Brain Expansion (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, April 25, 2020, 14:13 (1455 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Why can't you envision self-learning with a new instrument? Developing new info (your mantra) and new simple concepts exchanged with others.
DAVID: Addendum: all that new use and learning from each other adds nothing to size until the next jump.

dhw: Precisely – as now bolded below in the reply I gave you:
dhw: I like your explanation. So why do you make such a fuss about the gap between sapiens’ new brain and the great leap forward? It fits in with my proposal and with the pattern of all phases between expansions: I called it stasis, but let’s say comparative stasis*** – just minor matters for thousands of years until the next big idea causes expansion (earlier phases), and minor matters for 260,000 years before the great leap forward (sapiens)

***Note what stasis refers to. Not the absurdity below (marked ***).

DAVID: […] simple acceptance that new brain size causes new artifacts is seen in all the articles. […]

dhw: [...] my theory concerns the FIRST artefacts, which would have entailed the “hard thinking” leading to expansion;bb nobody can possibly tell whether that took place after the brain had expanded.bb

DAVID: The obvious conclusion by all written is the artifacts represent creation by the current brain size found. Your bold is a contortion of reasoning generally accepted. Raising a possibility doesn't prove your theory.

The articles don't deal with the cause of expansion! Do give us a reason for expansion which is “generally accepted”. Your God’s 3.8-billion-year old programme for brain expansion plus the whole of evolution? Or successive divine dabbles? (“Damn, wrong size again!” said God.)

DAVID: No your imagined theory cannot be invalidated. There are no facts supporting it and none refuting it, because it is all in your imagination etc.

dhw: The ONLY facts we have show that the modern brain changes as a result of “hard thinking”. It is therefore reasonable to argue that earlier brains might have followed the same process.

DAVID: It is fine to come up with possibilities. A weak theory if that is its only basis, comparing our tiny enlargements in a much more sophisticated brain with much less sophisticated.

I am not making comparisons. Modern brains change in response to “hard thought”. It is therefore possible that earlier brains did the same, but with their smaller capacity were less complex and needed to expand on a larger scale than ours.

DAVID: God not needing to intervene, means God, in your terms, created a perfect brain expansion program of about 200 cc each stage, with perfect pre-programming. That fits my pre-programming proposal. Fine. We are together, finally, that God perfectly pre-planned evolution.

dhw: It means no such thing! Three weeks ago (see your theory of evolution) even you rejected preprogramming as “minor”!

DAVID: I've explained my muddle about God's handling of evolution above.

I’m afraid your muddle does not add any credence to your own theory, and it continues into your absurd representation of mine, as below (marked ***).

DAVID: Your concept above is backward. Visualizing the design is always the key. […] Implementation requires no advanced thought, just manual activity with brain direction.

dhw: There is nothing backward, but simply your refusal to read what I write.
I went on yet again to present a definition of “implementation” which has been totally ignored..

DAVID: As I read your prose, all it tells me is the smaller previous brain immaterially thought of the artifact, which to me means visualized it, and that forced a 200 cc enlargement…..

Once again you ignore what I write, so let me repeat it with a bit more emphasis: small brained homo’s initial concept: KILLING FROM A DISTANCE. Not visualizing it, and no, no, no, the initial concept does not force an enlargement. What forces the enlargement is the process of DESIGNING, WORKING OUT THE DETAILS, LEARNING TO RECTIFY MISTAKES and also making it, because while our homo is making it and trying it out, there will be NEW INFORMATION which will require MORE of that you call “hard thinking”, and it is the “hard thinking” that causes changes – in this case expansion – to the brain.

DAVID:…. the new species waited awhile (your stasis)*** and then put it together easily because of the new complex enlargement.

Crazy! Once the new artefact is made, we have a newly enlarged brain. There then follows a period of thousands of years when there are only minor developments which, as you said yourself, “add nothing to size until the next jump”. THAT is the STASIS! (You fussed about the gap between the launch of sapiens’ brain and the 260,000 or so years of STASIS that followed. I explained it.)

DAVID: Thus archaeologists find brain and artifacts timed together. You've innvented a possibility that is not based on any interpretations I've seen or had myself for 50 years. I fully reject it.

Of course the brain and artefacts are timed together. The FIRST artefacts could not exist until the brain had finished expanding. I would also fully reject a theory as idiotic as the one you have just invented. Now please explain to me why it is unreasonable to assume that if changes to the modern brain are the RESULT of hard thinking, changes to the ancient brain might also have been the RESULT of hard thinking.