Brain complexity: baby brains under study (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, March 04, 2018, 14:43 (2456 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: 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.

dhw: Of course it “need” not, and we know that the brain has now stopped expanding (at least for the time being) and complexification has taken over. But the brain DID expand. How? I would suggest by the same method as exercise can result in muscle expansion. I don’t know if physical/mental exercise results in additional cells or in the expansion of existing cells, but since brain expansion is a fact, and brain modification as a result of implementation is also a fact, I don’t know why you have so much trouble putting the two together.

We only KNOW our species in life. Our heavily used brain has shrunk over the 300,000 years it has been around. That is FACT. Muscles are not surrounded by a hard case. Again: to enlarge a brain in a new species, the skull must be larger And the Mothers must adapt their pelvis.

Further please define 'implementation'. Is it new muscular coordination? Or is it more thinking in design?