Brain expansion (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, July 23, 2020, 08:43 (1372 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Are you now claiming the older smaller brain starts the process of implementation? If that is so, explain sapiens stasis in artifacts for 270,000+/- years. You haven't, and this denies archaeological evidence which always finds new artifacts with bigger brained fossils.

dhw: I have explained it a dozen times! Firstly, artefacts are the only concrete evidence we have of advances, but other concepts might have been the cause of each expansion (A way of coping with changes in the environment would be one obvious alternative). Secondly, after whatever concept caused the expansion to sapiens size, there were no new concepts that demanded any change - hence stasis. Prior to sapiens, if new artefacts were found with bigger brained fossils, then maybe it was the creation of the new artefacts (the implementation of a concept thought up by the smaller brain) that caused the brain to become bigger!

DAVID: The only evidence we have is artifacts. As for environment they used caves at first. So no help there, as housing appeared much later for sapiens. I'll stick with Go/d doing the enlarging.

I have just said (now bolded) that artefacts are the only concrete evidence we have. Coping with changes in the environment is not confined to living in caves – but it is pointless trying to pinpoint specific events that would have triggered the expansion. NOBODY knows the cause, and so there is no theory that can provide conclusive evidence. And I wonder how many specialists in the field subscribe to your theory of an overnight divine dabble.

dhw: It is the implementation of the new idea that causes expansion, just as the implementation of new ideas and requirements causes complexification in the sapiens brain.

DAVID: I realize that implementation requires design and planning and then production, and in my view requires a more complex brain to allow the soul to do that implementation.

Agreed. And I propose that it is the process of implementation of new ideas and requirements that causes the modern brain to be more complex, and earlier caused it to expand, whereas you presumably agree that implementation causes the modern brain to be more complex, but you propose that in earlier times your God had to step in and dabble the expansion BEFORE the dualist’s soul could come up with new ideas and requirements.

DAVID: Self-tailoring is obviously refinement of what we were given and we got rid of extra neuron networks, as history tells us, as unnecessary. Very obvious.

dhw: I know we got rid of the extra, unnecessary neurons. Did we use them or didn’t we use them? You say we didn’t (there was stasis, and only when we started getting new ideas did the 150 cc disappear), so why do you think your God gave them to us in the first place during that remarkable night when he stepped in to perform simultaneous operations to expand the brains, skulls and pelvises of Mr and Mrs Pre-Sapiens and their tribe?

DAVID: I'll repeat., again: To allow us to use the brain as we wished so that the eventual brain would exactly fit our uses.

So God gave us what we needed plus 150cc extra. We didn’t use the extra (270,000 years of stasis) but it “allowed” us to think what we wanted to think. Perhaps I shouldn’t ask you how our not using it “allowed” thoughts we didn’t have, or thoughts we did have after 270,000 years, when it still wasn’t used and therefore disappeared. Perhaps I should just leave you to think what you want to think.