Brain expansion: different theories about rapid expansion (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, August 24, 2020, 12:27 (1550 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: 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.

dhw: According to you, all undabbled evolutionary changes, not to mention lifestyles, strategies and natural wonders, from bacteria through to humans, were run by a 3.8-billion-year “compendium of instructions”. And according to you, the sapiens brain’s convolutions of complexification, minor enlargements, reshaping and shrinkage proceeded independently of your God’s involvement. Why do you think early brain expansions were more convoluted than all these processes and therefore required a divine dabble?

DAVID: The bold is not my opinion. God was directly involved in giving the sapiens brain a highly specific complexification ability. All previous brains undoubtedly had a similar process, although at a simpler level of complexity because those brains were less complex. All brain expansions were designed by God who speciates all.

Do you really think your God is and was involved in every single complexification of every individual’s brain, and stepped in to fiddle sapiens’ minor enlargements, reshaping and shrinkage? Of course you don’t. With my theist’s hat on, I am quite happy to accept that your God may have invented the mechanism for complexification (see below for the nature of the mechanism), but we agree that complexification must also have occurred in pre-sapiens brains, though on a lesser scale. Why would he have inserted a new mechanism (“ability”) into the sapiens’ brain when the mechanism was already there? Your last sentence is your usual authoritative statement of your beliefs as if they were a fact.

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

dhw: Dealt with over and over again. In the modern brain, if we reject materialism, it is the thoughts from the dualist’s soul that CAUSE complexifications, reshaping, shrinkage and even minor expansions, i.e. the brain RESPONDS to the soul’s new ideas and requirements and does not change in anticipation of them. There is no reason to suppose that the process was reversed in the past for major expansions.

DAVID: I'll stick with my viewpoint, not yours. The complexification caused by the soul'd use is because God gave the brain the ability to complexify as needed/used by the soul. And all of that is because God enlarged the sapiens brain in anticipation of our soul's uses/needs.

As above, I agree that your God may have invented the mechanism that enables the brain to complexify. (I would propose that it is the same mechanism that enables brain enlargement and speciation: the intelligence of cell communities to change their structure in response to new requirements.) But I see no reason why your God should have to step in to enlarge sapiens’ brain or any of our ancestors’ brains once he had invented the mechanism for ALL brain changes (and speciations) throughout history. And you have not provided me with any reason beyond your authoritative statement that he did what you want him to have done.