Evolution and humans: big brain size or use (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, June 14, 2017, 19:59 (2717 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Still confused. I am inseparable from my consciousness, unless my brain is useless.

I don’t know what this means. According to your belief in an afterlife, you are inseparable from your consciousness at all times, with or without a brain.

DAVID: In an NDE my consciousness survives and experiences whatever. Then my brain recovers, reconnects with my consciousness and the NDE new information is now transmitted to me as new knowledge.

But you and your consciousness are inseparable! It is you/your consciousness that had the experience, so how can the experience be “transmitted” to you/your consciousness as new knowledge? The knowledge is new to the brain, which wasn’t there!

DAVID: My dualism assumes that the brain interprets the consciousness mechanism when it returns. I use my brain as my organ of consciousness interpretation and thought.

What do you mean by your “organ of consciousness”? You keep using these nebulous terms. If you/yourconsciousness survive the death of the brain, your dualism means that it is you/your consciousness who do the interpreting and the thinking (and conceptualizing), and the brain is the organ through which you/your consciousness communicate your interpretations and thoughts to others, and translate them into reality.

DAVID: Size first, conceptual use second.

What do you mean by “conceptual use”? Another of your nebulous terms. You say later: 'Bigger brains' do not automatically give rise to more complex concepts. They allow me (all humans) to create them by my free will using the brain/consciousness relationship.” Your free will is also inseparable from you/your consciousness! So what creates the concepts (complex or not), you or your brain? I put two very straightforward points to you last time: "Your belief that consciousness and the self are inseparable and live on after death can only mean that conceptualization does not depend on the brain or its size. Yes or no? Consciousness/you therefore use the brain to translate concept into action. Yes or no?" Why do you refuse to give me a straightforward yes/no answer?

DAVID: You keep ignoring my comments about the required brain use as a hunter gatherer etc. […] Size first, use second.

There is no need to repeat the history. Hunter-gatherers go back hundreds of thousands of years, as does the use of tools and weapons, and they entail conceptualization. Do you think concepts relating to survival are not concepts? What we do not know is why the cortex expanded in the first place. According to you, God dabbled, and only then did hominins and homos have their conceptualizations. According to my alternative hypothesis, their conceptualizations led to expansions up to 200,000 years ago. After that, the size was adequate to cope with any new concepts, but then around 12,000 years ago, as new concepts mushroomed, “use” as realization of concepts exceeded capacity, and densification (which we know is preceded by conceptualization) replaced expansion.

To summarize: If concepts are the product of you/your consciousness and precede realization of concepts (which surely even you will accept), then prior to 200,000 years ago it's concept first, size second, realization (= use of concepts) third. After 200,000 years ago, size is already there, so yes, it's chronologically size first, concepts AND realization second and third, because the brain did not need to change to densification until 188,000 years later!