Introducing the brain: why so big? Part two (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, July 20, 2024, 08:06 (124 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Oversized would mean that the new cells were superfluous. How can they have been superfluous if they were all being used?

DAVID: Used in several minor ways.
And:
DAVID: Your quote is correct: "The early cells were able to meet all new demands" for all future years!!!

dhw: Thank you. That does not mean they were superfluous for 290,000 years!

DAVID: Of course they were.

dhw: You’ve just said they weren’t! Even used in “minor survival ways” means they were used. My point is that they came into existence because they were needed. They did not come into existence because they would be needed in 290,000 years’ time!

DAVID: That is you naturalist, materialist view. Mine is a God who prepared us for our future, now here in the last 10,000 years with reading, writing, languages, singing, higher math, gymnastics, and so on. Major new uses for a brain which can complexify with the many available neurons from 300,000 years ago.

We are in complete agreement on the fact that the new cells which met the new demands 300,000 years ago have also been used to meet the new demands for the last 10,000 years. You have agreed that your God does not intervene in the process of complexification. And, wonder of wonders, here is your conclusion:

DAVID: God gave our brain the ability to complexify with the extra neurons only slightly used.

“Only slightly used” does not mean they were superfluous when – I suggest – they arrived in order to meet new requirements and succeeded in doing so. My theistic version of the brain’s evolution (as of evolution in general) is precisely what you have said: he would have given our brains (and cells in general) the ABILITY to make changes to themselves in response to new requirements. 300,000 years ago, he did not preprogramme the brain cells to read, write etc. Those were the complexifications resulting from the brain’s (perhaps God-given) ability to complexify. Agreement at last.

“De novo”
dhw: Complexifying existing brains is not “de novo”.

DAVID: A completely new type is 'de novo'.

dhw: You have presented article after article in which researchers use mouse brains to understand the workings of our brains. Our brains are not a “completely new type”. They are mammal brains with additional features, and you have admitted that “of course He uses previous brains”. A completely new type (“de novo” = “afresh anew; from the beginning) would have nothing in common with previous brains.

DAVID: You ignored the point: five layers of pyramidal neurons in our frontal lobes is entirely new. Our pyramidal neurons differ from mouse:
file:///C:/Users/pacemaker/Downloads/s41467-021-22741-9.pdf
Very complex article shows huge differences from mouse type.

All species have differences from other species! But all mammals have frontal lobes. The one fact that ours are different from theirs does not alter the other fact that there are multiple similarities between their brains and ours, and so our brains were not designed afresh from the beginning, as we inherited them from our mammal ancestors.