More "miscellany" PART ONE (General)

by dhw, Friday, May 19, 2023, 10:58 (315 days ago) @ David Turell

PART ONE

THE HUMAN BRAIN

dhw: We do not know the exact reason why ANY brains expanded, but possible explanations are that they responded to new requirements such as new living conditions, ideas, inventions, discoveries etc.. In each case, after expansion the new larger brain met any new requirements through complexification until the next major new requirement. The brains were not oversize! Ditto sapiens, but instead of expansion, complexification (apart from the hippocampus) took over. In short: our brain got bigger in order to deal with a new requirement – it was not oversize – and complexification then “handled all future requirements”. Why do you find that so difficult to believe?

DAVID: You describe what happens: a new brain appears to fit new needs, and you then agree that that brain handles the future needs for some time without expanding. Each new brain does this, especially ours. Why can't you see what you are describing is each new brain arrives bigger than current needs.

No it doesn’t. Each brain, as you tell us below, proceeds to complexify with the cells it now has. The size becomes irrelevant once the number of cells is able to cope.

dhw: we don’t know why ANY brains expanded (including our own), but I have offered a list of possibilities. Life was comparatively “simple” during every phase: reproduce, find shelter, find food, find means of protection, but there is also a clear progression of methods from ape to early human, and from early human to later human. In any case, I don’t know why you lay so much emphasis on size. I’ve just looked up a table of comparative sizes: Heidelbergensis averaged 1250 cc, late erectus was as large as 1250cc, Neanderthal was 1500cc, and we average 1350cc.

DAVID: I simply use size to mean new advanced complexity of function.

Since when did size become synonymous with complexity?

dhw: The choice is between evolution driven by intelligent cells (possibly your God’s invention) and your God’s billions of personal dabbles (mostly irrelevant to his purpose) or his 3.8-billion-year-old programme for every mutation, innovation, lifestyle, strategy, and natural wonder for the rest of life’s history (mostly irrelevant to his purpose). You stick with one or both of the last two.

DAVID: I stick with God without knowing how He did it.

dhw: Wonderful! You therefore accept the possibility that your God designed intelligent cells to drive evolution.

DAVID: No way!!! God made cells act intelligently, no more.

You’ve just said you don’t know how he did it, and a few days ago you repeatedly said that anything is possible (though you would regard your God as weak and wimpy if he gave cells autonomous intelligence). In any case, "made cells act intelligently" does not preclude the possibility that he gave them an autonomous mechanism with which to do so.

INFORMATION IS THE BASIS OF LIVING BIOLOGY

dhw: I would have thought the basis of living biology was biochemistry,but perhaps that's too simple for you and the author of the article.

DAVID: Again your confusion in red. What creates the biochemistry is information.

dhw: And there was me thinking you believed it was God who created biochemistry. Too simple again? […] Do you think that biochemical processes do not produce information?

DAVID: Yes they do recognizable only by an observing mind.

dhw: We are not arguing about consciousness of information, which of course is impossible without a conscious observer observing it! You told us information cannot ever FORM by chance. You now agree that it can, and you have to start delving into classifications. Your next wiggle is that God created information that created biochemistry. Why can’t you just say God created biochemistry? We humans give names to information contained within all the agents and all the results of biochemical processes, but information does not create the agents any more than it produces the results. Hence my question - not answered - about information PRODUCED by the processes. As an analogy to "creative" information, do you go around saying information wrote your book The Atheist Delusion, or do you think information composed Beethoven’s 9th symphony? I repeat: I don’t object to clear use of the word information (i.e. facts or details about a particular subject), but I do object when it is used unnecessarily or misleadingly, as in your example (“information never forms by chance”) or the heading of this section.

DAVID: Have you ever read Shannon information theory or heard of it?

If you can’t respond to my arguments, please admit it instead of giving me a reading list.
Alternatively, tell me Shannon's explanation of how information created you, me, and your book.

See Part Two for Shannon's information theory.


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