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

by David Turell , Friday, March 02, 2018, 00:53 (2457 days ago) @ dhw

dhw:And off you go at a tangent, talking about babies. I am putting that discussion back on the baby brain thread where it belongs. Please stick to the point. The SAME s/s/c does its thinking in different circumstances, which means that the s/s/c does not depend on the functioning brain to come up with its THOUGHTS. Yes or no?

It is not one circumstance or issue for the s/s/c. It plays two roles, one in life interfaced with the brain and one in the afterlife. The s/s/c MUST work with the brain during life and an injured brain can create a skewed appearance to the s/s/c. In the afterlife the s/s/c will be whatever it will be, not skewed.

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

dhw: What are you saying? That the s/s/c is telling the drunkard's brain not to rape the woman but the message has got garbled? (“Sorry, m’lud, but my self kept telling my brain not to do it and it misunderstood.”) Does the s/s/c of a dementia victim actually know perfectly well what is going on, but the brain doesn’t get the message? Changes to the brain, whether temporary or permanent, are known to change the thoughts and behaviour of the s/s/c, and that is evidence for materialism. /

See above for my approach. The brain is material, the s/s/c is not. A sick brain stands in the way of the s/s/c expressing itself properly. Interfaced!

dhw: […] […] it is the implementation that CAUSES complexification and resultant shrinkage, which suggests that implementation would also have CAUSED earlier modifications, such as enlargement.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: If evolution builds on processes from the past, then clearly present processes are highly likely to be the continuation of past processes, and so past brains would have been modified by implementation of concepts, just as they are today. I suggest shrinkage has come about because of the efficiency of complexification (some cells and connections are no longer required). There is no reason to suppose that pre-sapiens brains shrank, but even if their brains did complexify and shrink, that is not the point! We know they expanded. And expansion is also a modification of the brain, which suggests that the same process – implementation causes brain changes – caused expansion when the capacity was not great enough. Perhaps your dualist’s mind will now be kind enough to think why you regard this hypothesis as unreasonable, and then to use your materialist brain to give your immaterial thoughts their material expression.

You and I come from very different viewpoints about the interaction of the brain and the s/s/c. They are not resolved, but as I see it, remain very far apart. As a result I cannot accept your theory that the need to implement concepts forces the brain to enlarge. God makes major speciation changes. We have no materialistic explanation for speciation. I see a designer must be present.