Introducing the brain: how emotions relate (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, March 07, 2020, 20:40 (1503 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Let's use the comparison of a brain and a computer. When purchased it has certain abilities for use, but it contains no personal input information. It is blank to that point and it will change in what it contains when the info is added and then used.

dhw: Computers are all the same “at birth” until they are programmed. But each baby has its own individual characteristics right from the moment of birth, and probably even before birth, since experts agree that babies already respond to certain influences while still in the womb. Your comparison is pointless. The brain is not a computer.

I tried a comparison. The brain is not a computer, and I agree each baby brain contains some different underlying characteristics when born but there is no information intake until there is information intake to work with. That is my approach to the concept of 'blank brain'.

DAVID: Intelligence levels appear to be variable at birth, so some brains start with advantage or disadvantage.

dhw: Already an indication that the brain is not a blank!

I understand your view. Mine is slightly different, stated above.

DAVID: IQ can be increased by teaching and training. My 'blank' is not about the brain as its inner construction attributes. The baby 'blank' state leaves the moment it starts to experience any input from the inside or the outside. Note this: most folks cannot remember before two years of age, because the proper memory elements haven't formed yet.

dhw: Nobody is saying the brain arrives fully formd! But its individual characteristics are not “construction attributes”; they are part of the personality. Now please give us your definition of the word “blank”.

Each of us starts using our brain at birth with different attributes but it starts at a blank and each of our brains handles the inflow of info differently.

DAVID: And to remind you, I am discussing my dualist view of a brain tool for my soul to use, something you keep forgetting, or pounce on if I don't remind you.

dhw: On the contrary, I am the one who keeps reminding you that the dualist view is that the soul uses the brain to gather information and to implement its concepts. I pounce on the fact that you keep forgetting it, because you keep telling us that the brain does the conceiving and the thinking. And this has nothing to do with your argument that a brain with individual characteristics, including varying degrees of intelligence, is a blank!

My blank is not your blank as above.