Brain complexity: baby brains under study (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, March 02, 2018, 14:59 (2458 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I agree that a new born baby is unlikely to have any concepts when it emerges.
DAVID: "Unlikely". There are none at birth.

dhw: More and more research is being done on what information babies absorb within the womb (through sound, smell, taste etc., but also through factors such as stress), and how much of their future is already determined by it. I would not like to be as dogmatic as you on the subject.

I am aware of the sensory input you have described; it is not concept formation.

DAVID: Of course there is a blank slate. What you are describing happened several days or weeks after birth. Blank slate at birth.

dhw: I think it was two days after the birth when I first visited the hospital, but my daughter-in-law was aware of differences right from the start. You have ignored the agreement we reached earlier on this. See above re pre-natal influences, but in any case you simply cannot argue that 40% of a personality is determined by the genes and then tell us the newborn is a blank slate.

Genes have to be expressed. At birth, zero time, they are not yet expressed. We just have a differnt view of what blank slate means

DAVID: You are generally correct. Two things are going on. Appearance of new neurons and connections for no good reason other than developmental embryology going on after birth; and also connections of memory and conceptualization at a simple level.

dhw: Of course it’s at a simple level. Pre-sapiens was also at a simple level compared to sapiens, but that doesn’t alter the indisputable fact that concept precedes changes to the brain, which are caused by implementation of the concept.

Concepts modify existing brains of every size.