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

by David Turell , Saturday, March 21, 2020, 21:41 (1495 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Have you ever built anything? My experience, which is all I go by, the initial design requires deep thought and study. Once the concept is an actual prepared design, the production is easy. All blue-collar work. You are entirely backwards.

dhw: I have just said that development - as opposed to conception - of the concept means providing more and more details of design, and now you are telling me that design requires deep thought and study. Yes, that is why I am suggesting that the brain expanded! And maybe in the past it also expanded through having to cope with the material production of something that had never existed before. The modern brain complexifies (but expands in sections) AS A RESULT of thought and study.

All we know and can rely upon is our brain has small enlargements with special uses, and shrunk 150 cc with heavy use. I keep repeating, your bold is the easy part, in my actual experience..

DAVID: The new brain supplies all sorts of new information under the soul's direction.

dhw: Why don’t you answer my question? I have given you the information on which the concept is based. What new information is needed, and requires brain expansion, before the concept of “throwing something sharp” is conceived?

The current brain at any stage of evolution always sees the information available. Conceiving of a new concept requires abstract thought in the design process. Killing at a distance requires throwing a stone tipped stick. That is always the hard work. Making it is easy but it requires a second invention, chipping the proper stones to get the best shape. All of these concepts developed over different times and were always used by latter stages of hominins. I have told you what I have designed. With my expanded brain. My view is you have a backward concept of new designs.[/i]

Yes, your modern brain finished expanding thousands of years ago. Now please answer my question: What new information do you think required the expansion of the pre-sapiens brain before the soul could come up with the concept of “maybe me throw something sharp”?

DAVID: You want the effort to make a conceived artifact as the way to enlarge the brain. That has never been my experience. Design first, difficult. Producing easy.

dhw: You have forgotten that the concept comes first. I say it is conceived by the existing brain (materialist) or soul (dualist) using existing information. You refuse to say why the brain has to expand before the brain/soul can conceive the concept.

What???!! God expands the brain to allow the new complex abstract thought to appear through use by the soul.

Under "Earliest known civilization"

DAVID: Homo Sapiens appeared 315,000 years ago. A very slow mental development until the recent exponential growth. While the brain shrunk by 150 cc in the past 35,000 years as the brain/soul developed millions of new concepts. Concepts do not grow brains. Concepts are developed through the use of more complex brains.

dhw: Thank you for this fascinating article. What a pity you decided to use it for such a comment. Yet again: the controversy is what CAUSED EACH BRAIN EXPANSION. And yet again you refuse to distinguish between the conception and the development. My proposal is indeed that concepts do not grow brains. The concept arises in the existing brain. It is the implementation (design and manufacture of the artefact) that caused the pre-sapiens brain to expand. However, the sapiens brain marked the end of expansion, and so of course the brain/soul (materialist/dualist) conceived and developed all the new concepts, and it has shrunk because of the efficiency of complexification. There were long periods of stasis in between all the phases of brain expansion, and so the question is not why the mental development was slow, but why there was a sudden explosion of new concepts. Nothing to do with what caused all the expansions.

Based on my own experience with our brain, I am sure your idea is exactly backwards. You theory would only work if previous brains worked for the soul and an entirely different way than it does now. Concept difficult, production easy.