Big brain evolution: brain size and intelligence (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, March 25, 2018, 15:02 (2433 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: […] you obviously cannot see that if immaterial new thought depends on the material enlargement of the brain, you are espousing materialism, whereas you claim to be a dualist.

DAVID: Of course the brain, by reacting with the mechanisms of the s/s/c implements the appearance of thought to the thinking person with a living material brain. Your view does not solve the problem.

dhw: I’m not sure what view or what problem you’re referring to. The problem I am having with your posts is the dichotomy between your dualism (which divides the self into mind and body) and your insistence that the mind can’t think without the body, although it continues to think when there is no body.

DAVID: Our brain is built (designed) to respond to the needs of the s/s/c as it manages thought. What the brain 'receives' is the mechanism of the s/s/c which I think is at the level of quantum reality. Thought is then achieved by the two of them working together as hardware and software. You give lip service to this view and then ignore it in your analysis.

dhw: What do you mean by thought is “achieved”? Thought is implemented by the two of them working together. It is you who have plugged the hardware/software analogy to illustrate that the two parts of dualism are the immaterial mind (the software that supplies the thoughts) and the material brain (the hardware which gives the thoughts material implementation). And you then ignore it when you say that the THINKING mind can’t think without the IMPLEMENTING brain (= software can’t supply any programmes until you have hardware), even though in death you believe the mind remains its thinking self when there is no implementing brain. In life the software’s programmes cannot be IMPLEMENTED until you have the hardware.The hardware does not supply the thought. Do you agree or disagree?

Your complaint about my theory has a problem. You assume the s/s/c is one monolithic unchanging form, the same in life and in death or when the brain is non-functional for a period (NDE) I look at the evidence and make the conclusion that the s/s/c has two different forms and/or mechanisms to explain the way the s/s/c seems to function in two different realities, life and death. In life it must work with the brain to produce new thought or resurrect memory. The brain alone without the s/s/c cannot produce thought, but by the same token, in life the s/s/c cannot produce thought without the brain. I don't know why this is not clear to you. I've stated this before: the dualism I see has more than one dualism: brain soul duality, and soul in life and soul in death dual forms. In death the s/s/c has a way of supplying its own hardware by some sort of quantum mechanics, perhaps transferred from the brain as death occurs.