Big brain evolution: brain size and intelligence (Evolution)

by David Turell @, Thursday, April 05, 2018, 15:27 (2175 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: 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?

I don't disagree except you always blur the distinct difference in living brain and dead brain and how the s/s/c functions. They are completely different. In life the s/s/c can only act through using the brain and is bound to it.

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.

dhw: 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.

See my point above. The s/s/c can only be as intelligent as the complexity of the brain it is attached to allows.


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.

dhw; 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.

My IQ analogy refutes your point.


Complete thread:

 RSS Feed of thread

powered by my little forum