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

by dhw, Wednesday, April 01, 2020, 12:45 (1486 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: 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.

dhw: Of course they are! But archaeological studies don’t explain why the brains got bigger in the first place! And so you continue to ignore the fact that there is no way anyone can possibly know if the FIRST artefact in the history of each larger brained species was conceived before or after the expansion. It could only exist after the brain had expanded sufficiently to produce it.

DAVID: Backwards: The smaller earlier brain can produce the concept, but not the production!
DAVID: Wrong interpretation. I was quoting you and your backwards idea.

I know. I haven’t “interpreted” that!

dhw: What you are proposing is conceptualization is easy and production difficult.[/i] (This is NOT dhw!)

It was you who wrote this, not me, and I don’t know what you are complaining about. I suspected your phrasing, and so my interpretation of the two comments combined was as follows:
dhw: If by that you mean that having a new idea does not require a larger brain, but designing and producing the implement does, then yes.

DAVID: Always just the opposite. Conceptualizing a new dsign is didffic ult, production easy.
And:
DAVID: The original concept is difficult, coming up with a design for a needed product. Production is the simple part combining known materials: in the example, wooden shaft, stone napped sharp tip and attaching.

You continue to ignore the prime point in my theory: the NEW IDEA DOES NOT REQUIRE A LARGER BRAIN because it arises out of information already known. It is the design and production that require expansion. Whether production is easier than design is irrelevant. Only when the initial concept has been formed (kill bison from a distance) is the brain called into action to begin implementation (= design and production), and it is these tasks that require expansion.

dhw: I don’t like to delve too deep into precise figures. […] The fossil record does not provide a continuous record of expansions![…]

DAVID:I give the average finding of jump in size, all big.

dhw:The average means some are smaller and some are bigger.

Not answered.

dhw: How can you possibly reject the argument that nobody can know whether the first artefacts were produced by an already enlarged brain, or their design and production were the cause of the brain’s enlargement?

DAVID: Against all I have read and reported to you.

You have reported that archaeologists don’t deal with possible reasons for expansion, and you simply refuse to answer my question, so I’ll bold it and ask you again to answer it.

dhw: The natural level is that the smaller brain has an idea and the effort to implement (design and produce) the original concept requires greater capacity – hence enlargement. What facts do you have to prove that this is backwards?

DAVID: I can only use the way my brain works and common sense, while you keep distorting the findings that bigger brained fossils have better artifacts with them, and must have conceived of them and made them, which is exactly how archaeologists present findings.

Yes, bigger brained fossils have better artefacts with them. And you continue to ignore the question I asked above. Yet again: I propose that designing and producing the FIRST of these artefacts will have been the cause of the bigger brain. Then the bigger brain goes on to conceive, design and produce more artefacts until the next major innovative concept requires further expansion in order to design and produce it. Now please answer the question bolded above.

DAVID: Outside this natural arguing, I still say God makes all new species and enlarged all brains +/- 200 cc at a jump.

And I still ask why you think your God could not simply have created the mechanism enabling the natural progression I have described.