Brain complexity: how plasticity works (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, June 23, 2018, 15:23 (2345 days ago) @ dhw

QUOTE: "As the synapse for the new receptive field grew, the researchers could see under the two-photon microscope that nearby synapses also shrank.”

dhw: This would seem to support my proposal that shrinkage in the sapiens brain has been caused by the increased efficiency of complexification.

DAVID: It is also my theory. The sapiens brain has lost 150 cc of volume because of the intensity of the new conceptualizations as we civilized. The real debate is whether this is a new brain property found only in our brain or did this ability exist in the past in Erectus' brains, which were only 200 cc +/- smaller in size?

dhw: That is not the “real debate” between you and me, which concerns the various pre-sapiens expansions. Whether their brains also shrank is irrelevant (though you have repeatedly introduced it as an objection to my proposed explanation), since the question is why they expanded. You will no doubt recall your theory that your God expanded their brains so that they could come up with new thoughts, which means the brain is the source of thought (= materialism). I suggested that since dualists believe in a “separate consciousness mechanism” called the soul, brain expansion must be due to the implementation of the soul's thoughts, in line with the known fact that it is the implementation of thoughts that causes changes to the brain. Fortunately for both of us, I have come up with a theory that reconciles both approaches, and can also fit in with theism and atheism! (See my post on THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two.)

A deliberate repeated false statement about my theory, which has two parts. A soul which is the software using expanded brain size and complexity hardware to produce thought which is more complex than in previous species of homo. TWO parts, hardware and software are required for the thought to be originated.