Human evolution; new anthropological erectus info (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, April 03, 2020, 13:39 (1478 days ago) @ David Turell

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: I will repeat, and it is an answer to your strange theory. The earlier tinier brain does not have the abstract thinking capacity to envision a new better artifact for the future.

And I repeat: please stop trying to gloss over the fact that the initial concept arises out of EXISTING information. That means the tiny brain comes up with the initial idea of throwing a weapon, but it does not have the capacity to design and then produce the artefact, which is why the brain has to increase its capacity.

DAVID: Please look at the following extremely long article, second half of which will give you different brain sizes at different evolutionary stages and how artifacts are considered.
https://paleontology.fandom.com/wiki/Human_evolution

Sorry, I’m not prepared to accept cookies, but in any case I know there are different brain sizes, and I know that new artefacts are found with new-sized brains. I’d be grateful if you would please pick out any passage for me which a) explains the expansion of the brain, and b) explains how anyone can know whether the FIRST artefacts associated with each expansion were conceived, designed and produced only AFTER the brain had ALREADY expanded, or were conceived BEFORE the brain expanded and were then designed and produced by means of expanding the brain.

DAVID: In this article please note the time it took for sapiens to learn how to use their newly enlarged brain. This alone totally refute your 'natural enlargement' theory. We are a species that arrived living/acting just like erectus. The real arrival of our current abstract conceptualization is all in the past eight thousand years since agriculture started.

We have dealt with this before! Once the brain is enlarged – no matter which species – it doesn’t HAVE to go on producing new things. You yourself pointed out that there were indigenous tribes who still live like their ancient ancestors, remember? There can be long periods of stasis in which nothing new occurs. This was the case with most of our antecedents. (I believe Erectus himself hung around for about 1.5 million years!) If there was a sudden burst of sapiens activity eight thousand years ago, that would be the equivalent of an earlier homo having the bright idea of throwing a weapon after there’s been a long period of stasis. Sapiens’ brain, however, did not expand – you reject my proposal that this was for anatomical reasons – and complexification took over and proved so efficient that the brain actually shrank. How on earth does all this “refute” my theory?

DAVID: I absolutely reject the idea that an earlier brain can think itself into a larger size, which is exactly what your theory gives us.

Do you absolutely reject the idea that the modern brain can think itself into complexification and into enlargement on a restricted scale? I note that you have reverted to materialism. As a dualist, do you absolutely reject the idea that the soul can influence the brain to the extent that it can change itself and even add connections?

DAVID: It is wishful thinking to get around the question of speciation among early homos, hoping it gets around God doing it. Your anticipated answer to keep you on the fence: God let the do it themselves is your way of staying agnostic. For us theists, it is God-lite, a poor excuse of a purposeful God who know full well what He is doing, as He made the universe, the perfect Earth and life quite efficiently all by Himself. This is a discussion between a theist and an agnostic. On that basis I feel God speciates.

That is no basis at all, and is a very poor reason for rejecting arguments that question the logic of your very personal view of God’s purposes and methods. It is also a poor reason for rejecting alternative views of a God whose purposes and methods and thoughts and reasons and nature and logic by your admission cannot be known. Do you honestly believe that every theist accepts your version of evolution and your explanation of brain expansion?

dhw: I describe a different theory than the theory you have faith in. Mine is extrapolated from known facts (the way the modern brain functions) and you apparently have no facts at all to support your own.

DAVID: Your theory ignores all the considerations I give you, all factual. The bold seems to indicate I don't know how to think about the facts I have presented.

The only fact you have presented is that new artefacts are found alongside new brains. This does not in any way contradict my theory, as I keep explaining, since it is the FIRST artefacts each time that would have driven the expansion. Now please tell me what logic and what facts support your theory that your God preprogrammed or dabbled each expansion BEFORE your dualist’s soul could come up with a new idea which did not require any new information?