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

by dhw, Monday, March 12, 2018, 11:15 (2446 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Your definition of dualism is not mine which is why we keep arguing. In life the brain and the s/s/c are inextricably intertwined and work together.
dhw: There is no difference in our definitions! You keep agreeing that the s/s/c does the THINKING, is the same in life as in death, and in life works together with the brain, which gathers information and gives material expression to thoughts.
DAVID: I have not said the s/s/c is the same in life and death. See below.

We have been having this same discussion for months, and so on March 2 I tried to pin your down:
dhw: If NDEs are to be believed, the s/s/c plays the same role in life and in death: it is the thinking, experiencing, remembering, decision-making YOU. Yes or no?”
David: Yes.

dhw: I have no idea what the “quantum mechanism” is, but since you say the s/s/c is the same in life as in death, it clearly makes no difference to the argument. In life and in death, the “quantum mechanism” of the s/s/c is the THINKING mechanism.
DAVID: But its interface in life and death is different, and i suspect the mechanism differs also to fit.

Of course the interface with an immaterial world will be different from the interface with a material world, and of course you will no longer have material means of expression and communication. There is no longer a brain mechanism! That is why dualists believe that there is an immaterial s/s/c that works with the brain in life, but the same s/s/c separates from the brain in death, and that is the THINKING you.

DAVID: Yes, thinking, but in two different realms.

That is what I keep telling you. The SAME THINKING s/s/c in two different circumstances, or realms if you prefer. And so a dualist cannot insist that thought is impossible without a prefrontal cortex.

dhw (quoting and commenting) “We do know, however, that the brain is shaped by circumstance. Remarkably, the hippocampus, the warehouse of memory in the brain, is significantly larger in drivers of London black cabs than it is in men of comparable age who do other jobs. All that knowledge of the London landmarks makes their brains go bigger. (My bold) The same is true for musicians, whose auditory cortex is, on average, a full 25% larger than it is in people who play no instrument.” My bold points to the fact that they are not born with bigger bits, but exertion CAUSES the expansion. By extension, then, Einstein’s bigger pfc would have been CAUSED by exertion (working out his theories), just as the expansion of the pre-sapiens brain would have been CAUSED by exertion (working out how to implement the concept of the spear). The bigger brain did not precede the thoughts.

DAVID: She is correct in her description about cabbies. I've read the study in the past. As a storage area it had to enlarge. You are comparing her memory areas to cortical thinking conceptual areas, which is where Einstein genius is.

Is it? March 7:
dhw: So Einstein would still be a genius in an afterlife without his prefrontal cortex.
DAVID: Of course. You’ve gotten my concept.

So your concept is that Einstein could not be a genius without his pfc (because according to you intelligence springs from the s/s/c being able to use an advanced brain), but he can be a genius without his pfc provided he hasn’t got a pfc.

The point of the cabby and musician references is to show that thought enlarges the brain, and the brain does not enlarge in anticipation of thought. Since this applies to the hippocampus and to the auditory cortex, why should it not apply to other areas of the brain as well, such as thought expanding Einstein’s pfc and the brain of pre-sapiens?