Brain Expansion (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, May 09, 2020, 10:58 (1447 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] the modern brain changes in response to “hard thinking”. You never answer my next question: why is it illogical to propose that the ancient brain may also have changed in response to “hard thinking”?

DAVID: I have answered without you responding that I can remember. Older brains are the antecedent forms and may well have some complexification ability resulting in slight enlargement of designated areas as our very special advanced brain does.

That is not an answer! Nobody knows why brains expanded. I am offering a theory. You have merely stated your assumption of what older brains could and couldn’t do. I am asking for a logical reason why, if brain changes are known to be caused by “hard thinking” now, they could not also have been changed by “hard thinking” then. I am focusing on the process of thought changing the brain, not on comparing the forms of change.

dhw: Your attempt to reproduce my theory is off the mark as usual. bbbA dualist would say that the soul of the homo with the smaller brain (the materialist could say the thinking part of the brain) was able to conceive – not the design but the basic idea of a new artefact (our example: some means or other of killing from a distance). The brain doesn’t wait for or force an expansion to get it manufactured. The soul (or thinking part of the brain) then begins the process of developing the idea, the design, and the manufacture.This process CAUSES the brain to expand. And we know that in the modern brain, hard thinking CAUSES the brain to respond by complexifying.

DAVID: A complete distortion of how our brain reacts to deep thought. First we know it shrank 150 cc from more concentrated thought as we learned how to use our brain over the past 35,000 years. And we know that the complexification mechanism causes that shrinkage by enlarging tiny special highly efficient areas to handle the new concepts.

Shrinkage is irrelevant, as are the past 35,000 years, to the question of WHY brains expanded! How can shrinkage be caused by expansion anyway? We agreed that the efficiency of complexification made part of the brain redundant. Stop dodging the point that our brains CHANGE IN RESPONSE TO "HARD THINKING"!

DAVID: Applying this, to invent a way that ancient brains enlarged, in not only wishful thinking, it is a distinct distortion of what we know as fact, and enters the woolly area of supposing 'anything suggested is possible'.

How can it be a woolly distortion of fact to propose that the same process whereby thought changes modern brains may also have applied to former brains?

DAVID: Our special brain undoubtedly represents similar processes from the past.

Thank heavens for this accidental admission of the logic of my theory: if our brain represents similar processes from the past, and our brain changes in response to “hard thinking”, it follows that past brains may also have changed in response to “hard thinking”.

DAVID: Your contorted imagination is seeking a natural way for brains to enlarge without God having anything to do with it.

Once again: God may have invented the mechanism.

DAVID: Your distorted mechanism is an invention not supported by any factual evidence.

No “distortion”, as repeatedly explained above. Your own theory is supported only by your faith in it (not to be confused with your faith in God).

DAVID: You are simply stating 'anything I can think of can be true'. That can apply to anyone who thinks!!! Proof???

If there was proof, my theory would be a fact and not a theory. What proof have you for your own theory that your God dabbled or preprogrammed all the expansions before they were needed?