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

by David Turell , Wednesday, March 25, 2020, 18:40 (1490 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Not in my personal experience. The initial step is the conceptual recognition of the need for new artifact and the immaterial development of the concept of the necessary design. All requires a degree of mental complexity. Once the design is recognized the rest is hand work to produce. In Edison's case some degree of trial and error also was employed.

dhw: You have your God stepping in before the small-brained homo even recognizes the need for a new artefact. I find your view doubly surprising in the light of your dualism, in which it is the soul and not the brain that creates concepts.

Sorry I forgot I must always mention the soul uses the new complex brain. God enlarges the brain every time as He runs evolution.

dhw: You agree that the soul uses the brain to gather information and to turn abstract concepts into real artefacts by design and “hand work”. And so I keep asking you what new information the enlarged brain could have provided to spark off the initial concept of “Maybe me throw something sharp”. Your answers so far have simply avoided the question.

I've avoided nothing, but it seems your mind does not recognize my answers. The God-enlarged more complex brain does all the job, showing the soul all the current necessary info and allows the soul to conjure up the new design, how to construct it and instructs the hands and eyes to do the fairly simple construction work.

dhw: It is impossible to know whether the larger brain preceded the design and making of the first artefact or was caused by it – the result would be the same: simultaneous appearance of larger brain and first artifact.

DAVID: What is logical is the bigger brained produced the newer more complex artifact as archaeologists present their studies.

dhw: You have agreed that archaeologists do not speculate on what caused the expansion of the brain, and in any case all except the very first artefacts would indeed have been conceived and produced by the larger brain (materialism). Your comment simply ignores my own in relation to the first artefacts: there is no way of knowing, so please don’t pretend that one explanation is more logical than the other.

That they don't speculate is no reason to ignore they way they present their findings.

DAVID: As is obvious I totally disagree with your theory. I believe your bolded sentence I created all occurs in the larger brain. What made the brain larger was God at each stage of 200 cc bigger.

dhw: I know you disagree with it, and I know you think God expanded the brain before the homo was able to realize that he needed a better weapon. You also believe that there is a soul that does all the thinking and uses the brain to gather information, but this realization was based only on information already available to the smaller-brained ancestor, so how could the larger brain have given the soul a new idea if it did not provide any new information?

As above, of course the bigger brain knew the past as in the erectus study and provided the soul with the complexity to create advanced artifacts: (Thursday, March 05, 2020, 21:40)

dhw: You also claim that the new and intense mental effort does not occur until the brain has already expanded, but the only process we actually know of is that the brain changes as a result of mental effort (illiterate women, taxi drivers) and also physical effort (musicians), not in advance of it. You have even illustrated this today under “examples of plasticity”:
QUOTE: “Professional violinists practice these movements for hours each day. "This has a consequence on the physical arrangement of the connections in their brains, because movements of the fingers are controlled by a specific brain area. In professional violinists, the area expands….” (dhw's bold)

Why should we believe that the process was reversed in earlier homos, i.e. expansion first, then new concepts and new tasks?

Since you and I accept common descent, my logical assumption is that the early hominin/homo brains brains did expand tiny areas as the current brain does. What you constantly seem to forget is that the H. sapiens brain arrived 315,000 years ago, filled with past knowledge and then gradually developed our current knowledge and uses, language 50-70,000 years ago recruiting cerebellar connections in the process. That does not fit your theories which are counter to my belief God did in all in advance. You won't use God. I do