Evolution and humans: recent cave studies (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, June 18, 2017, 22:17 (2713 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Have palaeontologists proved that a 200 cc (average) increase occurred BEFORE improved artefacts appeared, as opposed to the appearance of improved artefacts coinciding with a 200 cc (average) increase?

What paleontologists find is that with each change in frontal brain size the early homos do more complex things like stone tools, conquering fire, wearing hides, etc. Each step in size works this way.

dhw:I don’t understand your reference to shrinkage and smaller steps. I thought shrinkage only started to occur 12,000 years ago, when the maximum size had long since been reached, and so densification took over from enlargement.

Increasingly intense use over the past 50,000 years resulted in densification and shrinkage when the usage of the plastic brain became intense enough. Early usage was obviously not that intense, and nothing happened except which each new +200cc fossil the obviously had more mental ability, which it then had to learn at that new stage

dhw: We should also be quite clear about your own theory. Are you saying that at regular intervals, your God dabbled with the brain, increasing its volume by 200 cc (average), and only after each increase were humans able to come up with new concepts?

Yes

dhw: If so, how does this fit in with your belief that concepts are the product of the conscious self, which is independent of and survives the death of the receiver brain?

Because I view the brain as a material computer receiver of the software consciousness, and I am the operator of that setup, just as you sit at your computer and compose thoughts to me. I know the software (consciousness) can separate from me in NDE's, and therefore at fully realized death. It all fits what we know.

dhw: I’d better repeat that I am basing these arguments on YOUR beliefs. I remain undecided between dualism and materialism.

I understand.