Big brain evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, January 16, 2018, 17:53 (2501 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Eventually,expansion reached its physical limit in sapiens, and so the cell communities had to find a different mode of implementation: namely, complexification.

You have no way of knowing if previous smaller brains had no ability to complexify. Based on our knowledge that evolution makes advances and builds on them, it is much more logical to assume that earlier brains did a bit of complexification while implementation occurred. I agree that the sapiens brain is smaller than originally sized and that supports the idea that evolution for humans is over, but there may be another step coming with a slightly larger or more complex brain in a subsequent human species. We can't know. Your point about a physical limit agrees with my point that current sapiens are/were God's goal all along.

dhw: NB (1) I am not taking sides. I am simply trying to demonstrate that for both the materialist and the dualist, it makes perfect sense to attribute brain expansion to the implementation of concepts rather than attributing concepts to the expansion of the brain. Fortunately, we have a clue to the feasibility of this hypothesis: we know that in modern humans, it is the implementation of concepts that changes the brain. The brain does not change in anticipation of the concepts it is asked to implement, regardless of whether the source of the concepts is a soul or a community of cells.

The false thought here is that future concepts desired in a smaller less complex brain forces expansion to a larger more complex brain. Do cell committees drive their own evolution? I don't believe it.

dhw: NB (2) Neither dualism nor materialism explains consciousness. They are both beliefs relating to the source of consciousness. And although the materialist belief is usually coupled with atheism, there is no reason why one should not believe in a God who has done precisely what humans are now attempting to do with their work on artificial intelligence – namely to create conscious beings out of materials. If humans succeed in doing so, this will not prove that conscious beings can be the product of chance.

I'll agree God at work drives evolution.