Brain complexity: learning new tasks (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, December 16, 2017, 12:15 (2534 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Remember I conceive the brain as a computer. A larger more complex software in a more advanced computer allows more complex operations. […] My soul/consciousness operates the brain in life. […]
dhw: Your computer image has always been singularly unhelpful. Does your more advanced computer CONCEIVE of more complex software? Of course it doesn’t.
DAVID: I view the more complex brain receiving a consciousness that can be be used more complexly. I explained this before.

Bearing in mind that you are a dualist, let’s keep it simple: do you or do you not believe that consciousness (not the brain) conceives concepts, and do you or do you not believe that consciousness uses the brain to implement its concepts?

dhw: So why do you maintain that “only the larger more complex brain [computer] can conceive of more complex concepts”? Now in your response you change this to: ”allows more complex operations”. In pre-sapiens the smaller brain had to expand in order to implement more complex concepts, but in sapiens the already enlarged brain did not “allow more complex operations", because having reached optimum size, it had to COMPLEXIFY in order to implement more complex concepts. It is the brain’s plasticity that ALLOWS more complex operations through expansion or complexification.
DAVID: I don't accept your approach as explained above.

What don't you accept? That consciousness conceives concepts? That brains change in the course of implementing concepts? That the sapiens brain stopped expanding and implemented new concepts by complexifying?

dhw: And I repeat, stop ignoring IMPROVEMENT. But since you insist, let me illustrate how the two driving forces can actually combine. Pre-sapiens man hungry. Him want eat (= SURVIVAL). Him want meat. Him fight animal and damned animal fight back. Him think: better way to kill animal (= IMPROVEMENT): me sharpen stone and attach it to stick and throw it at animal, then me no have to fight animal….Pre-sapiens man and his mates get together, and here I quote a dear friend of mine: “Once he learns to knapp flint, attach the stone point to a wooden rod, and then practices throwing it with accuracy, there is no question his brain has enlarged with all the muscle movement and visual coordination involved” (David Turell, 2 December, 15:07). An improved concept of survival has required and caused expansion.
DAVID: No way.

Turell rejects Turell.

DAVID: I believe it was highly complex to begin with, waiting for us to use it, but we had to learn to use it.
dhw: So instead of claiming it was the large brain hanging around waiting to be used, you now say it was the complex brain that was hanging around to be used. Of course it was highly complex to begin with, but now it is even more complex.
DAVID: You've simply repeated my point.

Good. Then you agree that what was “waiting to be used” was not the size of the brain or the existing complexities of the brain which had resulted from previous usage, but the plasticity of the brain which enabled it to complexify still further through new usage.

DAVID: I'm working in a library since our internet is out at home. Help may come next Wednesday. This computer is confusing, hard to work. And sitting here your above statement is confusing and the reasoning doesn't follow along. I view a big new sapiens brain as a gift from God, capable of much more than previous brains. I'll answer next week.

Sorry you’re suffering from technical problems. You have my sympathy! I agree that each new-sized brain was capable of more than previous brains. Once pre-sapiens had learned to knapp flint, attach it to a rod, throw it etc. his enlarged brain was capable of doing things he had not done before. Sapiens’ big new brain was likewise capable of doing all the things that had led to previous expansions plus whatever had led to its own expansion. But as we know, sapiens' brain did not get any larger, and so whatever new actions were required of it led to further complexification. It was the brain’s plasticity, not its size or existing complexities, that allowed this.