Brain expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, July 03, 2020, 19:48 (1602 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: We both agree to a period of stasis with no new artifacts. Apply your theory to sapiens only and we have fossil sapiens at many stages of past history with no new artifacts evident, where is the implementation of the 'idea that made the sapiens brain initiate enlargement?

dhw: First we have nothing for 250,000 years (= stasis), and then we have many stages with nothing, as if there WAS something in between. Please make up your mind.

Life went on for 250,000 years with little changed. That is true stasis.

dhw: You have left out my statement that nobody knows what requirements the pre-sapiens brain was responding to, and now you’re asking me to tell you! The 315,000-year-old Moroccan fossils were accompanied by their artefacts, but I can’t insist that it was their implementation that caused the expansion. Nor can you insist that expansion took place overnight, with your God stepping in to do a dabble with the brains, skulls and pelvises. What is your point?

I left out your bold because I don't accept it. You are now struggling to find evidence for your brain growth theory, while we discuss sapiens. I state we had to learn to use our newly given brain. God steps in, which you don't accept.

DAVID: Same meaning, different way of describing.

dhw: “The brain cannot think without the soul using it” means that the brain CAN think if the soul uses it. The dualist’s brain does not think. It is the soul that thinks. Please stop messing around with words.

Finally clearly stated. Which implies my rule: brain complexity level allows soul thought complexity level.

dhw: I simply asked you to make a choice between his not knowing and his not wanting to know. You now have a God who creates a system full of errors, tries in vain to stop some of them, and doesn’t know what is coming. Please drop the word “perfection”, which is far too vague. Your previously all-powerful, all-controlling, all-knowing God is now revealed to have limited powers, control and knowledge, but somehow this makes him LESS human than a God who knows exactly what he is doing (e.g. deliberate creation of error-strewn system) or who experiments in order to create what he wants to create!

Again, your problem about your humanized God. Repeat: there is no God who can make biologic living systems run perfectly. Accept it. I have and it does't change my views of God.

dhw: […] you have agreed that in all my alternatives, he DOES think logically as we do, but according to you, that "humanizes him", and although according to you he probably has thought patterns similar to ours, we mustn't think he does.

DAVID: The bold is the usual distortion of my thoughts: we and He use the same logical methods. We cannot know His reasons for His choices, but can guess. We can guess if you wish, but what does it prove?

dhw: What “logical methods”? If I have a single goal to create one thing and the means of achieving it, I will use the means of achieving it. That is my logic. How is that the same logical method as having a single goal to create one thing and the means of achieving it, but not achieving it until after creating millions of other unrelated things?

The bold is a perfect example of your human thinking applied to God. Thank you. Makes my point.

dhw: …complexification replaced expansion in response to new uses and concepts. But according to you, 315,000 years ago your God gave us extra neural networks that were NOT needed, and so we autonomously got rid of them. What is your point?

DAVID: […] Obviously planning for our new uses with extra plasticity.

dhw: Why specially design unnecessary networks which can be discarded? Why not design the right amount of plasticity in the first place? Yet another example of the various weaknesses you are now finding in your previously all-powerful, all-controlling, all-knowing God?

No weakness. Your confusion. The plasticity system is perfectly designed to make use of the extra networks to end up with a tailored brain that fits exactly the uses we find to put it to. This again shows you have forgotten we have free will and God doesn't know exactly how we will use it. I don't view this as a defect in my God.