New Miscellany 1: Inventing God, our brain (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, June 17, 2025, 12:44 (10 days ago) @ David Turell

Inventing God

DAVID: I assume, as you must, that any discussion of God accepts that He created our reality which means He controlled evolution, a messy way to achieve His goal, us. Recognize evolution has a directionality toward the more complex and we are the most complex with our brain.

dhw: It does not mean he controlled evolution! Nor does it mean that he started out with the single goal of creating us plus food. When will you stop presenting your view of a messy inefficient designer as a fact instead of the illogical and God-insulting theory of your own invention.

DAVID: If my God created everything He must have controlled evolution!!!! What are you smoking? Major evolution is over. We are the logical endpoint with our amazing brain.

There you go again! If your God decided he wanted to create a free-for-all, he deliberately sacrificed control. The prime analogy is human beings, to whom you say he gave free will. You have also included murderous bacteria and viruses. He could have given the same “free will” or autonomous intelligence to the original cells, enabling them to make their own physical adjustments and improvements in response to new conditions. You stated earlier that evolution was over and you were then forced to retract such a ludicrous prophecy. Now it’s “major” evolution. That still doesn’t mean that your messy, cumbersome, inefficient version of God started out with the one and only purpose of designing us plus food, and therefore designed 99.9 out of 100 species that had nothing to do with us. I don’t smoke. But I do offer alternatives, which you reject on the grounds that they endow him with thought patterns and emotions like ours, although you agree that he may well have thought patterns and emotions like ours.

DAVID: Back you go to a weak humanized God who must experiment, which experimentation gives Him new ideas! He must have a free-for-all to see 'unexpected results'. Not the all-powerful God I envision.

Not “must” but wants to – in contrast to your inefficient God who only wants to create us but, in spite of his omnipotence, “must” first create and then get rid of 99.9 out 100 species that have nothing to do with us. We have long since discussed your own “humanizations”, including enjoyment, interest, desire for recognition and worship, love. Do you really want to go over all that again?

The Bible

DAVID: I am using the accepted conceptual form of the Biblical God.

And:
DAVID: I use the interpretation in the book: "In the beginning of" by Judah Landa, 2004, 178 pgs.

dhw: Since he offers no support for your theories, why did you even mention him?

DAVID: I told you current Jewish thinking softens the OT's God you reject as I do.

And you told us that Landa only retranslated Genesis. Are you now telling us that current Jewish thinking excludes the Flood, the commandments to kill non-Jews, and the constant demand for worship? Does it pick and choose which parts of the Bible are God’s word? And please tell us which parts of the Bible you are using to inform us about your illogical and insulting theory of evolution, or about your God’s inability to control the murderous bacteria and viruses he created.

Introducing the brain: real or imaginary

dhw: I’d have thought it was obvious that the “real” level processes information from outside, and no such process is needed for the “imaginary” level. But which part of the brain is watching the fusiform gyrus to tell us that it’s working at different levels?

DAVID: The frontal cortex.

dhw: It always surprises me that in spite of your belief in dualism (as opposed to materialism), you constantly support the theory that consciousness arises from the materials of the brain.

DAVID: Your usual confusion. The brain receives consciousness in various parts of the brain. This research tells us where.

So the frontal cortex is not watching the fusiform gyrus and is not telling us anything. That was the whole point of my question. According to your dualism, our consciousness is the immaterial "us" or self which receives information from the brain, processes that information, and directs the brain accordingly. How else could “we” (our conscious self) live on after death, as you believe from your study of NDEs? And of course, you may be right. But you keep contradicting yourself.

DAVID: Repeat "Did the environmental challenges to our survival require such a brain, as per Darwin? No, it is overkill." Please answer.[/i]

You obviously did not understand my first answer. It is yes: whatever caused our brain to expand in the first place would have been connected with our survival (maybe a new discovery or invention or response to new conditions). The new cells would have continued to be used for these purposes for many generations, but there came a point (in relatively modern times) when our knowledge, experiences and requirements led us into fields no longer restricted to survival. And because our brain could not expand any further, the SAME cells complexified, whereas in pre-sapiens stages of human evolution, new cells were required to meet new requirements. Complexification of existing cells is not a “de novo” creation.