Thanks very much Mark! I appreciate your response and it makes good sense to me, from my own philosophical perspective. I actually had to read back through quite a few posts to get all of the context, but the reason I was asking here, specifically, was that there was a scientific discussion over the evolution of man, and a question was posed regarding the appearance of the globular brain shape. The question asked, and answered, went like this:
I think that you did a great job of sharing an opinion that probably emanates from a position that is very similar to my own. What I really wanted to learn, and it was never really answered by anyone from the MN community, is how do they navigate this area?
The point I am trying to understand is how “significance” can play nice in the MN world. I can see this being plausible:
- Because of the happenstance adaptation of the globular brain shape, human culture was afforded the opportunity to thrive, well beyond its prior potential.
However, this question of significance seemed to point more to the question of “why did it evolve” as in, for what purpose or end did it come about. So that, while one could make the statement above, one could not make the statement below (following the structure of MN):
- The globular brain shape came about in order to accommodate safer births and improved neural activity. Both allowed human culture and populations to explode.
The original article stated that the brain sizes and cranial capacities evolved separately. So if a benefit were to be gained through this beneficial adaptation, it would be considered to be “fortunate” but not “purposeful” from a MN perspective, right?
This is really what I’m trying to flesh out. When we see an adaptation that, from a human perspective, appears to have so much purpose (as in, designed in advance for such purpose), from a MN perspective we can only appreciate the random good fortune (the material significance, as you say) that benefitted a species (man, in this case.)
I assume that is correct… Again, thank you for your response!