Introducing the brain: general (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, March 15, 2022, 07:58 (982 days ago) @ David Turell

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

DAVID: Broca's area was there long before language. I'll bet Erectus had it.

dhw: That was made clear by the article, and it therefore categorically refutes your earlier statements that the complexities of the frontal lobe are unique to sapiens. Now you are betting that this complexity was not unique to sapiens.

DAVID: My point is simply erectus' brain had a degree of complexity lesser than sapiens. hbilis even less

Then we are in agreement. It is inevitable that if new cells are added, there will be an increase in complexity. But that doesn’t mean that sapiens frontal lobe is totally different from earlier frontal lobes, or that your God added all the new cells thousands of years before they were needed.

Memory formation

DAVID: […]I believe in God who designs new organisms prepared for their future uses.

dhw: I know you do...So even in your theory, your God provided the mechanism for autonomous change, and he did not provide new cells thousands of years before they were needed. What could this mechanism be, if it is not cellular intelligence?

DAVID: Brains before sapiens undoubtedly complexified using God-given instructions.

But you have previously agreed that complexification takes place without God’s intervention! Are you telling us that God whispered in the ear of a pre-sapiens: “Now you’re gonna invent a weapon to kill your prey from a distance, and I’ll give you the extra cells to help you design it, make it an’ use it”?

dhw: […] do you believe that 315,000 years ago he provided new cells with instructions on how to build centrally heated houses, write symphonies, invent nuclear weapons etc. (not to be opened for the next 314,000+ years)? As I see it, the only difference now between our theistic theories is that while accepting that your God gave cells an autonomous mechanism for complexification, you insist that he had to intervene personally when brains required new cells.

DAVID: Our God-given cells came with the ability to conceptualize on our command. You have your neuron cell committees brilliantly doing their own designing. With no known natural source of designing intelligence.

I don’t want to reopen the dualism versus materialism debate, which will require a definition of what “we” means. The point here is that you agree that the mechanism which gives us our ability to design is autonomous. You believe your God designed it, so why can’t you believe that he could have designed this autonomous mechanism to add cells as well as complexify them?