Brain complexity: baby brains under study (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, March 01, 2018, 13:22 (2459 days ago) @ David Turell

David has reopened the discussion on baby brains, in spite of our having closed it on 29 January. Below is the relevant post:

dhw: We agree that genetics, nurture and experience modify each other as life progresses from birth, but genes are already present even before birth. That is the reason why the article I quoted expressly dismisses the “blank slate” hypothesis on the grounds that “most people are now thought to have significant ‘preprogramming’ from genes that have some influence on almost every want, trait, feeling, thought, and action.” Since you reckon that genes constitute 40% of a personality, you can hardly disagree. Yes, modification begins at birth. No, the personality is not a blank slate at birth. If it was, there would be nothing to modify.

DAVID: My view: We can end this discussion on this point: a person expresses his personality from a zero developmental point at birth. There is a background of source material that is preprogrammed, that with nurture, and experience in living shapes the final personality structure that carries him through life. That structure can be modified by onesself (rare) or by counselling (more common).

dhw: Very happy with most of this. The blank slate personality has finally disappeared (“background of source material that is preprogrammed”), I would leave out “final” (if a structure can be modified, it is not final), and I would add that the structure can be modified by accident, disease and experience (especially traumatic). Pax?

DAVID: From my experience, the final structure generally can only have very small modifications. Pax.

You did renege on this a week later, but then backed down. Now we have to start all over again:

DAVID (under “Big brain evolution”): The baby starts as a blank slate at birth. Yes, there is a genetic input to come, but as the brain develops the child develops its own particular construction of a s/s/c. The two must work together and advances in the s/s/c must wait until brain development is ready for each step.
And:
As with newborns concepts wait for brain development first.

I agree that a new born baby is unlikely to have any concepts when it emerges. Concepts will only arise out information in the form of experience, and in our material world that is provided by the brain. But from the moment the brain begins to provide information, it is the s/s/c that processes the information and in due course – almost immediately – begins to conceptualize. That is the first way in which they “work together”. Within a couple of days there were marked differences between my twin grandsons in their response to my holding them. One was totally placid and stayed in my arms, and the other immediately began to howl, but was pacified when passed back to his mother. This happened repeatedly during several visits. There is no blank slate! Here the concept of security clearly gives rise to a material response (howl). Move forward a few months, when the brain has provided a great deal more information, and the second way of "working together" becomes crystal clear (whether you are a dualist or materialist). The babies are being spoonfed. They try to grasp the spoon and feed themselves. Mess everywhere. The new connections have to be established. The brain does NOT make the connections before the baby sees the spoon. The s/s/c makes the effort to implement the concept, and in due course the neurons get the message and make the necessary adjustments – precisely the same process as the illiterate women learning to write, and pre-sapiens learning to make and use the spear. Implementation of the s/s/c’s concept modifies the brain, which has provided the information that gives rise to the concept.