, 2020, 21:28 (1471 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: We both used the spear example. Why do you think your God expanded the brain by 200 cc if whatever example you choose did not require it?

You have taken a very narrow view of human evolution, as we discuss a spear. Lucy had a tiny brain, slightly larger than Chimps. Habilis is the very first tool maker, with brain sizes bigger than Lucy: "Their average brain size was about 45% greater than Australopithecus, and 25% greater than Paranthropus. H. habilis appears to have had an expanded cerebrum, unlike australopithecines, specifically the frontal and parietal lobes which govern speech in modern humans."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_habilis

The stone age stopped 10,000 years ago. Habilis had a somewhat developed cortex and frontal lobe which permitted him to learn how to shape sharp stones for scrapping. Some theoretical immaterial analytic thought involved for the first time. What expanded habilis' brain over the million of years from Lucy and intervening species? How much real thinking could Lucy do?

And then you also have a problem of tying artifacts to brain size:

"Because more complete fossil heads than hands are available, it is easier to model increased brain size in parallel with the rich record of artifacts from the Paleolithic Period (c. 3.3 million to 10,000 years ago), popularly known as the Old Stone Age."

https://www.britannica.com/science/human-evolution/Increasing-brain-size

We are debating at your level of looking for a natural way to expand hominin brains. Why is the expansion only in the frontal lobe cortical area? Looks like God's purposeful activity to me.

dhw: So do you believe that today’s brain has to complexify BEFORE the designer can have his new idea?

DAVID: No. it is set up from 315,000 years ago to handle the immaterial imagination of advanced designs.

dhw: So the designer has his idea before the brain changes (here = complexifies). Thank you. That is the nub of the argument. The initial idea precedes the brain change. It is the “advanced design” or development of the idea that causes change.

You may have convinced yourself that thinking of abstract concepts cause brain enlargement, but nothing I've written above or copied comports with that. Our present brain enlarges from learning something, and the special Einstein evidence is neutral, and can be easily argued, he was born that way, from all the evidence of his early schoolchild years.

dhw: According to you, the dualist, it is NOT the brain that conceptualizes! It is the soul that uses the brain to conceptualize, and the brain’s function is to supply information and to implement the concept.

Please learn my real concept, which is not changed. It is the advanced complexity of the larger brains neurons and their organization in special circuits in the prefrontal cortex which gives the soul the ability to create advanced conceptualization.

dhw: If you mean the soul can only conceptualize within the parameters of the information supplied by the brain, then you have your own example of the spear: existing information = bison – meat – close-up killing dangerous – better find way of killing from a distance. THAT is the initial concept within the existing parameters of information. And the rest follows as above (EFFORT - EXPANSION). Now tell me why that is not logical, even if you don’t believe

Twisting what I believe offers you no help. Existing information has to be analyzed in immaterial thoughts to then reach a conc ept of how to use that information in a new design.

dhw: […] You already agree that there must be a mechanism for complexification and minor expansion without your God's intervention.

DAVID: Yes, in our current brain He gave us to use.

dhw: That’s fine with me. So once more: if your God gave us a brain mechanism that now complexifies and expands in certain areas without his intervention, how can you discount the possibility that the same mechanism would have expanded the earlier brain for the same reason: that brains must change in order to perform new tasks?

But my God didn't do that. Our present brain is a marvelous gift from Him way beyond previous evolutionary iterations. Ask Adler!

And remember, any consideration of Darwin's survival theories raises the issue of why are we here at all? The other forms, apes, etc. did just fine until we began to hurt them, recently.