Brain complexity: learning new tasks (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 18:37 (2523 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.

Not a concession. Fact.

dhw: 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?

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

dhw: 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.

I sit at the computer keyboard and operate its software as I wish to produce results. Seamlessly. I am in control of my consciousness, which developed as a blank slate from birth.

DAVID: Size is not the real issue...

dhw: 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.

dhw: 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).

200cc of new cortex is not cased by plasticity. that occurs after the jump in size and complexity.

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

dhw: [..] 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?

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

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.

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.

Plasticity has been shown to shrink the brain through complexification.

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.

dhw: 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.

Balance of nature feeds everyone over time since evolution takes time.