Human evolution; savannah theory fading (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, August 05, 2022, 20:40 (619 days ago) @ dhw

Brain expansion

DAVID: There are not enough fossils to answer all question, but brain shrinkage is accumpianed without skull case shrinkage.

dhw: Correct. So what makes you think that habilis and erectus began with “excess capacities”, as opposed to their having acquired new cells to meet new requirements when their existing capacity for complexification had been exhausted?

Don't forget evolution is a process is which new processes build on earlier ones. Don't you think our brain is built from previous functioning brains, so why can't complexification be previously present?

DAVID: So you assume the needed extra cells in new species simply appeared magically? New designs require a designer.

dhw: There is no magic if you accept the theory of cellular intelligence (possibly designed by your God)! At every stage, when complexification could no longer cope, new conditions/discoveries/inventions/tools/lifestyles required additional cells for their implementation. But for some unknown reason, sapiens’ brain generally stopped expanding, and complexification took over, with such efficiency that cells which had previously been necessary then became redundant. You keep agreeing with this last explanation, so I don’t know why you keep faffing around with new objections.

DAVID: I agree with your description of events but reject your intelligent cell theory.

dhw: So long as you agree with the theory that new cells were acquired when new conditions etc. demanded an increase in capacity, we can leave it open as to the nature of the mechanism. My objection is to your theory that new “excess” cells were acquired when they were not needed, purely in anticipation of future requirements that did not yet exist.

A designer would logically design a brain for free usage which would implies shrinkage could occur as brain complexifies.

Dhw: […] [i]you have not yet given us your own theory as to why our brain stopped expanding and reverted to enhanced complexification instead. Please tell us.[/i]

DAVID: I have told you previously: God designed our brain as an endpoint in evolution. It came with all the capacity it would ever need. Its conceptualizing ability seems endless based on present evidence of ideations. It came oversized to allow us to mold it as we willed. It came with a complexification mechanism to accommodate our free use of it.

dhw: I asked you to give us your explanation for why our brain stopped expanding and complexification took over. Your explanation is that our brain was “oversized” (whereas earlier you agreed that “cells which had previously been necessary then became redundant”) and the new cells enabled us to “mold it as we will”, and it came with a “complexification mechanism to accommodate our free use of it”. But these characteristics are no different from those of the brains that preceded ours, so how does the above explain why our brain stopped expanding???

You constantly fail to think as a designer would. God made our brain oversized so we could develop its use as we willed. Free will!!! It was so complete in its capacities further enlargement was never necessary. I view us as a finished endopint.

DAVID: (under “prediction machine”) As in the past I've always noted the brain is designed to help us use it.

dhw: I’d have thought that every cell in every organ and organism was “designed to be used” by the organism.

Off the subject of predictive capacity.