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

by David Turell , Friday, March 06, 2020, 17:34 (1512 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Friday, March 06, 2020, 18:15

dhw: We agree. So why do you keep talking of what “a more advanced brain can conceive” and “a thinking brain”? You claim to be a dualist, but these expressions are materialist. (No problem in itself. My objection is to your inconsistency.)

It is not my inconsistency. You forget my fixed view which I view as assumed in discussions we have. Review my comment today (Friday, March 06, 2020, 17:21)

DAVID: I do not accept your view. What artifacts accompany the fossil brain is what that brain produced from its thoughts.

dhw: In my theory the design and production of the artefact caused the brain to expand, and in yours God dabbled with the brain of pre-habilis and expanded it before the materialist brain produced the thoughts. There is no way anyone can prove which theory is correct. All we have is the bigger brain and the artefact.

DAVID: Nebulous implementation causes the brain to enlarge. Tell me your idea as to how that makes a brain enlarge 200 cc in each gap in the fossils we deal with.

dhw: In the same way as all the modern examples of complexification and/or enlargement.

DAVID: You say above the new areas of enlargement are small segments!

dhw: Yes, because the sapiens brain cannot enlarge any more (hence the irrelevance of your American Indians, which I see you have dropped) – and I have extrapolated my theory from the known fact that the modern brain responds to new requirements by complexifying or enlarging. There is no reason to assume that smaller past brains did not function in the same way, so yet again I ask you to give us the additional known facts that support your own theory.

Your bolded statements are not fact. Our brain has shrunk 150 cc since 35,00 years ago, and most likely is an endpoint in evolution and most probably won't enlarge again, not "cannot". That shrinkage was caused by complexification and plasticity. The second bold implies the new uses of brain made giant enlargements, not the tiny ones we know about. As for ancient brains, yes they operated in similar ways, perhaps less complex ways, but this means any new uses made tiny enlargements in those brains just like our brain does. How our brain works is inherited from the past with new modifications, simple evolution. Nothing is consistent in your illogical theory. Tiny enlargements cannot be extrapolated to 200 cc gaps! The gaps are totally unexplained. I have God to point to. You use natural changes that somehow appear. You see the need for design, but won't accept a designing mind. So we differ.

The archaeologists simply say the artifacts tell us what the fossils invented, nothing more.

QUOTES re “new erectus”: (David’s bolds) “'This is good evidence that these hominins were the creators of those artefacts,” […].

“That challenges the traditional view that different stone tools were made by different species…”

“The split between Acheulian and Oldowan is a “false dichotomy,” he [archaeologist Mark Moore] says. “A better approach…would be to consider these tools as “two parts of the same technological continuum.”

dhw: The latter seems very reasonable to me.

DAVID: This article shows the mind-set of Archaeologists: the fossils that are found with the artifacts created the artifacts, but newer species still used older species artifacts, which obviously were carried over by the newer species. Erectus knew what habilis created and used. I see no support for your evolution of brain size theory.
And:
DAVID: Archaeologists and paleontologists both equate tools and fossils to showing what the fossils created. Habilis did not tell Erectus what to do.”

dhw: Why are you surprised that thinking beings use the knowledge and inventions of their predecessors? Then of course they went on to create their own implements. But this has nothing to do with the causes of brain expansion! What’s your argument? Erectus used habilis’s tools, and this proves that God expanded erectus’s brain before he used the tools and invented his own? The archaeologists are dealing with a totally different subject!

No, God enlarged the brain to the Erectus stage and erectus of course invented his own new artifacts. Of course the artifacts discussion has a direct relation to brain enlargement. Your theory is falling apart with this new set of papers showing how archaeologists in interpret their physical findings. Of course they are not discussing brain enlargements causes, but we must use their findings to think logically. I find your theory as weaker and weaker.