Calculus, Logic, Music and the Human Brain

[Darth]

I feel you are kind of cheating here by creating a false distinction. If you are a naturalist, which I believe you are, you cannot make a distinction between physical capacity & abilities and mental capacity & abilities as you have done here.

I don't feel I did made any distinction (let alone a false one) between the two. I explained how certain mental abilities would be required to learn/develop calculus (And in my first post, language), and how they allow for calculus, rather than calculus being the ability selected for. Never did I compare or contrast mental abilities/capacity to physical abilities/capacity, I never even really touched on physical abilities whatsoever.

Actually, the same would go for specific physical abilities.

Evolutionally animals could not gain the physical ability to do something that is not providing a survival advantage. Since mental ability is determined by the chemical interactions in the brain (from a naturalistic perspective) this cannot be an exception to the observed rule. Humans’ mental ability to do something and actually doing that very thing would have to occur simultaneously according to Darwinian Theory.

Linking back to you're original example of music, lets talk about physically playing a particular musical instrument, lets take the piano (or substitute any instrument you want).

Natural selection wasn't selecting for piano playing. What allows us to physically play a piano is a number of broad physical abilities. The ability to sit down as we can, fine motor control, the ability to flex and extend our arms in the manner required, arguably some combination of senses (touch, hearing, vision, proprioception...), and others. All of which are used in other activities and could conceivably be naturally, or artificially, selected for.

No-one is going to argue that natural selection selected for piano playing specifically (Now I have the image in my mind of a bunch of cavemen in tuxedos competitively playing their pianos to attract the females =P, it amuses me). It selected for physical attributes that when put together happen to allow us to play a piano.

Calculus. We have the following: Creativity, the ability to learn, memory, attention, intellect... All of these together allow the learning and invention of calculus. I'm not going to argue that calculus or physically being able to play a piano was selected for, but those broader abilities and attributes that allow for calculus and physically playing a piano, would have been.



*obviously there are also mental abilities that are needed to play pianos, but the point was about physical capabilities and how the broad attributes, such as bending/controlling limbs in a particular way allow us to do many different things, things which aren't necessarily themselves individually selected for, or selected for at all.