Evolution and humans: big brain size uses energy (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, October 27, 2017, 14:07 (2582 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The second point we have been over again and again is that your insistence on size before use (during the times before complexification took over), with its implication that the brain is the SOURCE of new concepts, runs counter to your dualistic belief that the brain is only a RECEIVER of ideas thought up by the “soul”.

DAVID: There is no implication in my thinking that the big brain is the source of new concepts. It allows them as the person/self/consciousness develops them.

As before, please explain what you mean by “allows”. It sounds like the brain saying to the “soul”: “I’ve gotten bigger now, so you can think up some new concepts.” In our earlier discussions, my point was that if there is such a thing as a “soul”, the sequence is:
BRAIN: There’s an animal, and you gotta kill it if you wanner eat it.
SOUL: Ugh, tough goin’ an’ mighty dangerous wi’ just bare hands. But I got an idea. Maybe I could make sumpun real sharp, put it on a stick an’ throw it.
BRAIN: Ain’t never done nothin’ like that before. Gotta add a few bits an’ pieces to get them muscles to make it an’ throw it.
First: Information. Second: concept. Third: brain expansion in order to implement concept.

Of course, if the brain is the SOURCE of new concepts, we need to find another explanation for how a bunch of cells can come with ideas and expand their community in order to implement them. That would be the basis of my compromise between materialism and dualism (i.e. through cellular intelligence) which, please note, does NOT exclude your God. But it's an idea I need to work on.