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

by David Turell , Saturday, June 24, 2017, 19:29 (2710 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: This discussion, like so many, is now going round in circles or shooting off at tangents, and so I will try to summarize the central points.

dhw: These two theories are contradictory. While bearing in mind the distinction between immaterial ideas and the material implementation of those ideas (which entails an inseparable relationship between mind and brain), perhaps you would just clarify for us which of these two conflicting views you hold: 1) the brain is the source of the mind, which depends on the brain for its capacity to think; 2) the brain is not the source of the mind, which produces its immaterial thoughts, ideas etc. independently of the brain.

Neither: based on NDE's the brain receives an independent consciousness mechanism which is immaterial and from infancy learns to use and shape it from a blank slate to an operative mechanism. The computer analogy is not entirely accurate, but as I learn to operate my brain and its consciousness, the brain has the physical ability to modify itself to fit my actions both physically and mentally. Current computers due learn from experience and do some self-modification. I don't care what materialists or dualists think. This is my view.

To go back to hominins, each enlargement of the brain allows greater mental capacity, since it is the thinking pre-frontal and frontal areas that enlarge. The physical areas such as the laryngeal control regions develop as the larynx moves caudally to allow language to develop. the whole process reaches a pinnacle in Neanderthal and sapiens. Physical controls as for spear throwing and running arrive as the shoulders an pelvis change from ape like to human like.

But where you are totally confused is in the recognition that habilis does not know what it does not know. Its demonstrated concepts in its artifacts show what it was capable of producing. This is true at each stage of brain case enlargement. When intense conceptualization arrives, the brain responds by increased density, complexity and a small amount of brain case shrinkage. And this only happened after we civilized enough in the past 50,000 years to use our brain intensively. That had to be learned, obviously, and the lesson can be applied to previous ancestors. That pattern of development must be present since Lucy who was physically changed but had the same brain size as chimps. You want internal drives for development to avoid God operating externally. And you will scoot back to maybe God provided an internal mechanism. God is not 'maybe', and I don't believe you have any valid mechanism for evolution, since you have abandoned Darwin and chance. Planning is required for the gaps I've demonstrated from the studies. Modify a building for new function and you have to hire an architect to plan it out, the structure, the plumbing, the wiring, all coordinated. Organismal bodies are exactly the same. Is there any other way? Of course not.