Big brain evolution: brain size and intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, April 05, 2018, 12:57 (2175 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The problem is your refusal to accept my concept of software/hardware. As IQ shows brains differ in their thought capacity which means the s/s/c can only go so far in intelligence based on the brain it is attached to.

dhw: The problem is your refusal to accept your own concept of software as the producer of thought and hardware as the implementer of thought. What do you mean by “brains differ in their thought capacity”? If you think intelligence depends on the brain (and it may well do so), you are a materialist, so yet again: do you or do you not believe that your s/s/c does the thinking and your brain does the implementing? Yes or no?

DAVID: In life my s/s/c must use my brain to create my thought. It will not create thought if the brain in non-functional. That is my view of brain implementation at the level of thought.

My question above could hardly have been more straightforward, and again and again you have answered yes. But again and again you return to your obfuscations. What is “brain implementation” if it is not your dualist’s s/s/c “using your brain” to implement its thought? If the s/s/c doesn’t do the thinking and the brain the implementing, there is no duality! And as evidence for their belief in this duality, dualists point out that in NDEs, when the brain is non-functional, the s/s/c still creates thought. What do you disagree with in these statements?

dhw: You choose to believe that the brain changes in advance of new concepts, which in pre-sapiens were not possible until enlargement had taken place. New concepts as a consequence of brain changes runs counter to the evidence noted above, as well as to your dualistic belief that we have a thinking soul (software) and an implementing brain (hardware). But you refuse to recognize the dichotomy in your beliefs.

DAVID: Just my point that IQ varies from below 70 to 200+ proves that the s/s/c has to use the mental machinery available to it.

The s/s/c IS the mental machinery! The brain is the physical machinery. If you think intelligence depends on the physical machinery, you are a materialist, and you may well be right. If you think it depends on the mental machinery, then please stop arguing that new concepts can only be thought of once the brain has enlarged.

DAVID: (commenting on mice): Once again we see the material side of conscious activity depends on chemicals in the brain, and it must be accepted that human instinctual reactions can have the same basis even though we have a higher level of consciousness. Our immaterial consciousness is based in a material brain, no way around it.

Yes, this is precisely how your dualism works: in life the s/s/c interacts with the brain: conscious activity is the work of the s/s/c, and precedes its material implementation, which depends on the brain. There is no way round it if you claim to be a dualist, so (again) please stop arguing that the brain has to change (in pre-sapiens, enlarge) before the s/s/c can come up with new thoughts.


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