Human evolution; savannah theory fading (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, August 10, 2022, 20:23 (836 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Wednesday, August 10, 2022, 20:44

Brain expansion

DAVID: I have not agreed to anything more than complexification improves brain function as an improvement within the same original brain, and complexification is a process God designed into the brain cells.

dhw: I will of course accept that when you said “Fine” in response to the quote I’ve bolded above, it was a slip of your pen. However, you have definitely accepted that your God (if he exists) would have designed the complexification process which autonomously (i.e. without his intervention) enables cells to design their own improvements. So please tell me why you think he could not have designed an autonomous mechanism enabling cells to add to their numbers when necessary.

I view complexification as a requirement to allow the individual to use his brain and develop the proper neurologic networks to support new uses, but it does not apply to new neurons appearing except in the hippocampus. This is all fact. We have to accept what God provided. No cell or committee of them knows how to design a new step. It is your theory, nothing more.

dhw: The theory is that cells design forms in response to present requirements, not in anticipation of conditions that do not yet exist. You wrote – quoted above – “I've not closed my mind to complexification in which cells design their own improvements.” Don’t you think enhancement means improvement?

No, it means new networks for new uses with existing neurons which is an obvious improvement

DAVID: To repeat: "I have not agreed to anything more than complexification improves brain function as an improvement within the same original brain, and complexification is a process God designed into the brain cells." I am sure our original sapiens brain has been shaped by complexification to be an improved current brain.

dhw: Agreed (if God exists). So now you accept that the enhancement would have been done by the cells themselves, unless for some reason you think enhancement does not mean improvement.

Yes, a new complexification is an enhancement and an improvement in function.

DAVID: God designed all previous hominin/homo brains. I've never changed that opinion. I've agreed from above: "The cell committees know how to complexify, nothing more".

dhw: Please tell us what else he designed, once he had designed “the mechanisms enabling cells to multiply and to complexify” – which we have agreed were already present in previous hominin/homo brains?

Based on our current brain new neurons are limited to the hippocampus and I must assume previous brains had the same arrangement

DAVID: Answered above. What does 'please tell us what else He deigned' ask? My answer is everything.

dhw: Sorry, I was referring only to brains. We now have him designing a mechanism for complexification. The improvements are carried out autonomously by the cells themselves. So when you say “God designed all previous hominin/homo brains”, what else do you think he designed apart from the mechanisms for complexification (which is autonomous) and expansion (which you say he engineered individually, but which I propose would also have been autonomous). My point is that these mechanisms would have been there from the earliest hominin/homo brain onwards, in which case the improvements from the very first brain onwards would have been made autonomously by the cells themselves. Even if he individually inserted each set of additional cells, they would still have created improvements through the autonomous process of complexification. So what was left for him to “design”?

He must design the enlargement of skull brain pan and enlargement of the new bigger brain with more neurons, with which complexification could work to handle new activities, etc. And obviously design the right sized pelvis for mommy to handle the bigger sized baby skull.

Let's imagine your theory: new neurons increase very slowly, gradually creating pressure on the skull cells, which then respond to enlarge the brain pan. Our fossil collection is to sparce to prove this, but we shall accept the possibility. The big problem is who tells mommy's pelvis to enlarge? Your previous answers have been let them die until they figure it out. Now let's assume the fossil record tells the truth and brain size actually jumped 100cc or more at a time. This is not gradual. Does mommy still figure it out by dying? Oh, I forgot, Daddy's cells signal his wife's cells to get with it. I'll stay with God designing all.