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

by dhw, Tuesday, July 30, 2024, 10:58 (116 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: ... But if you say the extra cells were superfluous, it means they were not needed. “Slightly used” tells us nothing. They were used, and it would be totally pointless for the brain to take on additional cells if they were not needed. This applies throughout the history of brain expansion. You agree that your God plays no role in complexification. So it is absurd to argue that your God plonked the new cells into the first sapiens brain in order to prepare them to write, build cities, invent motor cars, fly to the moon, question his existence etc. He would simply have given them the ABILITY to do all these things. And the same principle could apply to the whole of evolution: speciation, lifestyles,strategies, natural wonders etc.

DAVID: You don't want God involved at all.

dhw: I have just said that your God would have given them the ABILITY (assuming he exists), not the detailed instructions. Why don’t you read what I write?

DAVID: We cannot find any mechanism for speciation in what we know of any genome.

Nor can we find any instructions that detail how every organism should respond to every problem. Nor is there any evidence that an unknown, unknowable, sourceless mind has intervened in order to engineer every innovation, lifestyle, strategy, natural wonder in the history of life. You keep reminding us that all theories are just unproven guesses, so why don’t you focus on feasibility?

DAVID: Your approach is totally to tout natural mechanisms and IGNORE God or grudgingly mention Him. Of course, the giant sapiens brain finally, after 300,000 years of minor use came into full use in the past 10,000 years.

Please stop distorting my approach. I am an agnostic. I have always included God in all my alternative theories concerning (a) evolution and (b) God’s purpose and nature (how can one discuss God’s nature by ignoring him?) . The evolution of our brain has been a clear development from earlier brains (you agree), with additions of new cells as required. The complexification of cells takes place without your God’s intervention (you agree), but your God may have given cells this autonomous ABILITY to complexify. (You agree.) So stop pretending that my views are atheistic. As for “full use”, you are still talking nonsense, unless you actually believe that from 2024 onwards, we humans will stop thinking new thoughts, inventing new things, making new discoveries etc. The same process of complexification will continue, just as it has done since we first acquired the additional cells 300,000 years ago.

dhw: You have agreed that your God “gave our brain the ABILITY to complexify” without his intervention. So what are you arguing about?

DAVID: The 'use' of all the neurons in the sapiens brain from 300,000 years ago. From minor to major.

All the neurons were used from the beginning. From then on, they complexified, and will continue to do so, and you agree that your God plays no part in their complexification. What are you arguing about?

DAVID: Neurons are very specialized cells, not equivalent to other cells.

dhw: So how come that legs can turn into flippers or light-sensitive cells into eyes or gills into ears?

Not answered.

DAVID: God's design, remember as you fight Him. Not agnostic to defend chance evolution. You are a little schizo, aren't you?

dhw: I am not fighting God’s design if I suggest that your God designed cellular intelligence which in turn did its own designing, and this theory is not a defence of chance. You are scraping the barrel with these silly distortions. “Schizo” would be saying that God exists but does not exist, does the designing but does not do the designing, has human attributes but does not have human attributes. There is nothing “schizo” in the theory that if God exists, he may have invented cellular intelligence to design speciation and brain development.

DAVID: Your same role. Diminish God into a secondhand designer, actually a more complex way of achieving a purpose.

Stop dodging the issue of autonomous complexification. If God’s purpose was a free-for-all, then providing the mechanism would be the ONLY way of achieving his purpose, as you acknowledge with your belief in human free will.

“De novo”

DAVID: A 'real' Cambrian gap makes the animals de novo no matter the cause.

dhw: The gap is real because we cannot fill it. It may remain real if there are no fossils, or if it can be proved that intelligent cells are capable of innovative jumps, or if it can be proved that there is a God who created species de novo. Otherwise, it simply remains an unsolved mystery.

DAVID: Thanks for finally mentioning God.

dhw: All my theories allow for God. This is another of your silly digressions. Do you now accept that the Cambrian gap can be explained by different theories, but none of them – including your own – have been proven?

DAVID: You are stuck with a real gap. Only a designer can explain it.

That is your rigid but unproven belief, which requires what you yourself acknowledge to be a leap of faith.