Brain expansion (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, June 15, 2020, 11:18 (1620 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] please give me an example of a species that adapts itself to new conditions before those conditions arise. Of course some new species will also handle future conditions – otherwise every species would die out when conditions change!

DAVID: The human brain is a great example: arrived 315,000 years ago and really used to full capacity in the past 10,000 years!

The human brain is not a species. The proven fact that it complexifies as a result of its adaptations to new requirements and does not complexify in anticipation of them suggests the exact opposite of your theory.

dhw: […] Why do you regard it as illogical that pelvises would adapt to the new size of skull, though there may have been many fatalities along the way?

DAVID: Logically the changes have to be simultaneous. Otherwise not some/many fatalities but both Mothers and babies die. You have never left your Darwin background wanting tiny adaptations. Gould left Darwin to show evolution is nothing but gaps.

Of course mothers and babies would die – how does that mean “not some/many fatalities”? But eventually only suitably sized pelvises would have survived, and there would have been no small pelvises left. You have left out my question: do you think the switch to large pelvises happened overnight? If not, how long do you think it might have taken?

DAVID: It is obvious the immune systems have the intelligent instructions to build the library.

dhw: The library is the instructions on how to cope with new infections. So if your God gave cells the ABILITY to build the library, he must have given them the ability to create the instructions – and that ability is what I call cellular intelligence.

DAVID: Totally backwards: contrary to all evidence. The library is created from scratch and filled with the newly constructed antibodies developed from existing intelligent instructions. The newborn only has colostrum at the start.

Intelligent instructions on how to do what? Even babies’ immune systems can fight some bacteria, and this “library” gradually expands. Are you saying that your God gradually adds instructions on how to deal with every infection that can happen? Or are you saying that your God has created a system which is able to create its own instructions on how to deal with each infection? “Intelligent instructions to build the library” sounds very like the latter to me.

dhw: Every new infection requires different handling. That is why we need a library which grows with each new infection. Of course the result will be one form of killing or another. Please tell me what is incorrect in my summary of your theory.

DAVID: This version is not like the above and is correct.

They are the same, and I don’t know what we’re arguing about.

DAVID (under “Immunity system complexity”): this is a protective mechanism that attempts to avoid allergic responses which are not necessary for immune defenses, but are mistakes. It must be part of an immune system design.

So the immune system was designed to make mistakes but it was designed to correct its mistakes. I would suggest that the immune system evolved continuously as its cells learned to deal with more and more infections, including those that resulted from its own allergic reactions. Nothing planned in advance, but a continuous learning process.

dhw: ...how do 280,000 years of stasis prove that God expanded the brain rather than the brain having expanded itself through implementing ideas cooked up by our ancestors’ souls – just as it complexifies itself now through the same process of brain responding to requirements of the soul?

DAVID: Simple answer. The new large brain allowed the soul to invent new very advanced concepts that previous less complex brains could not allow the soul to create.

How does the dualist’s brain “allow” the dualist’s soul to think? It provides information, and it implements the concepts thought up by the soul. If the soul uses existing information to think up a new concept (e.g. me want kill animal; not get too close; maybe invent something to kill from distance), it will then require new information and new activities from the brain in order to implement the concept, and we know for a fact that the brain changes IN RESPONSE to, not in anticipation of new requirements.

DAVID: In your cellular committee self-creation theory can you explain why the brain was produced oversized in the beginning? A mistake? Purposeful? If purposeful, what purpose? Can you describe the committee's discussion?

It would be more appropriate to ask why your God produced an oversized brain in the beginning! A mistake? Or what possible purpose could he have had? Do please answer. My answer is that the sapiens brain had expanded to its full practical capacity (further expansion would have required major anatomical changes), and so the cell communities found new ways of complexifying in order to meet new requirements. Complexification proved so efficient that some of the cells were no longer needed, and so there was a degree of shrinkage. You have agreed to this umpteen times, so I don’t know why you’re pretending that it’s a new mystery. It’s your theory that needs explaining.