Introducing the brain (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 09, 2018, 17:58 (2171 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID’s comment: Corvids equal to apes!! Major point. It is the complexity that makes the difference, not the size. Answers dhw's weird point. Complexity of cognition is based on complexity. Until complexity arrives, cognition is less. Complexity is not size, nor is a drive for size necessary to have more advanced cognition.

dhw: Thank you for this interesting article, which raises a number of problems. Not least is your own negation of your belief that your God had to enlarge the pre-sapiens brain before it could think new thoughts. If complexity was all that mattered, there was no need for enlargement.

The need for enlargement is the part of the article I quoted: the enormous size and complexity of the human brain creates our consciousness which no one else has! The room for enough complexity is my view of the new size we have.

dhw: Your comment that complexity of cognition is based on brain complexity once again reinforces your materialism (which may well be true),

You constantly conveniently forget that my position is that the s/s/c must use the brains network to think during life. Dualism. I stated that the article takes a materialism view.

dhw: I’m afraid you cannot claim that his findings support your belief in an immaterial piece of God’s consciousness (soul) or that they refute my hypothesis concerning the enlargement of the pre-sapiens brain. As for the intelligence of other organisms, you can hardly claim that I attribute it to size, when I am the one who is constantly championing the intelligence of insects and microorganisms.

Your interpretation and mine continue to differ widely. My only point is the necessity for advanced complexity and then enough room for enough complexity to produce a spot for consciousness itself to do its work, since it must use the networks of the brain to function during life. Nothing else living has what we have, and it requires the complexity demonstrated in the paragraphs I quoted to achieve that result. That is obvious. Insects and microorganisms are intelligently designed.