Brain expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, June 23, 2020, 20:08 (1402 days ago) @ dhw

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.

DAVID: 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: Totally wrong! My theory is that brain expansion comes from the drive to IMPLEMENT the soul's new concepts, not to HAVE them. In the past these concepts would have been IMPLEMENTED by complexification until the capacity for complexification reached its limit, and so additional cells were required to IMPLEMENT the new concept. Hence expansion. The dualist’s soul can have new thoughts at any time, and complexification and enlargement are a RESPONSE to new thoughts, not the cause. Stasis resulted from the fact that there were no new thoughts that required enlargement - not surprising if homos were able to survive as they were.

Same contradiction: your soul wants new concepts to develop, but delays after the adequate new brain is present for them to reach fruition. Why the wait? We differ in the main start to this discussion. You want the soul to have thoughts without a proper sized brain to develop the thoughts. You don't and I do believe the soul in life can only create thoughts by using existing brain circuits. And we disagree constantly about implementation. Design is hard, implementation is easy in my opinion having performed those mechanism many times.

dhw: You have not answered any of my questions. Nor have you ever explained why your God would have created an oversized brain in the first place. The answer to your own question is that complexification was so efficient that certain cells were not being used, and if something is not used, it will disappear. What is your theory? God created an oversized brain and then stepped in to remove all the cells that were not needed? And would you please answer my questions now.

No His complexification mechanism ran on its own.

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

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

dhw: Thank you for this excellent video. In our context, however, the discussion is not about new species in the sense of totally new organs and phyla. The brain already existed, and expansion did not constitute “novelty”.

The point of the video is not your sidestep. Each form arrives completely designed to function completely, nothing left out for the stage reached. No aspect of adaptation found. Gaps are not explained by any natural mechanism we can think of.

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?

DAVID: 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 first 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.[/i]

dhw: As above, you have switched the discussion from the development of an existing organ to the origin of species. I disagree with you about the value of “punctuated equilibrium”, but that is a totally different subject.

No it isn't. We are arguing about sapiens' brain and how it arrived and why it is in the form it is at arrival.