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

by David Turell , Thursday, March 01, 2018, 01:17 (2458 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Once again, you ARE your self/soul, you don’t “reach” your self/soul! And your thinking “self” is the same in life as in NDEs, as you are about to acknowledge:

I ( the physical me) can't be in contact with reach) my s/s/c if I am in coma like Alexander.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: I am dead and my s/s/c is active, and I theorize it has two forms, one in life and one in afterlife. Same s/s/c but slightly different in how it interfaces with where it is.

dhw: Yes, the SAME s/s/c. Of course the manner in which it interfaces with the afterworld is different. It no longer has a material body with which to speak, observe, make material movements, objects, implementations. SAME s/s/c, different circumstances. You’ve got it! And so we return to the obvious fact that if it’s the SAME s/s/c which thinks independently of the material brain, it makes no sense to argue that the s/s/c depends on the material brain to come up with its THOUGHTS. In life the s/s/c USES the material brain to IMPLEMENT its thoughts, as you keep agreeing and then disagreeing, though saying the same thing in different words!

We are back to the same takeoff point. The baby stars as a blank slate at birth. Yes, there is a genetic input to come, but as the brain develops the child develops its own particular construction of a s/s/c. The two must work together and advances in the s/s/c must wait until brain development is ready for each step.

DAVID: The brain has no built-in mechanism for enlargement that has been demonstrated. Only complexification with accompanying shrinkage has been shown.

dhw: Agreed. But since the only process of brain modification that we know of is concept first, implementation/modification second, why assume that in the old days modification preceded conceptualization?

Why not? Our current iteration of Homo is built on past advances and processes. You are imagining something for which there is no evidence. As with newborns concepts wait for brain development first.

David’s comment (under “mental illness perspective”): this research demonstrates the obvious, how the s/s/c must depend on a properly functioning brain. An improperly functioning brain results in a skewed s/s/c. Just as a normal s/s/c must depend on a normal brain, advanced conceptualization must have an advanced complex brain with which to work.

dhw: I have already drawn attention to the fact that disease, accident, drugs, alcohol etc. can change a person’s s/s/c, which is prime evidence for MATERIALISM.

No it isn't. It changes the brain's ability to receive and express the s/s/c properly. The interface is damaged.

dhw: It contradicts the dualistic theory that the s/s/c controls the brain.

IT doesn't control the brain. The s/s/c is a software program that uses the brain to express itself.

dhw: This does not in any way alter the fact that we KNOW modern thoughts/ideas/concepts RESULT in modifications to modern brains. The modifications do not precede the concepts.

Remember you are discussing a sapiens brain which suddenly appeared quite enlarged, and then did nothing for 250,000 years. Concepts could only arrive as we learned to use the newly complexified prefrontal cortex.

dhw: You therefore have no reason to assume that this process was reversed in pre-sapiens times. But yes, conceptualization (it doesn’t have to be “advanced”) does depend on a material brain for its material implementation. And the only evidence we have is that it is the implementation that CAUSES complexification and resultant shrinkage, which suggests that implementation would also have CAUSED earlier modifications, such as enlargement.

Again twisting the only evidence we have which is shrinkage, which could more likely have occurred in Erectus. Evolution builds on processes from its past.