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

by dhw, Monday, March 23, 2020, 10:10 (1489 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Why have you bolded production and ignored my reference to design?

DAVID: Because, to repeat, I have the actual experience that once a design (concept) is created production is the easy part.

You continue to ignore the distinction between concept and design. I can do no more than repeat what I wrote yesterday in bold:

"Which new complex abstract thought – the concept, or the design of the concept? Once more: in your dualistic world, the soul uses the brain to gather information and to implement its concepts. The concept in our example is to kill prey by throwing a sharp artefact from a distance. This is an abstract thought arising solely from the information that already exists. Once the dualist’s soul has conceived the concept, it uses the brain to design and manufacture the artefact.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: Precisely. The new concept arises out of the information available. Then the implementation of the concept through design and manufacture makes new demands on the brain, which in former times resulted in expansion.

DAVID: Why do you think implementation is so difficult?

You keep saying that design is the difficult bit, and then you totally ignore my repeated definition of implementation as design and manufacture!

dhw Why do you insist that your God had to expand the brain before the hunter could extrapolate his concept from existing information?

DAVID: Because every enlarged brained fossil species has new artifacts found with it. Logically, they thought of it and created it.

And I keep emphasizing that it is the first artefacts which will have demanded the expansion of the brain, and only when the brain had expanded could the artefact have become real. All subsequent artefacts would have been conceived, designed and manufactured using the same sized sized brain, until the next time a concept demanded greater capacity.

dhw: And why do you insist that the complexification and limited expansion of the modern brain (which has finished expanding for whatever reason, though I suggest anatomical practicality) constitutes an entirely different way of working compared to limited complexification and greater expansion at a time when brains were considerably smaller than they are now and therefore did not have the capacity to design and manufacture certain new concepts?

DAVID: We can only study how our brain works. We are all stuck with the fact that larger brained fossil designed and made the new artifact, as above. You theory reverses the simple logical conclusion.

Yes, our only evidence is the way the modern brain works: and it complexifies or partially expands as a result of new tasks, not in anticipation of them. Why should this have been different in the past? And yet again you have ignored the concept and jumped straight to the design, which is why I keep asking what new information was required before my homo thought to himself: “Maybe me throw something sharp.” Please stop evading the question.