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

by David Turell , Friday, June 23, 2017, 01:50 (2709 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: 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!

When I am unconscious I am not connected to my consciousness. NDE's tell me that consciousness can survive death. Therefore it takes me into the afterlife, brain no longer necessary

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.

dhw: 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.

The yes is obvious. I control my body and my thoughts through my brain and I can run the motor areas of my brain to move, to talk, etc. Yes I use my brain to think immaterial thoughts That is all the yes means. What underlying meaning are you implying?

dhw: 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.

This is missing one point. I view the brain as equivalent to a computer and the consciousness mechanism it receives is the software. I run my computer. As a newborn I don't know how to control any of this, but with time I learn to use my consciousness

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.

dhw: 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 view myself, my consciousness and my brain as a seamless arrangement. The only separation is at death, or in an NDE. Dualism: my brain and I are the material side; My consciousness and I are the immaterial side, joined together by the function of the brain.

dhw: 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.

That statement seems like my beliefs, but we keep talking past each other so I wonder what difference you may be inferring.