Brain Expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, May 23, 2020, 21:08 (1425 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You keep forgetting, as God creates a new larger brain it already contains the ability to complexify, as I'v e stated many times.

dhw: You keep forgetting that your God must have designed the mechanism for complexification in the first place. And if so, what makes you think he could not also have designed the mechanism for expansion in the first place?

Because I fully believe only God speciates.

DAVID: As I've reminded you, your autonomous brain enlargement has to include different bony parts to change also in baby skull, adult skull and Mother's pelvis. All without guidance.

dhw: Must I remind you that I gave you a full answer? But you don’t believe in cell communities that respond to changing requirements and so you ignore my answer.

Your answer doesn't work. Cell committees are made to be cooperative so life can function. They do not have the ability to design for the future. Just your wishful thinking.

DAVID: And how about telling me what specifies which parts of the brain are to be enlarged? Not autonomous if there are specifications to be followed.

dhw: More questions, instead of answering my own (now bolded)! The parts of the brain to be enlarged will be determined by the nature of the requirement. For instance, you commented on the human cerebellum:

DAVID: ...the human brain contains the ability for the cerebellum to help with language[…]. This further supports my approach to brain enlargement, that it has to be specially designed for the new processes of which it is capable. Hard thought is not capable of this result, which requires special design.

dhw: Nobody knows what hard thought can and cannot do.

It causes our brain , the only example we have to shrink. That is a fact, not woolly wishes.

dhw: […] why did you compare complexification of the brain to expansion of the muscles? Muscles don’t complexify, and the complexifying brain doesn’t expand! But I’ll tell you what: muscles (which are also cell communities) expand with repeated exercise, and I have proposed that brains expanded with the mental equivalent of repeated exercise in the form of “hard thinking”. Now how’s that for a comparison?

DAVID: Forgetting, as usual, complexifying brains shrink!

dhw; Forgetting as usual that it is the efficiency of complexification that causes shrinkage – not hard thinking. Now please explain what’s wrong with my version of the comparison you initiated?

Ignoring that complexification shrinks brains exactly from hard thought!

DAVID: Have you forgotten the zygote carries all the information for the new individual? The zygote comes from the junction of germ cells. From there stem cells take over and modify their DNA directing it into different states for different kinds of cooperating cells in the various organs. All top down creation! The genome is its own special directive community running the others.

dhw: It’s clear that whatever the process, there is a hierarchy within cell communities, and intelligent levels issue instructions to the rest, who cooperate in producing the required result. If the genome runs all the other cooperating communities, that's fine with me.

Hierarchy means top down control, not your bottom up.

DAVID: Where we recognize feedback, repeating myself for the umpteenth time, is in the appearance of methylation for minor epigenetic adaptive changes in the same species. Speciation, itself, must involve a totally different massive DNA alteration. Not by chance. And various cell committees don't have the mental design power to accomplish it.

dhw: Now guesswork takes over from science. I keep repeating that my theory is a theory. Your authoritative claim that cells don’t have the ability to design their own “evolutionary novelties” (Shapiro) is as theoretical as the claim that they do.

DAVID: But they [Shapiro’s words] are pure unproved theory as to how evolution might advance naturally.

dhw: And the proof of your theory is…?

DAVID: You sure resent my obvious down grade of Shapiro to force you to admit, it is pure theory that has not added to any new advance in understanding evolution.

dhw: I have never ever at any point in any sentence in any thread claimed that it is more than a theory. And the proof of your theory is….?

The basis of your theory is primarily wishful thinking, not based on the facts of the necessity of true mental design activity. Cooperation is not designing!