Dualism versus materialism (Identity)

by dhw, Friday, July 21, 2017, 11:42 (2681 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The artifacts found with each stage of human development show advances in thought which at the same time is evidenced by a larger brain being present. You do not want to accept the logic of those findings. The artifacts must necessarily appear after the arrival of the larger brained hominin who then thought of the m ore complex artifacts.

dhw: Of course I accept the logic of those findings! What I do not accept is the illogicality of your belief that the “soul” produced the new ideas, but the new ideas were not possible without the enlarged brain! If you are right, then the only logical explanation is that the large brain was needed to IMPLEMENT the new ideas, and so yes indeed the artifacts only appeared (as opposed to their being conceived) when the large brain arrived. Ideas first, large brain and implementation second.

DAVID: A very twisted conclusion. If the artifacts appear after the brain is larger, then a larger brain is required for those ideas. Your logic: habilis thought of a spear with a stone tip, but couldn't do it until his brain enlarged as erectus! You will do anything to avoid the idea that the new brain is given to the newer species. You want the older species to a create a drive for a bigger brain as if they recognize what they do not know and cannot do!

A very twisted version both of my argument and of your own beliefs! Firstly, as a dualist you believe that the ideas are the product of the “soul” and not the larger brain, so the larger brain is NOT required for the ideas. Secondly, I am proposing that brain expansion occurred BECAUSE OF the effort to implement the idea of the spear, just as the illiterate women’s rewiring occurred BECAUSE of the effort to read. Muscles expand through exercise. They do not expand first and then we are able to exercise. My proposal is that bipedalism occurred through the effort to walk upright; pre-whale legs changed to fins through the effort to swim; fish fins turned to legs through the effort to walk; brains expanded (and later rewired) through the effort to implement new ideas. But you will do anything to promote your theory that your God made all the physical changes BEFORE organisms attempted to do something new.

Xxxx

DAVID’s comment under “the mysterious neutrino”: More evidence that the basis of the universe is quantum mechanics. What is more amazing is that big brained H. sapiens could predict the neutrino and then start to understand what they mean to the standard model. It takes the big brain, which started out 300,000 years ago not knowing what it did not know. Size first, obviously.

An astonishing conclusion from a dualist who believes that the source of thought and ideas is the “soul” and not the brain.