Brain complexity: baby brains under study (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, January 19, 2018, 19:53 (2500 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Just as you noted above everyone has to learn how to use their newborn or supplied brain. The point you miss is the baby starts at zero knowledge and zero out of uterine use, and the other point is they have different genomes which supplies differing parameters for s/s/c development. Of course the twins developed differently. What they are born with is a consciousness mechanism for their brains to use and learn to use it. They each started at zero.

dhw: I had two objections to your original post. Firstly, there is nothing special about homo sapiens having to learn to use his brain. You now agree. Second was the idea that the soul/self starts “from zero to learn every function of self/soul/consciousness/brain activity”. I may have misunderstood this, but if all you meant was that a newborn baby knows nothing about life outside the womb, I shan’t argue. And yes indeed, they are born with different genomes, which a materialist will tell you explains their different characters/selves and hence their different responses to whatever early life throws at them. But if they have a dualist soul, according to your beliefs (most of the time), it is the soul that has to learn to use the brain, not the other way round. The twins did not start at zero, because the way in which they used their brain right from the first “WAH!” was dictated by their already existing (materialist) genome or (dualist) soul. The only zero was their knowledge of life outside the womb.

Please see my entry from Cosmos today. It covers all of this.