Human evolution; sticks and stones (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, January 15, 2018, 14:07 (2504 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You summarized the process yourself, though you desperately try to forget what you wrote under “new tasks”, 2 December at 15.07: “If habilis has an idea for spears, the idea is immaterial. No brain change. Once he learns to knapp flint, attach the stone point to a wooden rod, and then practices throwing it with accuracy, there is no question his brain has enlarged with all the muscle movement and visual coordination involved.” I could not have expressed it better myself.

DAVID: No,no,no! There is an implied thought consistent with my unchanging thinking I left out in sloppy writing a quick response: "There is no question his brain [has been previously] enlarged with all the muscle movement, etc.... [Only a larger brain could permit all this new activity]." I should spend more time mapping out responses.

You said there was no brain change when our hominid had the idea. So what happened? In between his having the idea and his implementing the idea, God nipped in to enlarge the brain (or preprogrammed the first cells to pass on instructions that the brain should expand itself as soon as the soul came up with the idea). And only after the expansion did the hominid learn how to knapp flint, attach point to rod, throw etc. His brain therefore didn’t enlarge WITH the muscle movement, coordination etc., it had already enlarged BEFORE the muscle movement etc. Ah well, at least you have the concept (no brain change) preceding the enlargement, which has also been a bone of contention between us. You just reject the possibility that all these new actions might have CAUSED the enlargement.

DAVID: We had a larger brain 300,000 years ago, but the advanced artifacts only started to appear in the past 30,000 years in cave art. Your desire/push theory should have logically seen the brain produce when it appeared. Why the gap?

dhw: […] Erectus could boast of a few advances with his enlarged brain, but went on for at least a million years, and possibly even two, without any mega-changes, so 270,000 years is hardly a problem timewise. New concepts come from individuals, so it took a while for the sapiens geniuses to come along. What does that prove?

DAVID: What it proves is the new size is not used in any useful way for a gap in time. I think that happened with habilis and erectus also, Evolution builds on repeated patterns.

So the statement that the new size is not used usefully for a gap in time proves that the new size is not used usefully for a gap in time. When I tell you that pre-sapiens also had “gaps”, you tell me there are repeated patterns in evolution. Yes indeed. Species arrive, hang around for yonks without much progress, and in most cases disappear. According to you, however, it's part of the pattern for ALL species of hominid, hominin, homo to have a "gap", but "logically" sapiens should NOT have had a gap! Confusion reigns supreme.

dhw: Your hypothesis is that an unknown power named God preprogrammed each expansion or popped down to Earth to engineer them all. My hypothesis is that each expansion was the result of new ideas requiring new abilities. Another hypothesis is that each expansion resulted from random mutations. I don’t know why you consider the first of these to be any less airy-fairy than the second and third.

DAVID: I am stuck with larger brains producing improved artifacts. You want push and I see pull with God's action.

We are both “stuck” with the fact that larger brains coincided with improved artefacts. You now say (above) the soul had the idea and then God enlarged the brain so it could learn to implement the idea. This apparently is less airy-fairy than my proposal (dualistic version, but eventually I will formulate a materialistic version) that the soul had the idea, and the effort to implement the idea caused the brain to expand, as in the process you originally described with such perfect logic.