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

by David Turell , Tuesday, March 10, 2020, 17:50 (1717 days ago) @ dhw

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.

DAVID: 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: I can’t believe what I’m reading. For the umpteenth time: you have agreed over and over again that shrinkage has been caused by the efficiency of complexification. I have suggested that this had to take over from expansion, because further expansion would have been a threat to the whole human anatomy. Nevertheless, the modern brain does enlarge itself in small sections. It is therefore perfectly logical to suggest that in the past, when expansion was not a threat to the anatomy, it was caused in exactly the same way as modern expansion and/or complexification is caused: namely by the actions performed in the implementation of concepts, desires, plans etc.

Again a total distortion to save a pet theory. The first assumption has to be that our brain has processes developed from past brains and uses them in more complex ways. Your theory that the brain stopped enlarging because of anatomic size considerations is simply a wild guess, lacking any evidence for the point. Remember our brain was 150 cc larger in the past causing no anatomic trouble. Our brain arrived about 315,000 years ago and really began its 'implementation' process (your concept as to how the brain is affected) most actively with language 50-70,000 years ago, and as more an more 'implementation' has occurred in the past 35.000 years it shrunk 150 cc. (about five ounces) That is the factual evidence we have to work with, and we both note tiny enlargements in heavily used regions. That is a logical change in our brain. In fossil brains the usage was never as intensive as today yet we know 200 cc jumps in volume occurred. Your strange theory does not hold water in any sense, and your paragraph above offers nothing to save it.

dhw: And still you fail to come up with any known facts in support of your own theory, or in opposition to mine.

Lots of factual logical analysis above.

DAVID: 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”?

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

dhw: I don’t “know” anything, but it is YOUR theory that your God either dabbled or programmed every step of evolution, including each brain expansion. If you don’t think he dabbled, then we are left with a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for brain expansions, together with every other life form, econiche, act of speciation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the whole history of life. You call my theory a daydream. I’d say that’s not a bad description of your theory. The rest of your post returns to the shrinkage argument. If you have decided that after all you don’t accept the explanation you have already agreed on (it has shrunk because of the efficiency of complexification), please tell us your own explanation. Starting point: you believe your God kept enlarging the brain so that it could think up new ideas (although as a dualist you firmly believe that the soul and not the brain does the thinking). So if you think he preprogrammed shrinkage 3.8 billion years ago, or stepped in to dabble it, please explain why you think he did so.

Please remember I have no knowledge of God's reasons. Of course I agree with shrinkage from complexification. My argument and belief based on facts has never changed. Heavy usage shrinks modern brains. Light use in habilis and erectus saw brains make large jumps in size. The comparisons don't fit, unless God as an agency is at work. Then of course you can ignore all the facts and daydream as an illogical distortion of them.