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

by David Turell , Thursday, June 15, 2017, 02:00 (2717 days ago) @ dhw

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

dhw: 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!

When my brain is not there, I am not there! Remember I'm unconscious in an NDE. My consciousness if off by itself having experiences which when my brain revives and can receive my consciousness, I then learn about the episode! Not before!

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.

dhw: So what creates the concepts (complex or not), you or your brain?

I develop concepts by using my brain.

dhw: 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?

The ability to create complex concepts does depend on brain size in the frontal and pre-frontal areas

dhw: Consciousness/you therefore use the brain to translate concept into action. Yes or no

Yes.

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

dhw: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.

What you miss is 90% of the mushrooming (your term) is 12,000 years old, which gives no reason for the larger size back 200,000 years ago. Instead with heavy use the brain shrunk as it densified.

dhw: 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.

Each successive hominin had jumps in size like the one you describe below. Size first concepts second with each jump.

dhw: 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!

True for each jump since Lucy.