Human evolution; savannah theory fading (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, August 08, 2022, 11:21 (836 days ago) @ David Turell

Brain expansion

dhw: I don’t have a problem with the theory that if God exists, he would have designed the mechanisms enabling cells to multiply and to complexify.

DAVID: Fine

dhw: That is not the point. If you say God gave us excess cells which resulted in our having free will, (a) the cells were NOT excessive, and (b) how could habilis and erectus have had free will without the new cells you say God gave us for that purpose?

DAVID: Again, agree.

DAVID: I've not closed my mind to complexification in which cells design their own improvements.

dhw: Even if you are now only open to that proposal, it’s a great boost to the theory that if God exists, he provided cells with the intelligence to “design their own improvements” throughout the history of evolution. Thank you.

DAVID: Amazing, another agreement. God designed brains that could complexiify on their own. That doesn't mean He put in an expansion mechanism working on new designed larger brains without His full input of new design (dabble).

After all these delightful agreements, you proceed to muddy the waters with an incomprehensible post. You have agreed that he could have designed the mechanisms for complexification and expansion (= cells multiplying), so how does the mechanism for expansion “work on new designed larger brains”? The mechanism for expansion produces the larger brain when complexification can no longer cope with new requirements. The new cells meet the new requirements. So what “new design” are you talking about that requires your God’s full input, if he has already designed the mechanisms for complexification and expansion?

Human evolution; new study says our brain did not shrink

dhw: We still have to explain why our brain stopped expanding.

DAVID: Easy to explain: God made it adequate for all our present and future needs. I remind you it arrived 315,000 years ago ready for full use as we desired to use it in our future. But you illogically deny it didn't arrive with overcapacity but enlarged to fill only new current requirements.bbb One of your dodges.

dhw: Of course it didn’t arrive with overcapacity! Capacity relates to size (the number of cells). At all stages, the brain evolved by increasing its capacity as soon as its existing capacity proved inadequate to deal with new requirements. At each stage, it then complexified until once again it needed greater capacity (hence expansion). The same process went on until some new requirement once again resulted in the expansion to our current capacity. Then once again complexification took over (the capacity remained adequate) – but eventually, when new requirements arose, instead of increasing capacity (= expansion), the process of complexification was enhanced,

DAVID: How did the 'enhancing' happen: by chance, by cell committees, or by God's design?

If God exists, and if he designed an autonomous mechanism for cells to do their own complexification – as you have agreed above – then it’s only logical that the cells themselves would have done the enhancing, just as they would previously have organized their own multiplication.

dhw: […] thereby rendering further expansion unnecessary (but we don’t know why complexification took over from expansion). There was never any overcapacity at any stage, except possibly when our complexification process proved to be so efficient that cells which had previously been NECESSARY became redundant (hence shrinkage, though that is now being questioned).

DAVID: How about God designed it big enough for all future needs? What our brain has done factually shows exactly that either from God or chance or cell committees.

Thank you for quietly dropping your attack on me for rejecting your theory of “overcapacity”. You are obviously right to say that our brain is big enough for our needs, since it hasn’t expanded. I don’t know why you think your God has to intervene in order to specially design our brain, since you accept that he had already set up the mechanisms for expansion and complexification for all the earlier brains. But I guess this lies at the heart of all your theories: even though you have now opened your mind to the possibility that “cells design their own improvements”, you still want your God to design every improvement himself!