Brain complexity: more important than size (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, November 25, 2017, 18:48 (2555 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: This resulted from the development of a larger frontal and pre-frontal cortex, ever larger with each jump of 200cc in size. The other parts basically did not enlarge.

I rely on you for the facts regarding what did and did not expand, but you are once again ignoring the fact that changes in the brain result from the implementation of new concepts. If modern research is correct, and if a similar process took place in pre-sapiens times, the implementation of new tasks resulted IN and not FROM the larger cortex.

The processes we know from modern brains is enlargement and contraction within the same skull size accommodated by the fluid layer around the brain. I assume this process existed in hominin times since evolution builds on what is newly accomplished at each stage. Your proposal does not fit this with the 200cc jumps in size and hen the new artifacts appear.

dhw: I don’t understand why if your God had already designed brains to respond to new ideas by expanding and contracting (= rewiring and complexifying) when necessary, he wouldn’t (couldn’t?) also have designed brains and skulls to expand when necessary. Once again, why should we ignore modern science (which tells us that the brain changes in response to new concepts/tasks), and instead believe that the brain and skull changed BEFORE new tasks were even thought of?

The H. sapiens brain is 300,000 years old, and in the past 10,000 years filled with an enormous number of new concepts filling huge libraries of books, and has gotten a little smaller recently. This is precisely opposite to your theory. You are also asking God to have automatic speciation instead of His stepping in. That is fine with me as He is still in complete control since He gave the hominins the complete method..

dhw:But it is perfectly reasonable to argue that such a mechanism requires design, and THAT is your strongest case for the existence of a designer (coupled, in my view, with unexplained psychic experiences).

DAVID: Thank you.

dhw: It is essential that we separate the issue of God’s existence (which I never discount) from that of how evolution works, whether God-made or not. I am the baddie in all these discussions, because without a positive belief of my own, I can only look for the flaws in other people’s beliefs. You will have noticed that I can no more accept reblak’s atheistic explanation of life and the universe than I can accept your theistic explanation.

Your agnostic position is well understood.