Brain complexity: learning new tasks (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, January 08, 2018, 16:16 (2293 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: There is no evidence the brain rewires in anticipation of new concepts or implementations.
dhw: Thank you for this important concession.
DAVID: Not a concession. Fact.

dhw: The concession is that your own hypothesis of brain changes preceding conceptualization has no basis in fact, unlike the hypothesis that conceptualization CAUSES changes to the brain.

Of course an existing brain rewires. But we know that a newly enlarged hominin brain is certainly a blank slate, except for what is carried from the past.

DAVID: No, the s/s/c uses the brain/cortex to think. Brain and s/s/c work seamlessly.

dhw: They can hardly be “seamless” if, as you believe, the s/s/c can live on separately from the brain/cortex (as in NDEs). They are interdependent, but – if dualists are correct – there has to be a distinction between mental and physical functions. And so if the s/s/c does not use the brain to gather information and to implement its concepts, what DOES it “use” the brain for?

Living brain/soul mechanisms are not the same as dead brain and soul: they are longer related! s/s/c uses the brain as a living computer.

dhw: You have agreed that you ARE your soul/self/consciousness (s/s/c), so your utterly confusing computer analogy (which equated software with soul and computer with brain) now has your soul operating your soul. And all this confusion is meant simply to squirm out of the obvious fact that if your dualistic mind and body are separate entities (though working interdependently), it is the mind/soul/self/consciousness and not the material brain that is the SOURCE of concepts.

Your computer is not you, but your computer provides you with the ability to produce immaterial thought as material to be read. You are separate from your computer but you live with your brain as part of you. The s/s/c must use the brain in the same way. The NDE's tell us the s/s/c can separate and be functional.

DAVID: Each God-given enlargement allowed a more improved lifestyle, moving from survival living to current civilization.

dhw: No specific concept, then, but I’ll settle for this, except that in my hypothesis it is the quest for a more improved lifestyle, moving from survival living to current civilization, that has CAUSED each enlargement and, after pre-sapiens, each complexification. The history of the brain follows the same pattern as the rest of evolution: a process motivated by survival and/or improvement.

I do not think erectus wished for a better life style. He couldn't think beyond what he knew in his life.

DAVID: The complexity of our brain allows for the degree of plasticity we have. Previous brains had lesser levels of complexity and plasticity.
dhw: I suggest that it is the brain’s plasticity that has allowed for both enlargement and complexity.These NEEDED plasticity in order to occur.
DAVID: Plasticity has been shown to shrink the brain through complexification.

dhw: True. However, it is not enlargement/complexity/shrinkage that “allows for the degree of plasticity”, but the degree of plasticity that allows for enlargement/complexity/shrinkage.

A thinking brain cannot cause enlargemnt of itself or its bony container, the skull, only shrinkage as shown by sapiens history.