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

by dhw, Thursday, March 08, 2018, 14:05 (2450 days ago) @ David Turell

I am combining two threads here as they deal with the same subject. Apologies for all the repetition, but as I see it, all David’s arguments hinge on the same contradiction in his thinking.

dhw: This would be fine (a) if you were a materialist, and (b) if we knew how the brain functions.
DAVID: But we do know the areas of brain activity that control functions of the body! For example we know the motor area where every part of the body has its represented parts of the bodies muscles. […]

We know what does what in some areas, but we don’t know HOW! Explain to me HOW thought takes place, and HOW thought directs the materials of the brain.

DAVID: In life we have to use the brain and its fairly specific areas. Brain, material; thoughts immaterial. Dualism in life. Dualism exists in two different circumstances.

Dualism does not exist in death! You don’t have a brain in death! It is the s/s/c, the THINKING you that exists in two different circumstances.

dhw: All the material actions you described earlier have to be directed. If the self/soul/consciousness thought up the concept, then it will also direct the implementing areas of the brain to realize the concept. It will presumably do this through the prefrontal cortex, as its material link to the rest of the brain.
DAVID: Once the cortex using the s/s/c conceives of a flint tip idea, which may involve complexification of the neuronal web and shrinkage of the cortex, implementation involves eye hand coordination with teaching the muscles and arm in hammering and shaping, a job which is controlled in the cerebellum. The cerebellum was enlarged to its present size back in Erectus times. No evidence for your theory.

So now you have the cortex responsible for conceptions and using the s/s/c! We know what implementation involves: namely, the brain giving material expression to the thought. So once again, please tell us what came up with the thought, and how instructions were passed on to the implementing sections of the brain. I have no idea why you think the cortex shrunk. On 6 March you told us: “I have shown you implementation occurs in areas that did not enlarge as the cortex did.” (My bold) Please clarify which areas of the pre-sapiens brain expanded and which did not.

dhw You keep agreeing [...] that the s/s/c plays the same thinking role in NDEs, though in a different situation, but then you revert back to the argument that the s/s/c cannot THINK without a functioning brain. That is the massive contradiction you refuse to face up to.

DAVID: Again you are putting together two different circumstances for the s/s/c. Life and death seem quite different to me. Therefore, the s/s/c interacts differently in each realm.

Repeat: the interaction is different, but you keep agreeing that the s/s/c is the same: the thinking you. In life it interacts with the material world, and therefore needs the material brain to implement its thoughts. In death there is no material world, and so it does not need the brain. It is therefore absurd to argue that the s/s/c cannot THINK without a brain. It cannot give material form to its thinking without a brain.

DAVID: …the s/s/c interfaces in life in one way with the brain and in death in a different way with the afterlife. I believe it is a quantum mechanism which carries all of its intelligence in both circumstances but may be slightly different in how it operates in both places.

And I keep agreeing with you (if we accept dualism). Of course the interface is different: one is with the material world, and therefore requiring a material brain; the other is with an immaterial world, which does not require a brain. The s/s/c remains the same: the thinking you. Therefore you can’t argue that the s/s/c cannot think without a brain.

DAVID: The s/s/c is the software for the material computer-like brain. They interface and work together as I generate thought in life. I sit here feeling my self generates the thoughts under my control. You keep separating s/s/c and brain. You can't. I am still at the point of I think therefore I am.

Yes, the immaterial s/s/c works together with the material brain, but they have different functions, and you are the one who separates them in NDEs, which are your evidence for DUALISM. The s/s/c and material body are TWO, not one, whereas materialists believe in ONE: namely there is no such thing as an immaterial self.

Dhw: So Einstein would still be a genius in an afterlife even without his prefrontal cortex.
DAVID: Of course, You’ve gotten my concept.

And so when you tell us that intelligence “springs from the s/s/c being able to use an advanced brain” you’ve forgotten your concept.

DAVID: I am a double dualist, in life and differently in death, as I've explained. I AM NOT A MATERIALIST, but I understand the brain has parts with differing functions, and that must be excepted as factual. After all, the brain is wet material and is responsive to our use as s/s/c's with its plasticity.

Of course the brain has parts with differing functions. But once again: there is no dualism in death. That is why NDEs are regarded as evidence that the soul thinks independently of the brain. If you insist that you cannot THINK without a material brain, you are a materialist. Currently you not a double dualist, you are a dualist/materialist.