Introducing the brain: general (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, March 19, 2022, 19:04 (978 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You are the one who brought up God again as He relates to the appearance of new brains.

dhw: You keep pretending that my non-belief (as opposed to disbelief) in God somehow invalidates all the rational THEISTIC arguments I offer on any of the issues we discuss. Bad idea.

The problem is from your position you invent a god I do not recognize. The personality is totally different as I have illustrated. You make all sorts of attempts to make them appear equally human but I've shown the differences and you carefully ignore them and quote my guesses about God's feelings as facts which they are not. God may or may not have any emotional reactions following His intended creations. My God creates with no expectation for
Himself. You devise a god who constantly seeks some form of enjoyment or personal expectation. God is not creating us for Himself but for us. Let's use a simple example. God creates, but it is a valid guess He does it with no dislike. Thus the fact that we might guess He enjoys it, does not imply a human style of enjoyment. In making that statement I certainly have not humanized him.

Memory formation

DAVID: Kidneys, lungs, livers, etc. work without God. Why can't the brain?

dhw: Exactly. So why do you go on insisting that past brains could only complexify if God gave them instructions, and could only expand if he operated on them? (I have reinstated this response, as it relates more closely to your own question.)

DAVID: Why must God give off His designing ability?

dhw: You just gave us examples of organs that function without God, and then you asked exactly the question I keep asking: why can’t the brain also work without God?

DAVID: It does in the complexification process.

dhw: Thank you. So God “gives off His designing ability”. Now please tell me why he could not possibly have done the same when it came to brains needing additional cells (= expansion) for further complexification.

Complexification is not the brain designing anything new. It is simply a God-given mechanism to develop new axonal, synaptic connections within existing neurons. The neurons God designed come with the instructions of how to do it.

DAVID: By the way, if you lose a kidney the remaining one enlarges to handle the load. But a damaged brain can't do that, only consolidate what is left.

dhw: Interesting to learn how these organs which act independently of your God find their own solutions to new problems. Maybe the answer is that – if he exists – he gave them the intelligence to do so.

The remaining kidney has God's instructions ready to follow if needed. And the kidney reacts intelligently following instructions. You recognize design and don't understand it all at once.