Introducing the brain: general (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, February 13, 2022, 15:50 (797 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: So confused, ignoring my points. Complexification enlarges tiny areas of the existing brain, and does not explain the 200cc jumps in pre-human and then early homo enlargements.

dhw: Explained ad nauseam: each stage of expansion, including our own, would have been triggered by new requirements (e.g. new ideas, inventions, environments, discoveries) which exceeded the existing brain’s capacity for complexification.

Erectus and early sapiens lived very similar lives. You require some magical new uses to magically force a brain expansion by natural means.

DAVID: Einstein's special area was one tiny fold five millimeters thicker in 1,350 cc of brain. Shrinkage makes room for those enlargements, caused by new uses. You have twisted the mechanism of complexification all out of shape. All previous brains in human evolution had the complexification mechanism. It didn't appear with us.

dhw: I have laid great emphasis on the proposal that ALL brains complexified – see my bold above. It is your contention that your God enlarged sapiens’ brain in anticipation of future use. Initially you claimed that the additional cells were not used, but subsequently you changed this to their not being “fully” used. It is my contention that sapiens’ brain expanded, like its predecessors, because of some new requirement.

As above, what new requirements, 315,000 years ago by cave dwellers? Please specifics to support your contention.

dhw: ALL the cells were necessary, and then as usual brains complexified IN RESPONSE to new requirements. However, in sapiens the process of expansion stopped (perhaps because further expansion would have required major changes to the anatomy) and instead the process of complexification took over. We know that the brain complexifies IN RESPONSE to new requirements and not in anticipation of them, and you have agreed that this process takes place without intervention from your God (if he exists). Shrinkage, I propose, has occurred because complexification has made hitherto useful cells redundant. Some areas of the brain have enlarged slightly in certain circumstances. We may take this as evidence that in the past the brain was able to expand as well as complexify. The brain may never be “fully” used, so long as existing cells can go on complexifying in response to our new ideas etc. How on earth all this “twists the complexification mechanism out of shape” is quite beyond me, but perhaps you will explain your own concept of how it works. And finally, since you accept the autonomy of the complexification process, I have repeatedly asked you why you can’t except the possible autonomy of the expansion process.

Simply because I have accepted Adler's view that humans were made by God, under His direct intent. A designer must exist as the complexities of biochemistry show. Do you ever see the whole picture of why I choose God as my books show?

DAVID (under “Bilingualism”): Bilingualism is easily handled. 315,000 years ago language beyond grunts and hand signs barely existed. If our brain handles it well now, it came prepared for it. Obvious design anticipation of use.

dhw: Do you mean your God anticipated bilingualism and prepared the brain to produce and understand two separate lots of sounds, or do you mean he “prepared” the brain for whatever new requirements might arise in the future? If it’s the latter, then we go right back to the design of the MECHANISMS that enable species to adapt and innovate and enabled all earlier brains to expand and complexify. No need to keep harping on about 315,000 years ago or about 3.8-billion-years-old programmes for every life form and decision and natural wonder, or about overnight operations on a group of humans to give them bigger brains and pelvises. I can narrow it down if you like: did your God look into his crystal ball and say: “Them pre-whales are gonna need flippers one day in the future, so I’ll operate now to prepare ‘em. And them humans are gonna speak two languages in 250,000 or so years’ time, so I’ll operate now an’ give ‘em the right cells to prepare ‘em to speak two languages.” If not, what do you think he did prepare/anticipate?

Back to narrow view of the whale series. The whole series defies you. You have no logical answer to the three-part birth problem except the separate cells of the three individuals so how tele-communicate. As for language, our brain handled it well when language appeared. A brain arriving by a chance Darwin mechanism doing that is way beyond logical. Language in all forms didn't exist 315,000 years ago when the brain appeared. That means the brain was capable all that time ago. Seems like prepared by anticipation of future need, which is what happened.