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

by David Turell , Sunday, March 29, 2020, 23:04 (1482 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I think of this as totally backward. A concept is an immaterial thought of a new tool, and it can only appear if the brain/soul complex are advanced enough to imagine it. The actual production of the tool is hand eye work based on knowledge of materials available to use: napping stone into sharp point and attaching to shaft.

dhw: In the case of the spear, the initial immaterial concept is to remove the necessity of close quarter hunting by inventing a weapon to kill from a distance. That initial idea springs from existing information. The brain does not need any additional capacity. But from that moment onwards, the brain (materialist) or soul (dualist) must make the effort to translate the idea into reality, and that requires design (new thoughts) and manual labour. It is new thoughts (e.g. illiterates, Einstein) and labour (musicians) which force changes to the modern brain. The only difference is that the earlier brain was capable of overall expansion in order to implement its initial concept, whereas the modern brain has stopped expanding and complexifies instead (with minor expansions). Your theory would only work if we knew that the brain complexified or expanded before it could have the original concept and the new thoughts arising from the concept. This is contrary to all the known facts, and is doubly illogical if you believe in a soul which does all the thinking and only uses the brain to gather information and to give solid form to the immaterial concept.

My logic is based upon archaeological studies and reports that better improved artifacts always are found in places where the fossils have the bigger brains. Those are the only facts we have. You talk all around it as you want. I have my logical theory. Yours is wishful thinking. See below:

dhw: And as usual you the dualist fall into your own trap of attributing the thought to the complex brain instead of to the soul. See above for the functions of the soul and the brain in dualism, and see below for the same problem. (Materialists will opt for the brain as thinker and implementer.)

dhw: I don’t like to delve too deep into precise figures. Fossils are so rare that it hits the headlines whenever we find one. What figure could you believe? It’s perfectly possible that for each expanded brain we have found, there are others that preceded it with smaller dimensions. The fossil record does not provide a continuous record of expansions!

Let'd stick to what is found and accepted as size jumps.

DAVID: An existing early stage brain can only think at a level that existing complexity allows.

dhw: Back into the trap, and you complain when I pull you up on this, but it suits your argument to say – as you keep doing - that the brain does the thinking (and it may well do so, as materialists will tell you). Your argument falls apart if it is the soul that does the thinking, because the soul uses the brain only to gather information and to implement concepts. The soul did not need extra brain complexity when our homo had his bright idea,because that was based solely on existing information. The soul would only need the brain to IMPLEMENT its concept (= design and make it).

Weird, as usual. You can't stand my shorthand about brain/soul complex. Why bug me when you fully understand my views/concept about brain and soul? Unless you like to bug. The bold is your fanciful invention to grow brains. The new design concept is an immaterial thought of invention. It uses existing knowledge of what materials are available and then applies that to the issue of how to attack at a distance. We know that Erectus knew what Habilis had created and used those tools. We know, as above, increased brain size and advance in artifacts are correlated, always being found together. That is the way archaeologists view it, and they are not at our level of wondering about jumps in brain size and its cause. The facts do not support you in any way, but you have the perfect right to invent whatever makes you think it is a valid theory

DAVID: Remember, this discussion is at your non-god level, looking at a possible natural reason for expansion. I prefer God for the expansion.

dhw: What is wrong with the proposal that God organized Nature so that it would work naturally?

My God is in total control. That proposal reduces His control as I view him.