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

by David Turell , Wednesday, February 21, 2018, 15:03 (2465 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You are missing the two modes of the s/s/c while you describe it! In life the s/s/c and brain are interfaced in producing thought. When the brain is non-functional the s/s/c works independently on its own. Clear?

dhw: You are repeating exactly what I have said in my first sentence above! And in both modes, the dualist’s s/s/c THINKS. But in earthly life it interacts with the brain, which collects information and expresses or implements thought. Software/hardware, to use your favourite image. And NDEs, in which the s/s/c THINKS without a functional brain, are regarded as evidence that in this life the mind is a separate entity from the body (= dualism). Clear?

Accepted.

DAVID: I think the s/s/c is a quantum state as is God's consciousness, since the basis of the universe is quantum mechanics. Our consciousness is part of God's.

dhw: So you now have the s/s/c as a quantum state which does the thinking and survives the death of the brain, and you have the brain as a material mechanism which gathers information and expresses or implements the thoughts of the quantum s/s/c. And God is a quantum state. How does that support your materialistic argument that the s/s/c cannot think without a functioning brain?

Read our comments agreed to above.

DAVID: I've gone so far as agree with you God might have provided a speciation mechanism in organisms, but we have found no evidence of it so far.

dhw: You do sometimes make this concession, but when pressed you insist on qualifying it with “guidelines” (as above) and ultimately with a refusal to consider (perhaps God-given) autonomy, which is the key to my whole hypothesis. I have always acknowledged that we do not have evidence that cell communities (organisms) are intelligent enough to provide the major innovations that result in speciation (broad sense). There is no evidence of a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme or of divine dabbling either.

You are just describing your fence sitting. I see teleology and design by God.