Brain complexity: gene response to light stimuli (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, February 15, 2018, 14:58 (2473 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You are forgetting my contention that only an advanced complexity allows the s/s/c to form advanced concepts, hardware and software.

dhw: And you are forgetting yet again the very essence of your dualism and your analogy, to which you have agreed over and over again: that the software (s/s/c) thinks up the concepts, and the hardware (brain) implements them. The hardware does not “allow” the software to think!

And you are not following my concept. only an advanced hardware brain allows advanced thought. Erectus s/s/c is n ot sapiens s/s/c.

dhw: 1) Why can you accept a few new neurons but not a lot of new neurons as “modification”?

DAVID: Because that is how plasticity is described in the literature.

dhw: Plasticity is simply the ability to change, to be shaped or moulded, to adapt…I don’t know of any definition of plasticity that places a limit on the number of cells that can be changed.

My answer is above. Plasticity allows a few new neurons in the research done. It is mostly connectivity.

dhw: 2) Neurons are cells, and your last statement is indeed the essence of dualism: according to you it is NOT the material cells that do the planning. It is the immaterial self/soul/consciousness. Therefore additional cells will NOT enable the hominin to come up with new concepts.

DAVID: Again forgetting my hardware software concept. Only advanced brains in complexity can come up with advanced concepts designed/created by the s/s/c.

dhw: Yet again, as you keep forgetting, in dualism the concepts are designed by the s/s/c (software) and implemented by the brain (hardware). It is not the brain that comes up with the concept.

It works in my concept of advanced brains allow advanced thought.

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dhw: 4 You agree that “size had plasticity and could modify with implementations”, and yet it now appears that size is not plastic and cannot modify with new implementations.
But you cannot see any of these contradictions.

DAVID: No contradictions. You are the one who wants to drive enlargement with implementation when we know in sapiens (as the only evidence we have) all we see is complexity and shrinkage.

dhw: The contradiction lies in your continued refusal to accept your own basic premise, which is that the s/s/c (software) does the thinking first and then the brain (hardware) does the implementing. If complexification and shrinkage are the result of implementing new concepts, then it is not unreasonable to suppose that enlargement would also be the result of implementation.

Only a complex computer does the complex problems and analyses leading to new concepts and implementations. My approach of brain as computer and s/s/c as software fits exactly each level of Homo development and the artifacts seen at each level. Erectus s/s/c not sapiens s/s/c. Consciousness evolves obviously.