Brain expansion (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, June 11, 2020, 10:51 (1408 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: My proposal, then: As single intelligent cells joined together in intelligent cell communities, they produced ever more “sophisticated” forms of memory, object recognition etc., much as scientists today build on the discoveries of yesterday’s scientists.
You persist in misreading my post. Nobody said that neurons were bacterial membranes. But the article says there are parallels, and from that I have extrapolated my proposal, now in bold.

DAVID: Your parallelism is an enormous stretch of a very weak theory, just because bacterial membranes can change their characteristics lightly but the bacteria are really unchanged.

You still persist in ignoring the bold and focusing solely on bacteria. Once more: bacteria have a simple form of memory. Bacteria are single cells. I propose that once single cells began to merge and cooperate, simple forms became more complex – e.g. the simple form of memory evolved into more complex forms of memory.

dhw: Cell communities respond to new requirements. If the cell communities of the brain expand, then of course the cell communities of the skull must respond. And if the skull has enlarged, then of course the pelvis communities must respond. There may well have been major problems during the transitional phases – who knows? But without adaptation to new requirements, organisms will die!

DAVID: Thank you for your non-answer! Of course they will die without designed coordination! Of course cells in each separate organ cooperate physiologically, but morphological changes are not due to cells possibly talking to each other. How does the baby's new skull size tell the mother's pelvis to enlarge?

It doesn’t! The cell communities that form the mother’s pelvis find themselves confronted with a new problem – a bigger skull. And as all cell communities do when confronted with new requirements, they adapt or die (and no doubt many do die before the process is completed)! You seem to think that the skull and the pelvis have to expand simultaneously in anticipation of the problem! That is not how adaptation works in any context.

DAVID: God gave all early immune systems, animal and man the ability to develop a library of responses. Without it no advanced life would exist.

dhw: I would say the ability to develop a library of responses demands intelligence. In previous posts, if I remember rightly, you had your God providing the library itself – this in fact is what I assume you refer to generally as your God’s instructions. This is a most welcome shift of position.

DAVID: Total lack of memory for what I have written.. God has given all organisms the ability to learn and memorize a huge library of antibodies as infections occur.

Thank you for this confirmation that your God has given them the ability to create the library for themselves, as opposed to obeying instructions set out 3.8 billion years ago or directly dabbled as and when new problems occur. The ability to do this for themselves is clearly indicative of autonomous intelligence.

dhw: Your authoritative statement that “God designed each attribute. There never was a separate attribution design mechanism” is not a fact. The question then is whether he supplies all the instructions for all the adaptations, or he gave organisms the intelligence to design their own adaptations and attributes, as above. In the case of the brain, you continue to support the idea of an autonomous mechanism for complexification, and you reject the idea of the same mechanism for expansion, although both entail the response of the brain to changing requirements. I find this illogical.

DAVID: Providing adaptability for existing organs or organisms is at an existing level of design. Creating a marked change in an organ requires more advanced design for more advanced functions. For example the erectus brain is a pale forerunner of what the sapiens brain is capable of performing. The sapiens design allowed for many extra neurons to be present for proper pruning as the complexification process did its work. Your proposal is that the erectus brain designed the sapiens brain. Really?

No, my proposal is precisely the same as your proposal for the immune system: that the existing cell communities develop a system or “library” as they learn. Each new infection is a new book. Each new experience is an addition to the “library” of the brain. There is no new design. Pre-sapiens advances required complexification of existing neurons and ultimately additional neurons (expansion) to cope with the new demands. The cell communities of the erectus brain did not design the cell communities of the sapiens brain: the sapiens brain emerged from the process of complexification and expansion of the erectus brain, and the sapiens cell communities continue (vastly) to expand their “library” through complexification (which is so efficient that some volumes can even be discarded).