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

by David Turell , Thursday, June 15, 2017, 20:15 (2716 days ago) @ dhw

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!
DAVID: 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!

dhw: No, you are not there, but YOU are not unconscious! According to your beliefs, YOU and your inseparable consciousness are having the temporary experience of an afterlife in which YOU and your inseparable consciousness will live on without a brain. And so in an NDE, it is you and your consciousness who return to the revived brain and tell it what happened, so that it can instruct the relevant parts of your body to inform other people about it.

Yes, But until my brain and consciousness reconnect, I have no knowledge of the episode.

DAVID: I develop concepts by using my brain.

dhw: “Develop” is another of your ambiguities. First comes the creation of the concept, then comes the realization of the concept. You use the brain to realize it.

Calculus had to be invented by two thinking humans. That is development.

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

dhw: No need for “complex” here. Either the brain creates all concepts or it doesn’t. If concepts depend on the brain, do you believe that in your afterlife you will be incapable of conceptualization? Yes or no.

I use my brain to create concepts. Probably my self/consciousness is static, unchanging in afterlife, but following the NDE findings, has experiences.

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

Thank you. We are halfway towards agreement.

DAVID: 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: That is the whole point. The larger size was reached in stages as the brain responded to new concepts. 200,000 years ago it reached its maximum, which was able to cope until the explosion of concepts 12,000 years ago. Then came densification, which was the RESULT of conceptualization, not the cause.

The stages were a series of 200cc jumps, way more than the need for the simple concepts that developed until 12,000 years ago.

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!
DAVID: True for each jump since Lucy.

dhw: Precisely: each jump was caused by new concepts, and once the jump had been made, the size was adequate for subsequent realization of concepts until more complex concepts (now complexity is relevant) demanded new actions. Example: hominin X comes up with the concept of a spear, but this requires new manufacturing skills, new use of muscles, new calculations (e.g. weight and balance)…and in order to make concept into material reality the brain responds by expanding, whereas 12,000 years ago it had to respond by densifying.

I agree in order to develop new athletic ability and new manufacturing skills a more useful larger brain was needed. Therefore a new species with 200cc more was provided and that extra size allowed for the development of these newly required mental and physical skills. I'm still with God doing the speciation.