Brain expansion (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, June 25, 2020, 12:21 (1610 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Same contradiction: your soul wants new concepts to develop, but delays after the adequate new brain is present for them to reach fruition. Why the wait?

dhw: What delays are you talking about? In my theory, expansion happens when the existing brain does not have the capacity to implement (bring to fruition) a new concept thought up by the soul. The process of implementation leads to the expansion.

DAVID: 'Implementation' means the appearance of the new invention at the time the new brain appears. Yet we both agree about a stasis period.

I still don’t understand what contradiction you are talking about. Expansion is caused by the implementation of a concept. I have defined “implementation” as: “every facet of design right from scratch, every calculation, every experiment, every movement.” Maybe this process is gradual, encompassing on-going implementations of concepts, but once the “new brain appears”, it doesn’t expand any more (stasis), because maybe there are no new concepts (stasis), until the process repeats itself thousands of years later.

dhw: The process begins with existing information, but from then on expansion results from the soul using the brain to provide more and more information in an ongoing learning process as the original thought is transformed into a material reality.

DAVID: Again not my concept: implementation is easy, concept difficult, and in my view the soul cannot think in life without using whatever brain circuits exist, and they must have enough complexity to allow complex concepts.

See above for implementation. I keep agreeing that the soul uses existing brain circuits (a) for the information on which concepts are based, and (b) because they are required to implement the concepts. And yes, the circuits must be complex enough – not to “allow” complex concepts but to IMPLEMENT them, and if they are not complex enough to do so, they will need to expand! (The sapiens brain implements concepts through its enhanced and autonomous ability to complexify itself.)

DAVID: His complexification mechanism ran on its own.

dhw: Thank you. And if he could create an autonomous complexification mechanism, why do you think he couldn't create an autonomous enlargement mechanism?

DAVID: I've told you He can with guidelines, which you inexplicably won't accept. Do you think the complexification mechanism is simple to design?

You’ve just said “His complexification mechanism ran on its own”, and now you’re back with your guidelines which = preprogramming or direct dabbling – the exact opposite of “on its own”. If your God designed an autonomous mechanism for complexification, why could he not have designed an autonomous mechanism for expansion? What has “simplicity” got to do with it?

dhw: The video does not deal with the development of a single organ, but with SPECIATION! Of course every fossilized “form” functioned completely – otherwise it couldn’t have lived, but every “form” in the video means every new species.

DAVID: Exactly the point: each new species is fully formed to function properly, not simple adaptation.

You have forgotten the point, which is the ongoing expansion of an existing organ, the brain – not the formation of new species.

DAVID: Note Eldridge and Gould both agreed about the gaps and invented a weird punctuated equilibrium theory, that was entirely descriptive and of no real value.

dhw: […] I disagree with you about the value of “punctuated equilibrium”, but that is a totally different subject.

DAVID: No it isn't. We are arguing about sapiens' brain and how it arrived and why it is in the form it is at arrival.

dhw: My whole theory explains how and why it developed from earlier brains. “Punctuated equilibrium” provides a perfect explanation for the stasis that seems to bother you so much. [I went on to explain precisely how it did so.]

DAVID: Exactly backwards: every new-sized homo brain creates more advanced artifacts. Advanced size and complexity allows advanced inventions to be thought of and produced. Explained over and over. How can 'advanced' ideas force enlargement when the brain complexity does not allow their thought to appear? In life, the soul must use the thought quality of brain it has to create new thought. Proven by artifacts that appear.

I explained the relevance of punctuated equilibrium to stasis, and you have changed the subject back to enlargement and all the points which I have explained “over and “over”. New thoughts appear using EXISTING brain complexity (the spear example). And what on earth is “the thought quality of brain”? Once and for all: in dualism the soul does the thinking. Yes or no? It uses the brain for information and for implementation as defined above. Yes or no? In my theory, the original thought appears in the old smaller brain using existing information, and implementation as defined above forces enlargement. The new artefact and the expanded brain naturally “appear” at the same time. From then on, the soul can produce its new concepts from existing information provided by the brain, and the brain will implement them using its existing complexities, until the next “crisis”, when existing complexities cannot implement another new concept. Hence another expansion. Only when we reach sapiens are the brain’s complexities sufficient to cope with all new concepts.