Introducing the brain: general (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, February 14, 2022, 09:09 (1011 days ago) @ David Turell

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) bbbbwhich exceeded the existing brain’s capacity for complexification.

DAVID: Erectus and early sapiens lived very similar lives. You require some magical new uses to magically force a brain expansion by natural means.
And later:
DAVID: what new requirements, 315,000 years ago by cave dwellers? Please specifics to support your contention.

We’ve been through all this! Nobody knows what triggered any of the expansions (I gave you a list of possibilities above) but all the homos, despite their new tools and weapons etc., would have led similar lives to early sapiens, based on the essentials for survival. The astonishing invention and making of the spear did not change the way of life. And intelligent cells multiplying are no more “magical” than a God’s 3.8-billion-year–old programme for all undabbled innovations etc. for the rest of time.

I shan’t repeat the summary of my theory here, but I will repeat the last question, as your reply illustrates the main problem with our current discussions.

dhw:. 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.

DAVID: 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?

And so you dodge every single question and ignore every single explanation as you rush back to the theory that the complexities of life provide evidence for the existence of God, which is not the subject under discussion! In what way does my theory “twist the complexity mechanism out of shape”, do you now accept that the cells were used 315,000 years ago instead of lying there doing nothing, and that they complexified, and the efficiency of complexification resulted in shrinkage, and (yet again) why do you think your God could design an autonomous mechanism for complexification but could not or did not design one for expansion? Please don’t tell us that it’s because you and Adler believe that God exists.

DAVID (under “Bilingualism”): 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.
And
DAVID: 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.

You have completely ignored my question yesterday about WHAT was prepared/anticipated. If you mean that the mechanism for future complexifications was already there, then that would also be true of all the earlier homos. But do you mean that 315,000 years ago your God specially prepared certain cells to cope with the demands of language and of bilingualism, and so they just lay around for, say, 250,000 years doing nothing? I asked the same question about whales: did your God give them the mechanism to change legs to flippers, or did he look into his crystal ball and perform the operation to “prepare” them for a watery life at some time in the future?

DAVID: Back to narrow view of the whale series. The whole series defies you.

Explained in my response on your theory thread.

DAVID: You have no logical answer to the three-part birth problem except the separate cells of the three individuals so how tele-communicate.

Already explained at least three times: Large-brained parents mix DNA, result bigger baby, birth canal and surrounds must communicate in order to adapt to bigger baby…no doubt lots of problems initially, but over generations would have sorted itself out.

DAVID: 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.

See above. How often do I have to repeat that I don’t accept chance either. As language developed, so the brain cells would have responded by making adjustments to accommodate the new usage of sounds.

Controlling spoken words
QUOTE: "New research has identified the part of the brain that makes sure our words are being properly articulated : the dorsal precentral gyrus. This knowledge could help treat speech problems and neural disorders in the future, the researchers say.

DAVID: our brain 315,000 years ago prepared to organize itself as part of its in initial design. Specific controls as described don't appear by chance.

I like the change from your God dabbling to the brain organizing itself, but I disagree profoundly with the idea that it prepared itself for requirements that would only arise 250,000 or so years later. Just like the whale’s anatomy “organizing itself” IN RESPONSE to different usages in the water, our brain would have “organized itself” IN RESPONSE to different usages, including the development of language.