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

by David Turell , Friday, February 23, 2018, 22:12 (2463 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: You say you are a dualist and believe in the existence of the “soul”. So why do you continue to cling to neuroscience which is confined to what is material? The articles you quote always cover activities in the brain. They cannot tell us whether those activities CAUSE our immaterial attributes or respond to them.

The only studies available to tell us where different parts of our conscious thinking resides is from methodological materialist scientists. Your point is obvious.

DAVID: Agreed that there is development and then further complexification.

dhw: But material development itself has initially come about through the need for expression/implementation. It’s an on-going process: immaterial thought/concepts etc. (whether complex or not) come before material change – the exact opposite of your theory that brain complexity comes before complex thought/concepts etc..

I have a different view: the human brain development is part of the embryology leading to an adult form from birth. At an average 25 that development is complete. As above, of course the prefrontal area responds to thev rest of one's life and modifies.

DAVID: I must use materialism type science to study how the brain and the s/s/c combine. I have presented the science finding regarding age 25 and risk taking. All sorts of so-called brain impaired crimes are defended on that basis for no good reason I can see. I think at last you understand how I think the s/s/c and brain work together.

dhw: It is you who keep insisting that thought depends on a fully functioning pre-frontal cortex. If you now agree that the s/s/c does the thinking, the brain provides information and expresses/implements the thoughts of the s/s/c, the brain changes as a result of implementing the concepts, wishes, emotions, ideas etc. of the s/s/c, thought therefore comes before brain change, and consequently it is absurd for a dualist to argue that the brain has to expand before the s/s/c can THINK new thoughts, then we will have agreed on how the s/s/c and the brain work together.

We will never be together on this point. The brain provides the substrate or mechanics for thought. s/s/c is the immaterial software.