Brain expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, July 08, 2020, 18:58 (1381 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: The Moroccan fossils did not have any newly advanced artifacts, which destroys your theory of expansion by implementation. thank you for the admission.

dhw: For approximately the fourth bolded time, nobody knows what the requirements were. We took artefacts as an example because they are the only material evidence we have. Do you really expect me to know precisely what events, discoveries, concepts preceded each expansion over the last two million-plus years?

Right. All we have is timed fossils and timed artifacts. As for your bold, God speciates and our brain is His creation.. I expect nothing from you except to accept the facts about sapiens over the past 315,00 years. Little happened until the past 50-70,000 years. Big brain followed by little new uses (stasis as we have defined it).

dhw: I am only puzzled by your idea that God fiddles with brains, skulls and pelvises overnight, and also gave us more neural networks than we needed.

To allow us to develop our own uses on our own, He gave us extra neuron networks and put automatic plasticity and complexification processes in our brain to handle the changes. Common sense interpretation of what God did.

DAVID: Fully explained and you seem to accept it above in bold. I agree 'we didn't do it', the brain did it with God's implanted mechanism.

dhw: Excellent. That is the theistic version of my theory: God implanted the mechanism of cellular intelligence, which autonomously engineered/engineers expansion, complexification and shrinkage. Agreement at last. Goodbye to divine dabbling. Except that you insist on continuing the argument as if you hadn’t agreed.

I haven't agreed at all. The mechanisms in the brain follow specific informational instructions from God.

dhw: Yes, our brains have plasticity. And I have no idea what free will has to do with the expansion of the brain, since “we” do not consciously organize complexification, expansion or shrinkage. I don’t know what reasonable thought has led you to conclude that God did a dabble for each expansion although he gave the modern brain its own autonomous mechanism for complexification and shrinkage and “adding ability”.

Our brain is the endpoint of evolution. No need for further changes

DAVID: Simple: God runs evolution and its history tells us what He decided to do.

dhw: History tells us that the brain expanded, and you have agreed that the modern brain has a mechanism for autonomous expansion, complexification and shrinkage. It is therefore not unreasonable to propose that the ancient brain had the same mechanism, though shrinkage did not apply because expansion was the necessary new development.

Where did our 'autonomous brain expansion' come from? We can make some new neurons in the hippocampus but our brain has shrunk over time. Never expanded and never will. As above, no further evolution expected.

dhw: Under “brain complexity”: "A lot of people don't realize that the brain is made up not just of nerve cells, but also cells that keep the brain healthy, and even the space in between cells is packed with fascinating interactions."

dhw: A nice way of describing the cooperation of cell communities which lies at the heart of Shapiro’s and Talbott’s and my own proposal concerning how evolution works, including that of the brain.

DAVID: My counter thought is the cells all perform under God-given instructions.

dhw: So have you now abandoned the divine dabbling theory and gone back to your 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every evolutionary change past, present and future?

How God offers the instructions is always debatable. How do you think God does it?