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

by David Turell , Monday, March 09, 2020, 20:26 (1509 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: There are no known facts to support your dream theory. Imagination makes anything see m possible.

dhw: Yet again, you ignore my request for known facts that make my theory impossible, let alone for known facts supporting your theory that God preprogrammed or dabbled each successive expansion.

Your theory is not impossible. Nothing is. But using the observation of slight enlargements for specific uses in a brain that actually shrinks 150 cc as its use is developed has all sorts of contraindicating factors at work. Your theory demands that the earlier brains enlarged from attempts at implementation of ideas that were being developed. Our current brain shrunk at a time when all sorts of concepts were developed and implemented. You idea is like a sieve. Nothing is consistent. What you are left with is the implication earlier brains were not like ours, even though it evolved from them and should resemble them.

dhw: If it can enlarge on a small scale now, it is not unreasonable to suppose that in earlier times, when the whole organism could adapt to carrying a larger brain, the same process would have taken place. You continue to ignore my plea for the extra knowledge you have that indicates the brain functioned differently in the past.[/i]

The obvious objections are above.

DAVID: A twist in meanings as usual. If God is continuously in charge there is no discontinuity in control. God does not come and go as your statement implies, as I stated above.

dhw: If God dabbles, how can it be anything but a “come and go”?

How do you know God dabbles and leaves? You are straining.

DAVID: Fuzzy use of 'implementation" again.

dhw: Do you really not know what the word means? When any abstract concept, idea, desire, plan is implemented, it is turned into reality. The idea/concept of a spear is turned into a real spear; the desire to read is turned into the actual ability to read; an abstract plan or strategy turns into real action. And surprise, surprise, we know that it is the realization of the concept, desire, strategy, plan that is known to change the brain.

Of course it will change a tiny area with more use, and shrunk 150 cc with new total use.

DAVID: Daydreams have no counter evidence. They are pure smoke. From the standpoint of understanding evolution, the current processes of our brain is based on real processes of past ancestral brains.

dhw: Precisely. And the current processes indicate that the brain changes AS A RESULT of implementing ideas, and not in anticipation of ideas. This is not a daydream. Some folk would suggest that an unknown all-powerful intellect preprogramming or dabbling everybody’s brain expansion at intervals is more of a daydream than the theory that modern brains work the same way as ancient brains would have done.

OK, dismiss God as usual, but you cannot defeat the FACT that our brain has shrunk 150 cc while being heavily used after arrival. You have nothing but daydreams to stand on!!!