Big brain evolution: learning new tasks (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 02, 2018, 23:55 (2395 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Still sidestepping. The baby is one body, the mother is another body. How did they ( cell committees) communicate the differing needs?

dhw: I realize that you are much happier changing the subject from brain evolution to the pelvis of the mother, and I could ask you a host of questions about HOW your God dabbled or preprogrammed every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder 3.8 billion years ago. Ah well..."Two bodies"? So long as the baby is in the womb, it is physically joined to and totally dependent on the mother. What difference does all this make?

Beautiful fudging. I've changed nothing in the discussion. The mother and the baby are to very different folks with different DNAs no matter where each resides! And the mother's pelvis must change as each baby head in each species enlarges.

dhw: The disagreement lies in your insistence that the immaterial s/s/c cannot think new thoughts until the material brain has already changed, together with statements to the effect that a sick brain will produce sick thoughts and that only a more complex brain can “give” more complex concepts, all of which are materialist arguments that contradict the dualism you believe in.[/i]

DAVID: You just contradicted yourself. Yes, the s/s/c must use a material brain which will express its thoughts, which if sick will be garbled, if simple can only produce simple thought, and if complex can produce complex thought, each initially expressed by the s/s/c to the brain.

dhw: I have pointed out your materialist arguments which contradict your belief in dualism. I’m afraid I can make no sense of your sentence, apart from the s/s/c using the brain to express its thoughts, which is fine. Please clarify: what is sick, what is garbled, and is it the simple brain or the simple s/s/c that produces simple thought?

I'll simply repeat today's statement in The Neanderthal thread:

"You have twisted the meaning of my statements. My version of the theory is the s/s/c cannot create thought without using the brain during life. The s/s/c is an immaterial mechanism, which through use of the material brain produces immaterial mentation. This leads to my position that only a more complex brain network can produce more complex thought. I've told you that my form of dualism is not yours. Yours comes across as if the s/s/c sits aside at a distance and instructs the brain what to do, as if they are not connected intimately. The s/s/c mechanism resides completely within the brain structure. The dichotomy is ours, since we have vastly different views."

dhw: Mine can also include God.
DAVID: But it really doesn't. You are an Agnostic.

dhw: An agnostic neither believes nor disbelieves, and so any hypothesis will inevitably include the possibility of a God. My agnosticism is totally irrelevant to the logic of the two theistic hypotheses.

Fair enough.