Brain Expansion (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, April 05, 2020, 11:29 (1691 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Why would the soul be incapable of having an idea based solely on EXISTING information?

DAVID: Of course the exiting brain/soul knows existing info. It is the conceptualizing of the new design that requires a more complex brain /soul to do the abstract thinking required for the newly visualized concept.

You still refuse to separate the initial idea, based on existing information, from implementation (= design and making) of the idea. Yet again: It is the effort to design and make the artefact which I propose to be the cause of expansion.

DAVID: but the ID folks are with me.

dhw: You say they don’t even mention God, so...

DAVID: God is always implied when they discuss design in evolution.

… do they insist that their implied God specially designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-humans to eat one another until he could design us, and God expanded brains before souls/brains could come up with new ideas?

QUOTE: "However, plant food in general yields considerably less energy and nutritive value than meat. Therefore, being able to hunt for large animals, which was only possible by using tools such as spears, made it possible for humans to sustain larger and more complex brains, which in turn allowed them to develop yet more intelligent and efficient tools." (David’s bold)

dhw: Yes, the larger brain would have required more feeding. Yes, once the brain had expanded, it would have been able to design and develop more intelligent and efficient tools. How does this invalidate the proposal that each expansion was triggered by a new concept from the smaller brain? How does it prove that developing and making the FIRST artefacts could not have been the cause of the expansion?

DAVID: Total distortion of the meaning of their comment. No one in what I read makes that theoretical jump. They think that evolution caused the enlargement and bigger better brains make bigger better artifacts. We never see a discussion of your lonely theory.

What distortion? I agree with the quote! But it does not in any way contradict my theory, so why did you quote it?

QUOTE: "Until about 50,000–40,000 years ago the use of stone tools seems to have progressed stepwise: each phase (habilis, ergaster, neanderthal) started at a higher level than the previous one, but once that phase had started further development was slow.” (dhw’s bold)

dhw: Fits in perfectly with my proposal that the trigger for the expansion was a “higher level” of tool which the smaller brain could not design and make. “Further development was slow” is what I referred to as periods of stasis.

No comment from you!

QUOTE: “After 50,000 BP, […] human culture apparently started to change at much greater speed….” Followed by lots of examples, which you have bolded. I’m not denying the leap forward!

DAVID: The bolded statements, especially the first, fit my approach, to which you now seem to agree, that bigger, better brains (remember souls at work) create the better artifacts.

dhw: Of course they do. But our subject is what CAUSED each expansion! Not what happened AFTER each expansion.

DAVID: I know that. God expanded. But at the natural level I see no one discuss your weird idea., and I've looked.

Because they don’t deal with the question of what caused expansion! I don’t suppose any of them say “God caused expansion” either!

dhw: As proven by modern science, it is the effort to perform a new task (designing, reading, memorizing, playing an instrument) that causes changes to the modern brain. It is not illogical to propose that it also changed earlier brains. Your quotes have offered no explanation for expansion, and nothing contrary to my theory.

DAVID: The enlargements are small and involve primarily memory activity, not new abstract concepts, although you have sneaked design in your list of activities, and our only known example is Einstein, with a one centimeter enlarged area, and we cannot know if he was born with it or developed the tiny area from thinking.

If Einstein was born with it, we need to discuss the materialist interpretation of thought. If he developed it, you cannot escape the conclusion that thought can expand the materials of the brain, so the theory can’t be a non-starter, as you claim below.

DAVID: The quotes observe bigger brain and bigger, better artifacts, nothing more, but the implication is obvious. […] My position is God expanded the brains and your natural theory is a non-starter.

I know your position. If “each phase started at a higher level than the previous one”, and if the modern brain changes as a result of new activities, the obvious implication of the two facts combined is that the new phase started at a higher level because new activities had made it change – in this case, expand. Nobody knows what causes expansion, so I don’t know why you think these two facts can’t be used as a possible explanation. Now please tell us what facts you have to support the theory that your God expanded the brain before it could have an idea based on existing information?