Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, February 27, 2020, 20:42 (1729 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: But yes, the modern brain is the only one we can observe at work, and so the only concrete evidence we have about how the brain functions is that it changes when trying to implement new ideas.

DAVID: Total illogical thought. The exiting brain conceives of the new object and makes it. The old brain smaller brain has nothing to do with it. It can't conceive of the new idea.

dhw: Why are you stating this as a fact? Firstly, you are claiming that the brain conceives the idea, which is the materialist view, though you claim to be a dualist. Secondly, why is it illogical to claim that in the past the brain may have changed (either through complexification or enlargement) in the course of implementing new ideas, when we know for a fact that this is true of the modern brain?

And I'm pointing out the current brain is, yes, a reflection of past brain development, but please remember our brain has shrunk 125 cc in 30,000 years, so it has very different more advanced set of attributes, and cannot be specifically applied to past brains and how the past brains might have worked and changed. Please use all our knowledge. Don't just pick out part of what we know to further your argument. As for the bold you know full well my theory about soul and brain interlock.

DAVID: You continue your totally illogical idea. The soul uses a more complex brain to create more concepts and create the new needed artifact. Accept the history that bigger brains have better artifacts found with them. No relation to the older brain which you would like to explode trying to develop a new idea.

hw: But yes, the soul – if it exists – uses the brain “to create the new needed artefact”, which is why the brain has to make changes to itself in order to produce something the body has never produced before. As regards artefacts being found WITH the bigger brains, thank you for changing your terms in accordance with the following exchange:

DAVID: You don't answer why we see bigger brain and only then improved artifacts, which always follow the appearance of the bigger brain. (dhw's bold)

dhw: We find improved artefacts ACCOMPANYING the appearance of the bigger brain! According to my theory, it is the process of production that causes enlargement, so you can only find the artefact when the brain has expanded!

dhw: "Accompanying" or "with", not "following". We do not see improved artefacts following the appearance of bigger brains, we see them accompanying bigger brains. There is no way of knowing whether the original expansion preceded or followed the original concept. We only know that implementation causes changes to the brain. Of course subsequent concepts would follow the expansion until the next time implementation of a concept required increased capacity.

You are correct. New brain and new artifacts are all we find. Your concept: The habilis brain thinks of a new tool but cannot conceive of how to make it so it expands itself to have a brain that can adequately make the new tool. I find that totally illogical. An earlier brain cannot think about what it needs in future. It can't see the future which is why we naturally think if it as a smaller more primitive brain. Again a strained concept to have natural evolution, no God, or with lip service to theism, have God give them a mechanism to do it on their own, giving up His control of evolution. Total contortions.