Brain expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, June 29, 2020, 18:16 (1389 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: We have no idea when the idea appears or the manufacture of the new implement is performed. In archaeological dig both are found together. So all that can be said is the artifact is related to and the result of the newly-size brain.

dhw: Precisely: they are found together, and the artefact is the result of the newly expanded brain. Then comes stasis. Thank you.

Again distorting. You and I have no idea when stasis occurs related to anciently produced new artifact. We know in sapiens the stasis from 315,000 years ago to 50-70,000 years ago.

DAVID: I didn't say or believe what is in the bold.

I have quoted you!

DAVID: What I state is the soul must use the brain's neuronal networks in order to have/create thoughts while in life and attached to/part of the living person.

dhw: Yes, we agree! And I have explained how the soul uses the brain, and you have agreed. But you added “brain capacity for complex thought”. If you now wish to withdraw that, please say so and we can shake hands.

My position: Advanced thought by the soul requires the brain to have advanced neuronal webs

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DAVID: What I have described is species learn to use what they are given, and it applies to body as well as brain. Consider gymnastics as a recently developed sport, and the newly seen extreme varieties of maneuvers.

dhw: We consciously perform actions in order to use our bodies in specific ways. We can also consciously perform actions in order to train parts of the brain – e.g. memory exercises. However, when we come up with new ideas and concepts, we are not consciously trying to complexify (or expand) particular areas of our brain! We don’t even know what is going on in our brain! That is why I am flummoxed by the expression “learning to use the brain”, although in some weird way you seem to think your God expanded the sapiens brain so that we would hang around for thousands of years doing nothing with it until in some weird way we learned what we could do with it. When you come up with your theories of evolution and God in control but not in control, do you tell yourself: “Now I am learning to use my cortex and my cerebellum”?

DAVID: Silly comments. I'm well past the stasis for homo sapiens and so are you. 315,000 years ago in Morocco, they had a bigger brain, but did not know how to use it in full capacity as we do now and our forebears learned to do over time, and our teachers and parents and others taught you and I to do now. Unapproached, uncontacted, tribes in the Amazon still aren't using all of their brain capacity. I am analogically comparing the brain to learning piano playing, using an instrument, not a concept difficult to comprehend.

dhw: Mystery: in your theory, your God expanded the brain approx 280,000 years before H. sapiens made any significant progress. For some reason, you seem to think this denotes planning, and I asked what was his purpose for the period of stasis. You answered that it was for us to “learn to use the brain”. I don’t understand how you learn to use the brain by doing nothing special for 280,000 years. Stasis has followed every expansion, and I used the Amazon tribes as examples of stasis continuing even now. Learning to play the piano does not mean learning to use the brain. We use our brain in order to gather information and to implement our thoughts. We don't consciously make all the connections and complexify it! And there is nobody on earth who can use the brain to full capacity, because there is nobody on earth who can know everything there is to know or implement every thought that can be implemented.

It is your mystery alone. Of course we are still expanding our use of the brain. As for 315,000 years ago, they were using it at a simple level and bit by bit learned to use it for more complex activities. As for length of time, it is consistent with what we know about all of evolution and the time it took. I don't worry about God's reasons or His purposes. That is always your issue. As for the piano, I've learned to play as a child. You have no idea of the finger coordination that is a brain-learned process as well as the timing of the rhythm.