Brain Expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, April 30, 2020, 20:13 (1457 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Thursday, April 30, 2020, 20:30

dhw: […] if hard thought caused shrinkage, we would not have any brain left! Our brain shrank, as you keep agreeing and forgetting, because complexification – which took over when the brain stopped expanding - proved to be so efficient that part of the brain became redundant.

DAVID: I forget nothing!!! Your explanation describes our brain as fully different and specialized compared to previous brains and hard thought shrank it a limited degree. We agree to that much.

dhw: Not “fully” different, and as regards shrinkage, please reread the bold.

The bold defines a brain different from its predecessors

dhw: […] You constantly agree that the dualist’s soul uses the brain to gather information and to implement (= design and produce) its concepts. So why would the brain need to expand if the soul is only using EXISTING information to form its new concept?

DAVID: Not my concept of new ideas. It's yours alone. A new-sized brain is built with more neurons in more complex networks allowing the soul to think more complexly to reach new designs while using known present information. Better brain first always.

dhw: Once you have the new size brain, of course it provides more information and implements more new ideas. Again you skip the issue, which is WHY the old size brain becomes the new-size brain! ... how to kill from a distance? This question requires HARD THINKING. And so from that initial idea arises the concept of a sharp tool thrown from a distance etc. until, after more and more HARD THINKING, our homo produces the artefact. HARD THINKING is known to cause changes to the brain. By the time the artefact is made, the brain has expanded.

In our brain, our only known example, hard thinking shrinks brains. You've invented a theory no one supports, but you on a natural level of discussion. For me the concept of God enlarging brains is the answer.

dhw: I’m going to skip the section dealing with your constant references to the brain’s thinking capacity, because it recurs during the following objection to my theory:

DAVID: It is not the existing information that is the vital point. The new brain knows existing information when it starts to think of a new design….

Stop right there. Our problem is why there is a new brain in the first place! You have skipped to the point at which the new brain already exists!

DAVID: …but the conceptualization of the immaterial design requires a neuronal network complex enough to have that new complex thought…

dhw: (My theory covers both the dualistic and the materialistic view of the source of thought.) According to your belief, it should be the soul that works out the immaterial design, using information supplied by the neuronal network, and the soul will then go on to use the neuronal network to give material form to the immaterial design.

Not my theory: The soul must use the existing brain neuronal network to think. More complex larger network more advanced conceptualization by the soul. If you want to use my theory, please get it correctly!

DAVID: …The new larger brain provides that neuronal complexity in the newly enlarged frontal and prefrontal lobes for the soul to think of it

dhw: So the neural network apparently has the thought without which the soul cannot think of the thought!

Still confused. The soul must use the brain to think, just as I use my brain to think.

DAVID: Remember all enlargement is in the thinking areas, and no where else.

dhw: But this does not explain why the thinking areas expanded in the first place! Back to the spear example and following your dualism: the soul uses the brain to acquire information. The idea “kill from a distance” arises out of EXISTING information.

And the design of the new weapon comes from the soul using that info, then conceptualizes a new design using the more advanced brain neuronal networks

dhw: That IS the vital point. In order for the new idea to be developed/implemented/designed/ produced, it requires NEW information. And that is how it triggers “hard thinking”, and “hard thinking” is a process which we know makes changes to the brain.

Only tiny areas!!! From that You invent a theory with no support anywhere..

dhw: Once the new brain is there, it will carry on providing information and implementing ideas until a new “big idea” comes along and demands more information than the existing brain can supply, plus new actions which also entail a learning process. So long as you ignore the importance of the old brain’s new idea based on existing information, you will continued to miss the point that a new idea or task or demand is the trigger for HARD THINKING,which is known to change the brain, and so long as you the dualist continue to attribute thought to the brain, you will continue to contradict yourself.

No contradiction if you fully understood my dualism. You still don't understand how I view my dualism: REPEAT, the soul must use brain neuronal networks to think. Your theory is based on our brain which is totally different from past brains. All we know is hard thinking shrinks our brain. For me God evolved new-sized brains. We see few evidences of massive conceptualization until we learned to use our brain in the past 50,000 years as language developed