Brain expansion: different theories about rapid expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, August 22, 2020, 18:49 (1336 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: And so you still haven’t given me a single reason why the same autonomous (perhaps God-given) mechanism cannot possibly be responsible for pre-sapiens expansions.

DAVID: God in charge makes all final decisions. From my point of view, an automatic inventive mechanism needs very extensive guidelines to make all the required decisions about evolutionary advances. Much too cumbersome to design. Easier to design advances directly. I've expressed all of this before, remember?

dhw: Your “guidelines” consist only of 3.8-billion-year-old computer programmes and direct dabbling. Remember? I don’t know why you think it’s “easier” for your God to design every evolutionary advance, life form, econiche, lifestyle, strategy and natural wonder in the history of life on Earth than for him to give organisms the intelligence to do their own designing. Meanwhile, please grant my request bolded above. Remember, this mechanism, according to you, did NOT require guidelines. God was not involved.

I've answered before. I've designed and know all the considerations are so convoluted, they require direct thought, not a massive compendium of instructions.

Under: Brain expansion:our brain's unique differences from apes

DAVID: Enormous differences not just in size but organization and metabolism:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352154616302327?dgcid=raven_sd_reco...

dhw: QUOTES: Although humans have comparably large brains, brain size alone does not fully explain the cognitive faculties of our species.

Evolutionary changes may include addition of novel parietal areas that perform fine-grained visuospatial information processing.

Reorganization of the human brain is also apparent at the level of microstructure, such as distribution and morphology of neurons and glial cells.

Human brain evolution is characterized by increase in expression of genes involved in energy metabolism, synaptic function, and plasticity.

DAVID: This shows enormous design differences in our brain compared to apes, preparing us for the massive use it is being put to now. Planning and design required for the recognition of the future requirements. Only a designing mind is capable of this creating this occurrence.

dhw: Nobody would query the fact that our brains are different from those of apes, and our cognitive faculties are far more advanced. Where you and I differ is in your insistence that all the differences were installed in preparation for future requirements, whereas I propose that they evolved in response to requirements as these arose. You have noted the fact that “brain size alone does not fully explain our cognitive faculties”. If the brain expanded to its present size 315,000 years ago, according to you all the complexifications, reshapings, minor expansions and shrinkage took place without your God’s intervention. And we know that the modern brain changes IN RESPONSE to requirements. A designing mind may have created the autonomous mechanism which resulted in all these changes, but there is no evidence that the brain changes IN ANTICIPATION of new requirements. Furthermore, the very notion that brain change precedes improved cognitive faculties bolsters the case for materialism versus dualism, though you claim to be a dualist.

You always misinterpret my dualism. The soul can only achieve complex thought if the brain it is given by God allows that degree of complexity. Read the new entry on language. The anatomic capacities/attributes of body and brain allowed us to develop language on our own but only because of the capacities we received given by God.

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DAVID: You have faith in design. Remember!

dhw: I would not call it faith. I have three separate theories concerning the origin of life’s complexities: 1) a designing God; 2) chance as the power that first assembled the intelligent mechanism which over billions of years has designed all of life’s complexities; 3) intelligence as an innate quality of materials (panpsychism) which eventually produced the mechanism that has designed all of life’s complexities. I do not have faith in any of these theories.

DAVID: But you've admitted design keeps you agnostic. Only a mind can design. Chance is a very weak choice, and as for panpsychism, it is a pitiful substitute for a thinking mind. What is its source? Magic?

dhw: We have been over this time and again. What is the source of the thinking mind you call God? Magic? Don’t say “first cause”. My other two theories are also “first cause”. And I have no faith in any of these three theories.

But you admit a first cause is necessary.