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

by dhw, Tuesday, February 27, 2018, 10:41 (2459 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: There are two different stages and what you call “interfaces” but only one s/s/c! In life the s/s/c requires a functional brain so that it can acquire information, implement its thoughts, and “interface” with the material world. In death (according to NDEs) it acquires information (presumably by psychic means) and “interfaces” with whatever world the afterlife consists of. In both cases the s/s/c is you and it does the thinking. That is why in dualism the s/s/c does the thinking and the brain does the implementing.

DAVID: Agreed. However, I conceive of an s/s/c which has two constructions or forms, one interfaced with the brain and the other separated in NDE's or death.

There is no “however”. You keep agreeing that the self/soul is the immaterial thinking/conscious YOU. The immaterial thinking/conscious YOU interfaces with the material brain and the rest of the material world in life, and in death the immaterial thinking/conscious you interfaces with whatever world the afterlife consists of. I can’t see much point in your having an afterlife if you are no longer the thinking/conscious you. Can you?

dhw: The brain and body produce the artefacts, and the s/s/c produces the concepts of the artifacts. In implementing concepts, we know for a fact that the brain modifies itself (and in Homo sapiens, complexification is so efficient that it also shrinks the brain.) Nobody knows what caused enlargement, but there is no reason to suppose that the process of brain modification would have been the absolute reverse in pre-sapiens – i.e. that the brain was modified BEFORE new concepts were conceived and implemented.

DAVID: You have no reason. I say God did it.

“God did it” is not a reason! I offer the drive for survival and/or improvement as the reason for evolutionary innovation, and I acknowledge that your God may have invented the mechanisms that enable evolution to take place. We know for a fact that the brain is modified (complexifies with a degree of resultant shrinkage) by implementing new concepts. Yes or no? You say your God reversed the known process of brain modification by modifying (in this case enlarging) the pre-sapiens brain BEFORE there was a reason to do so. Why would he do that if he has already designed a mechanism whereby the s/s/c does the thinking and the brain modifies itself by implementing the thoughts of the s/s/c?

dhw: You believe that you, the s/s/c, CAN think without a living brain, as explained above (NDE's). Your material brain does not “allow” you to think: it provides information for you the s/s/c to think about, and it “allows” you the s/s/c to express/implement these thoughts materially, which is the essence of dualism (= mind and body are separate, though they work together), as you have agreed a thousand times.

DAVID: I see it differently and experience it differently than your statement. My brain does 'allow' me to think. Unless I am attached to my brain I will have no thoughts I am aware of, which is why I think the s/s/c has two forms as discussed above.

Your dualist’s s/s/c has one form but is capable of thinking in two different worlds (as discussed above). If you are not yourself and do not have thoughts you are aware of in the afterlife, you might as well be dead.