Brain expansion: different theories about rapid expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, September 11, 2020, 21:26 (1315 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You offer a purely humanized (biased) version of God. My reason simply uses His creations as explanation. If it exists He wanted it for His own reasons, no inventions on my part.

dhw: Re evolution: I offer various alternative versions of your purposeful God, to explain why he might have created what he created. You accept that they are all logical, and that God probably has patterns of thought and other attributes similar to ours. You offer one version, based on fixed, non-factual (i.e. invented) premises, to which you adhere with total rigidity, despite their illogicality as a combination. I don’t know why you think my approach is the one that is biased. Re brain expansion: you stick rigidly to your belief that your God performed an operation on hominid and homo brains, skulls and pelvises to make them expand. I propose an alternative theory that older brains may have functioned in the same way as modern brains, by complexifying and expanding through the same autonomous mechanism which the theist can attribute to God. Why do you think my theory is more biased that your rigid belief?

First of all I am writing from a firm belief in God, while you try to view evolution as entirely natural. Secondly, all of your so-called logical reasons God might have acted as He did are human-level reasons and at that level are logical. Adler's arguments about our difference are convincing to me we are God's primary purpose.

DAVID: What is silly is ignoring the facts the Moroccans did not change lifestyle, had no new artifacts, and the opinion is given in the literature that their appearance was due to the climate allowing them to appear. Where are the new ideas? You are blind to 'stasis' now?

dhw: When I say the cause is unknown, I mean the cause is unknown. But if there was a change in the climate (or the Moroccans had migrated from a different climate), that would certainly trigger new requirements. Many thanks for providing a possible cause that supports my theory. What do you mean by “blind to stasis”? Once the brain had met the new requirements by expanding, there were no more new requirements until a sudden rush of new ideas approx. 35,000 years ago.

You have offered no new requirements. All that is present is a new-sized brain with no new advances in life-style in a pleasant climate

dhw: Now please offer me one good reason why the autonomous mechanism which enables the modern brain to adapt to new requirements by complexifying and adding a few new cells could not possibly have complexified and added a lot of new cells in earlier brains, also in response to new requirements.

DAVID: My answer is God enlarged the brain and had the complexification mechanism built in. Where did your version of the brain come from?

dhw: But we have agreed that the autonomous complexification mechanism must already have existed in pre-sapiens brains, and since modern brains are known to add a few cells to meet specific requirements, why do you exclude the possibility that in former times the same mechanism could have added lots of cells to meet specific requirements? After all, you yourself have told us that the brain has an autonomous “adaptability to react to any and all physical and mental and emotional demands we place on it.” Why is not feasible that the pre-sapiens brain also reacted autonomously to the demands placed on it? As for where the brain came from, you are now expanding the discussion to the whole of evolution, which of course we’ve already done above, thanks to your accusation of bias. But you know perfectly well that my proposal (not rigidly fixed belief) for the origin of all organs and species is that intelligent cells form the communities of which all multicellular life consists, and your God may have been the designer of cellular intelligence.

OK. You are just adjusting your seat on the agnostic fence. I'm arguing only for a designer
God and don't believe nature can do what happened on its own. I see the complexity of the complexification mechanism as requiring a proper designer.