Brain complexity: learning new tasks (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 15:09 (2524 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: but you have agreed on several occasions (the last being on Saturday 23.12) that “implementation of concepts causes changes to the brain”. However, I shall look forward to your providing us with examples of how the modern brain rewires itself in anticipation of new concepts.

There is no evidence the brain rewires in anticipation of new concepts or implementations.

DAVID: The pre-frontal cortex is where thought and concepts take place. […] Consciousness/soul/self use that specific cortex for ideation.

dhw: You have argued that soul/self/consciousness are one, and until now you have claimed that your s/s/c does the thinking. Now you say thought occurs/takes place/develops in the cortex, and your soul “uses” it for ideation. What do you mean by the soul “using” the cortex to do its thinking?

Must I repeat many times that the s/s/c uses the brain as a computer by providing the solftware just as we do.

dhw: You keep agreeing that your “soul” uses the brain to acquire information and to implement its concepts, but does the cortex or the “soul” do the thinking, i.e. produce the concepts?

Same answer: the s/s/c uses the brain to do the thinking in the prefrontal cortex primarily, although memories are also elsewhere.

dhw:The major question is how concepts arise in the first place. If they depend on the size and quality of the pre-frontal cortex, the obvious conclusion is that the pre-frontal cortex is the source of concepts, which you reject.

DAVID: I don't reject it.

dhw: If the brain, or since you wish to be even more precise, the pre-frontal cortex might be the SOURCE of concepts (as opposed to the recipient, as you have always claimed), then you cannot insist that mind and body are separate entities, with the mind using the body. I’m delighted to welcome you to my agnostic fence.

It's your fence, not mine. Consciousness shows its separateness in NDE's. In life it acts seamlessly with the brain.

DAVID: But all of the modern use of the brain came after the final enlargement of the pre-frontal lobes, not before.

dhw: Once again: the modern use of the brain came after the final enlargement and not before because after the final enlargement the brain had stopped expanding and complexification had taken over, as you agree.

Size is not the real issue. It is initial complexity. The original sapiens brain had an enlarged highly complex frontal and prefrontal cortex with many more neurons and axon branched connections before it was used for modern concepts.

DAVID: We do not know of a mental requirement that forced the final enlargement 300,000 years ago. And later: Can you point out any complex implementations that occurred among humans before cave art 30,000 years ago?

dhw: Nobody “knows” why ANY of the pre-sapiens stages of brain expansion took place! That is why there are so many theories: random mutations, descent from the trees, bipedalism, use of fire, cooking. You claim that your God preprogrammed or dabbled each one in preparation for new concepts. So can you “point out” for what new concepts he enlarged each successive brain, say from Australopithecus onwards, and especially for what new concepts he made the final enlargement before complexification took over from enlargement?

God gave us free will to use the gift of the complex brain as we wished. Our concepts, not His.

DAVID: We are the endpoint of brain evolution. Without our newly attained size of frontal and prefrontal cortex we would still be at the erectus level. We are at a top level of plasticity because of all the complexity of neurons and axon connections we have to work with. We can do alterations they didn't have the neurons to do. Bony skulls are hard to expand so the brain has to have the plasticity ability.

dhw: I’m glad you now acknowledge that it is plasticity and not size that has enabled us to reach this level.

Twisted my point again. The complexity of our brain allows for the degree of plasticity we have. Previous brains had lesser levels of complexity and plasticity.

dhw: And to repeat the point you have failed to answer: The sapiens brain as an endpoint does not mean that every other organism came into existence for the sake of the sapiens brain.

Everything we see in evolution points to the human brain as a supreme endpoint. answered many times before.