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

by David Turell , Tuesday, March 13, 2018, 15:34 (2445 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: If you accept the two realms, a person cannot think in life unless his cortex is functioning. That is the only point I have been making.

dhw: You are simply glossing over the distinction that dualism makes between the mind and the body IN LIFE. (There is no dualism in death.) The whole point of NDEs as evidence is that even though the person’s cortex is NOT functioning, the person is still a thinking being, and therefore the soul/self/consciousness does NOT depend on the brain. The point you have been making, however, is that immaterial pre-sapiens minds could not have had new ideas until their material brains grew bigger, and immaterial intelligence “springs from” the immaterial mind being able to use the brain. Even now you are still insisting that Einstein’s intelligence was the RESULT of his having a bigger cortex. All these points support materialism – and they may be correct, but you claim to be a dualist!

I'm not glossing over anything. What happens in life is different than the circumstance in death. In life we must use our brain to reach our s/s/c, nothing more. And only our complex brain has allowed the advances humans have created.

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.

dhw: Is it? March 7:
So Einstein would still be a genius in an afterlife without his prefrontal cortex.

DAVID: Of course. You’ve gotten my concept.

dhw: 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?

DAVID: The hippocampus is a storage area for memory and the auditory area also for the musician. Einstein was an amazing genius with a huge concept area, that I am convinced he was born to develop and allow his concepts to appear. His hat size was not extraordinary. The brain is very soft fatty material and can give room elsewhere which would allow for his large areas without pressing on the skull. Brains with very high IQ are different.

dhw: All brains are different. We know there is enough room inside the skull for areas of the brain to expand. Cab drivers’ immaterial ways of thinking expand their material hippocampus; musicians’ immaterial ways of thinking expand their material auditory cortex. But apparently Einstein’s immaterial ways of thinking depended on his already having had an expanded material prefrontal cortex.

No need for an expansion of the skull opposite to your theory that forceful concepts create bigger skulls.

xxxxxx

For a dualist the will would be an integral part of the immaterial self, as opposed to the material brain. Under “Free will….”:

QUOTE: "'To be clear, we're not taking a position on free will," Dubljevic says. "We're just saying neuroscience hasn't definitively proven anything one way or the other.'"

DAVID’s comment: So free will may exist.

dhw: Science is only equipped to study the material world, and personally I would regard it as sheer arrogance to assume that the material world as we know it now is all that exists. Hence the centuries-old debate between dualism and materialism, which extends all the way through to the possible existence of a God. However, please note that anyone who insists that thought is impossible without a functioning prefrontal cortex is siding with the materialists.

Yes, in life. Death is in a different set of circumstances.