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

by dhw, Thursday, June 22, 2017, 18:31 (2709 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Yes, the brain has plasticity to mold itself to your needs, but if you/your consciousness are a separate entity which survives the death of the brain, you do not need the brain in order to develop your thoughts (mold the content of your consciousness). You only need it in order to communicate or realize your concepts in the material world of this life.
DAVID: Yes!

Dhw: You have agreed that you and your consciousness are an inseparble entity. Yes, you/your consciousness operate the brain. No, “you” do not “receive” your consciousness – according to you, it is the brain that receives the messages from you/your consciousness.
DAVID: No, I operate my consciousness through my brain.
dhw:You agree that you/your consciousness are the entity that operates the receiver brain in order to communicate or realize your concepts. What are you saying “no” to?
DAVID: Because you distort my concept. My brain is a material part of material me. I can only connect to my consciousness through the direct use of my brain by me.

The material you is your body, and yes, your brain is indeed part of your body. But according to your beliefs, your identity and your consciousness are an inseparable entity which survives the death of the body. “You” as an identity do not connect to your consciousness through the brain. The inseparable entity of you/your consciousness connects to your material body through the brain!

DAVID: I do this in a material way and connect to my consciousness in thought through the brain. I think there is a material me operating my brain and an immaterial me/consciousness I reach through my brain.

So now you have your body (material me) operating your brain. And yet you replied with an emphatic “Yes!”” when I said your conscious mind (the immaterial you) used the brain to make the body translate thought into action. But perhaps Doctor David and Philosopher David are confusing one another. If we agree that the brain is a receiver, it receives messages both from mind and from body. The mind produces the concepts and the decisions which it relays to the brain and thence to the body to put into action. But the body also produces aches and pains and needs and information which it relays to the brain, which in turn relays them to the mind, which then takes a decision and instructs the brain to organize a phone call to Dr David. So there is indeed a two-way process, but at all times – according to your dualistic beliefs - you/your consciousness are an entity which does all the thinking, operates the brain, processes the information, takes the decisions, and constitutes the conscious self which survives the death of the brain.

dhw: According to your dualistic beliefs, the brain does NOT use us/our consciousness, we/our consciousness use the brain.
DAVID: My newborn example doesn't say that. The newborn creates the shapes and forms that make his consciousness unique. He does this by operating on his consciousness through his brain.

You keep agreeing that he/his consciousness are an inseparable entity, and then you keep separating them! He/his consciousness doesn’t “operate on his consciousness”. He/his consciousness creates the shapes and forms that make him unique, and it does so by absorbing and processing the information provided by the material brain/body, largely through the senses, which are our main means of contact with the material world. (I would not like to speculate here on the degree to which our identity is moulded by our body or by our subconscious, since our discussion concerns the relationship between the brain and the entity of consciousness/self within the context of your own dualistic beliefs.) As the brain matures, and as life proceeds with its individual experiences, the amount of information accumulates and the baby/child/adult’s consciousness/identity creates its unique “shapes” accordingly. It is the inseparable self/consciousness that “uses” the information provided by the brain, and according to your beliefs retains and even uses that information when the brain and body are dead.