Big brain evolution: changes in sapiens skull shape (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, January 28, 2018, 19:28 (2489 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Sunday, January 28, 2018, 19:42

dhw: Your argument that God expanded pre-sapiens brains and only then were they able to think of new concepts is also a hypothesis. It contradicts the dualistic hypothesis that thinking is not done by the brain but by the soul.
DAVID: S/s/c (immaterial) uses brain (material) to create thought is dualistic to me.

dhw: What is the difference between thinking and creating thought? You have agreed above that the soul does the thinking and the brain does the implementing. This means that the s/s/c uses the brain to implement, not to think. Your obfuscation does not resolve the contradiction: If the soul does the thinking, it does not depend on complexification or expansion of the brain to do its thinking!

The s/s/c uses the brain to think in the living human. I view the s/s/c as software using the brain as computer. Sorry you won't accept this theory. The s/s/c using the brain sees to the implementation which obviously requires extensive planning or physical practice: throw the spear, learn to read, etc. I'm not sure what your concept of brain implementation implies, as compared to mine of 'putting into practice'.

dhw: […] in your hypothesis, God steps in and expands the brain BEFORE the relevant new concept (or if you like, before the innovative development of existing concepts) can be thought of. That means the thinking depends on the size of the brain – the exact opposite of the dualistic view that thinking is done by the soul.

DAVID: NOT SIZE OF BRAIN, but advanced complexity within the larger size of the prefrontal cortex, as stated over and over.

dhw: You keep agreeing that the soul does the thinking, and that new thoughts cause complexification: for a dualist it cannot be complexification of the brain that CAUSES thought.

Sorry. The s/s/c uses the brain as a computer and it is use of the brain which causes it to ADD complexity and shrink from new uses.

dhw: And so thought is implemented by complexification (proven by modern science)

Wrong. not thought, but use as in the newly literate example.

dhw: once the pre-sapiens brain’s capacity for implementing concepts by complexification had reached its limit, the brain needed additional cells and connections – to implement the thoughts of the soul, not to create them! (The soul thinks and the brain implements.)

See my definition of implementation above. I disagree with your theory. S/s/c software uses brain as a computer. Implementation is the bran learning to handle a new process, throwing, reading, etc., by a few new neurons and lots of connective branching.

dhw: After the pre-pre-sapiens brain had expanded, new concepts and their implementation once again caused complexification until once again the CAPACITY was unable to cope, and so once again the brain had to expand. Process repeated until we get to sapiens, whose brain cannot expand any further.

We don't know it can't expand a little further, but I agree this is most probably an endpoint which proves it is God's goal.

DAVID: Sapiens artifacts took 270,000 years to begin to appear after enlargement. Mind the gap, as in the Underground

dhw: Yes, as already explained many times: once the immediate pre-sapiens ancestor’s brain had enlarged to sapiens size in order to implement a concept, it stopped expanding. Then just as erectus spent one or two million years faffing around doing nothing special with his own enlarged brain, sapiens (according to you) faffed around for a mere 270,000 years before the geniuses appeared, and their dualistic souls came up with brilliant new concepts. But since the brain couldn’t expand any more, it complexified more and more – so efficiently that it even shrank a bit, and apparently also changed its shape. All in a smooth, totally logical sequence of cause and effect.

Why couldn't the erctus brain have some erectus geniuses around like we have to advance as quickly as we have? Your theory can't answer that, because the rapid advance like sapiens histroy requires a sapiens brain to do it. You have a theory which is entirely backwards.