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

by David Turell , Friday, June 16, 2017, 21:01 (2715 days ago) @ dhw

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

dhw: Of course you do! It was you and your inseparable consciousness that consciously lived through and remember the episode. That is the whole basis of your belief in an afterlife in which the brainless you is still you! But until the reconnection with the brain, you and your inseparable consciousness have no way of communicating your knowledge of the episode to other people.

Yes to your version. Or become aware of it to my wakened self.

dhw: And if you/your consciousness are a separate entity from your brain, as you believe, and you/your consciousness do the thinking, the activity of the brain can only be in response to the thinking, because according to you the brain is the RECEIVER of consciousness.

Yes to your version.

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

dhw: Conceptualizing means forming ideas. Some NDE patients return with a totally different attitude towards life, and if experiences change attitudes, then clearly they are the trigger for new ideas.

But only after the NDE is over and subject to wakeful analysis.

dhw: Do you think you will have experiences in your afterlife without responding to them? How can you still be you and yet be a zombie?

Once settled into afterlife I don't think there are any new experiences, just some telepathic communication with others, without advancing concepts.

dhw: In other words, the larger brain was needed in order to realize the concepts, just as rewiring is needed for more modern concepts. But rewiring is the result of the need, whereas you claim that enlargement is preparation for the need. It’s precisely the same argument as your claim that pre-whales and pre-humans underwent divine surgery before entering the water or descending from the trees, instead of responding to the demands or opportunities resulting from changes in the environment.

Right. All an external drive from God.

dhw: God has his role in both scenarios. In my proposal, he would have invented the mechanism through which organisms are able to change themselves by adaptation and/or invention according to need or opportunity. Legs to flippers/bent to upright AFTER entering the water/descending from the trees, until they reach their final form; larger brains AFTER new concepts until they reach their final size. Then densification when size is no longer adequate.

So we are back to chance or design, only in your version God provides a magical inventive system that does all the amazing modifications by itself. Bigger brains BEFORE concepts from IM foresight. So design still must come from God by proxy.