Brain complexity: baby brains under study (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, March 03, 2018, 15:00 (2457 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: 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.

I will agree with you that each baby is born with different potentials for personality developement

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.

But implementation need not cause enlargement but simply refine the existing networks. Please tell us how implementation causes the enlargement. Development of a concept and implementation occur in the same sized brain all the time in our species. And our brains are demonstrably smaller than in the past as we have learned how to use it efficiently over the recent centuries.