Brain complexity: baby brains under study (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, March 03, 2018, 13:34 (2240 days ago) @ David Turell

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.

DAVID: 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.

Babies are not born with identical personalities. So the personality is not a blank slate. Yes, it takes time for differences to become manifest to other people. A couple of hours maybe. But the differences are there, so what does your “blank slate” refer to? It can only be our knowledge of the baby’s personality. Nothing to do with the baby itself. Summary: we are all born with certain given characteristics (40% according to you). Environment and experience shape, develop and may even change these characteristics in a process that continues until death.

DAVID: 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.
DAVID: Concepts modify existing brains of every size.

Thank you. This should be remembered when we come to possible causes of brain expansion.