Brain complexity: learning new tasks (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 16:11 (2523 days ago) @ David Turell

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

Thank you for this important concession.

dhw: […] 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?
DAVID: Must I repeat many times that the s/s/c uses the brain as a computer by providing the software just as we do. And: “the s/s/c uses the brain to do the thinking in the prefrontal cortex primarily, although memories are also elsewhere.”

I’ve explained before why I don’t like your computer analogy, so let’s stick to the brain and the s/s/c. Here is a clear statement of your beliefs as I understand them: the s/s/c uses the brain as a source of information and as a tool to implement its concepts, but it does not use the cortex to do its thinking because it is the s/s/c that does the thinking. Correct or not?

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

That does not mean the pre-frontal cortex is the SOURCE of concepts. To use your messy computer analogy, that is like saying the computer is the source of the ideas put into it by the software. That is why I have asked for clarity above. If the s/s/c does the thinking, it is the source of concepts.

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.
DAVID: Size is not the real issue...

So please stop harping on about the fact that modern usage did not come about until after the final enlargement.

DAVID: …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.

Of course there was initial complexity, and I suspect that in the last 10,000 years that complexity has increased. Both enlargement and increasing complexity depend on plasticity, not the other way round (see below).

DAVID: Can you point out any complex implementations that occurred among humans before cave art 30,000 years ago?
dhw: […] 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?
DAVID: God gave us free will to use the gift of the complex brain as we wished. Our concepts, not His.

[..] you challenged me to tell you which specific concept forced the final enlargement, and so I have challenged you to tell me which specific concepts followed on from your God’s supposed enlargement of the pre-sapiens brain and the final one of the sapiens brain. Or do you think each successive divine enlargement was for no particular purpose at all?

DAVID: We are the endpoint of brain evolution. […] 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.
dhw: I’m glad you now acknowledge that it is plasticity and not size that has enabled us to reach this level.
DAVID: 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.

I suggest that it is the brain’s plasticity that has allowed for both enlargement and complexity.These NEEDED plasticity in order to occur.

dhw: The sapiens brain as an endpoint does not mean that every other organism came into existence for the sake of the sapiens brain.
DAVID: Everything we see in evolution points to the human brain as a supreme endpoint. answered many times before.

I have no idea what the human brain will be like in a billion years’ time, but in any case I’m afraid your “balance of nature” argument will never persuade me that a God whose purpose was to produce sapiens’ brain - no matter how "supreme" it may be - found it necessary also to produce the millions of other life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders extant and extinct.