Brain expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, June 22, 2020, 18:29 (1404 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Monday, June 22, 2020, 18:38

DAVID: It is the complexity of neuron networks that allows advanced thought.

dhw: You keep using the nebulous word “allows”, and I don’t know why you keep popping in the word “advanced”. Dualists believe there is an immaterial soul which does all the thinking.

Don't change my definition of dualism to advance your argument! In life the soul can create thought only by using the brain networks and advanced thought requires much more complex networks than in previous brains.

DAVID: We both agree to a stasis period but interpret it differently: you think a tidal wave of unrealized soul concepts forces expansion. My question is, as above, if that is true why does the appearance of those new concepts take so long?

dhw: Another travesty. Each expansion would have been caused by the fact that the existing brain did not have the complexification capacity to implement a new concept. After each expansion (up to and including sapiens) there was a period of stasis because the dualist's soul did not come up with any new concepts that could not be dealt with by the existing mechanism of complexification. The red sentence obviously has not been covered, since you are again assuming that pre-sapiens and sapiens souls should have come up with millions of new ideas immediately after expansion! Why?

DAVID: Your theory implies the ability for immediate new thought, since the brain is under your idea of a command to new thinking. I always refer to long stasis.

dhw: I don’t know what your first sentence means.

I don't know why you have a problem. Your theory, as you present, it is that brain expansion comes from the drive to have new concepts, and it requires a larger more complex brain to allow it. Logically one would expect the new thoughts to appear immediately upon enlargement, but no, we both recognize the delay (stasis).

dhw: Why do you keep restricting your God’s inventiveness? If he can invent an autonomous mechanism for complexification, why must he preprogramme or personally dabble each enlargement – the only guidelines you can offer? And why is autonomous complexification purposeful but autonomous enlargement would be without a purpose?

Complexification obviously comes with guidelines as our oversized brain was used and developed, casting off unnecessary neuron webs. How did our brain know what to safely cast off if not guided?

dhw: You have your God dabbling with a group of homos, simultaneously expanding their brains, skulls and pelvises overnight. I suggest a more gradual process, no doubt with casualties (and a lot of pain) on the way, as the pelvis responds to the need for expansion until eventually and naturally only the larger pelvis survives. We cannot reasonably expect to find fossils recording every stage of transition. Why do you find this hypothesis less convincing than your own?

DAVID: Simple. All evolution shows is full gaps with complete new forms on arrival. Forget Darwin.

See the video for today, noting all new species arrived competently designed and fully functional, no Darwain gradualism..

dhw: Every fossil was once a complete form! And every new fossil find is a sensation, because fossils are so rare. Therefore all the fossil record shows is a few dots instead of a continuous line. Of course there are gaps! Why do you find this so difficult to conceive, and yet you can imagine your God choosing a group of homos and somehow reaching into their brains, skulls and pelvises to engineer an overnight expansion?

Your thoughts are fully desperation. The gaps are real and fully recognized as a problem for Darwin thought, which you can't seem to leave behind:

The video. The fist five minutes make the point. Note Eldridge and Gould both agreed about the gaps and invented a weird punctuated equilibrium theory, that was entirely descriptive and of no real value.

https://youtu.be/aJua-0FpmnI