Brain expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, July 19, 2020, 21:32 (1369 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I've fudged nothing. In my view each earlier form of hominin/homo brain allowed the soul to invent new thoughts/concepts only to the level the complexity of the brain allows to develop. Steady advance of artifacts with the fossils prove the point.

dhw: You are fudging the distinction between thoughts/concepts and their implementation! The dualist’s brain, as you have agreed, has two functions: 1) provide information; 2) implement the concept. The dualist’s soul can think of a new concept using existing information. But what you call the “development” of the new concept depends on the brain’s level of complexity.

What you call fudging is complete denial of my concept that the level of complexity of thought by the soul is limited by the available complexity of available neuron networks to allow advanced abstractions/concepts.

dhw: (Spear example: old brain thinks of weapon to kill from a distance; process of development from this idea to the finished article – the artefact – requires addition to existing capacity for complexification, as brain responds to new requirements. Development or implementation leads to expansion.) Steady advance of artefacts accompanying brain expansion “proves the point”. But a) new artefacts are only one possible cause, and b) the new brain could go on to produce further advances without requiring further expansion.'

Same old idea that a new idea drives complexity and also enlargement to happen/appear. As far as I have presented my arguments, the history of sapiens does not support your view.

DAVID: I'll stick with God running evolution and enlarging brains and skulls and changing pelvic measurements as necessary and all at once. The necessary enlargements that advanced us to our current stage were a total of 800 cc., about 26 ounces.

dhw: Thank you for the information. How does that explain why the sapiens brain stopped expanding?

DAVID: The brain we got was so adequate it shrunk 150 cc when active use appeared.

dhw: When you say the brain we “got”, you mean the brain God “all at once” gave to a particular group of homos at the same time as he expanded their skulls and pelvises. But for some reason, he made the brains bigger than necessary.

I've explained that, remember? The extra neuron networks and the process of plasticity allowed us to tailor our brains for our purposeful uses as they developed over time (290,000
=/- years. With the thinking capacity given, God knew we would use it in many new ways light-years in advance of prior species.

DAVID: 'Anything is possible' is a nebulous argument. Our brain dos not expand presently!!! Some neurons( microscopic size) can be produced, nothing of size.

dhw: The argument itself is not nebulous but absolutely concrete. If there are vestiges of an autonomous expansion process, the same process may have played a major role in former times. The fact that it is an unproven theory does not make it any more nebulous than the theory that there is a God, or that one morning a group of homos woke up to find that God had enlarged their brains, skulls and pelvises “all at once”.

DAVID: I'll stick with God and the evidence I have.

dhw: What evidence do you have that your God stepped in etc. as above?

Just as I have no absolute evidence for God, your position is no evidence God does not exist, which created the website.