Introducing the brain: general (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, March 06, 2022, 11:58 (991 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: […] You don't hand off your play writing to a substitute, as a perfect example.

dhw: […]As a playwright, like many other writers I know, I begin with an idea and allow it to develop of its own accord; I do not want to know in advance what is going to happen (otherwise I myself get bored with it)…

DAVID: Thank you! You have again shown us your personal approach to designing a play. This is why you design a god who doesn't care about an end point to avoid boredom. A very humanized form of a god.

Your analogy was meant to use the creative process as support for your theory of God’s control, but in fact it supports the idea of your God creating a free-for-all. Maybe you should look for an analogy that fits in with your own humanized concept of a god.

New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com

QUOTES: “...these structural innovations in the cerebral regions, thought to allow for many of humans' unique behaviors and abilities were probably in place by 1.5 to 1.7 million years ago.”

"As we drove our dinner extinct, we had to develop capabilities and technologies to hunt down smaller, fleeter animals. We may also have needed increasingly to communicate in order to strategize the hunt for fast food. Right now this is speculative, but the truth is, it adds up.”

dhw: It certainly does, though you will stick to your dabble of a few hundred thousand years ago.

DAVID: I prefer my view of the article to your biased take.

You now proceed to quote great chunks of the article, even bolding the first one above, so I will skip to your extraordinary conclusion, though I will add one to my original two:

QUOTE: "She also notes that the Broca area is involved in tool-making, and that all this begs the question: What kind of selection pressure may have been responsible for the reorganization of the human frontal lobes? Good question."

DAVID: The article clearly shows giant sapiens brain advances long before any current needs and uses. Note the early appearance of "Broca's language area long before real language developed. All organized in advance for future use.

The quotes above support my own theory: new CURRENT requirements would have led to the changes (including Broca). The author speculates that these may have been related to the need for “new capabilities and technologies” and for enhanced communication. This flatly contradicts your theory that the changes to the frontal lobe were unique to sapiens, and it directly supports the proposal that the changes RESULTED from current requirements.

DAVID: Note design in preparation:

QUOTE: "Dampwood termites with the potential to leave the colony have larger optic lobes before ever being exposed to different visual environments, an example of predictive brain plasticity."

dhw: [...] I would guess that the origin of this particular variation is that if new colonies were to be founded, as the article says, it was essential that the founder should be able to cope with brighter conditions when leaving the nest (i.e. the ability first arose in response to a new requirement). […]

DAVID: What a weak response. All you have done is insert your bias and refuted the point the author's made. A brain in anticipation of need!

dhw: The author makes no attempt to explain how such an ability originated.

DAVID: Why should he? He is a Darwinist who assumes natural selection easily saw the future and prepared for it.

There is no mention of natural selection, which in any case can only select what exists and is useful in the present. Your point and his is that some innovations are preparations for the future. (You wrote: “Design in anticipation of use. No surprise to me.”) What surprises me is that you don’t support the author. My point is that innovations begin as responses to current needs – not in anticipation of needs that do not yet exist. If they are successful, then of course they will be used in the future.

dhw: Over time, just as over generations legs turn into flippers from repeated usage in the water, the eyesight of the kings and queens improves over generations. The termite brain is plastic – it responds to new needs, just like ours. Please tell me why you find this explanation less believable than the divine one outlined above.

DAVID: The point is clear. You must disregard Darwinist interpretation if it doesn't fit you enormous bias.

I have no idea what you mean. Darwin attributes innovations to random mutations, whereas I suggest they come about through intelligent responses to current needs. May I assume you think your God operated on a few termite eyes before they needed to leave the nest (and as “part of the goal of evolving humans” plus food)? If not, what is your theory? And why is your theory more likely than my proposal that the need to find a suitable new location originally led to the relevant cells - possibly empowered by your God’s gift of intelligence - making the necessary changes to improve their ability to fulfil the then current requirement. (The successful changes would then, of course, have been handed down to future generations.)