Dualism versus materialism (Identity)

by David Turell , Monday, July 24, 2017, 16:22 (2678 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: No. I'm discussing the size of brains, not the form change of limbs. Muscles respond immediately enlarging with training. Brain size jumps are gaps in the fossil record, just as leg to flipper changes are gaps in the fossil record. The gaps created by speciation do not explain how larger brains are used. Artifacts are evidence of that. Apples and oranges.

dhw: Artifacts are evidence that new ideas were implemented, and the implementation coincided with an increase in the size of the brain. As a dualist you believe that the new ideas came from the soul, not the brain. The obvious implication, then, is that it was the implementation that required the expansion, just as later in the history of the brain it was the implementation of the idea of reading that required and led to the rewiring (no “gap”, but a saltation).

Artifacts are external evidence. Habilis cannot imagine erectus' spear. Reading involves internal complex use of several parts of the brain and the brain rewires. Not at all comparable.