Introducing the brain: general (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, March 13, 2022, 16:02 (984 days ago) @ dhw

New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com

DAVID: Broca's area is not frontal lobe.

dhw:See numerous websites, such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_area

"Broca's area […] is a region in the frontal lobe of the dominant hemisphere, usually the left, of the brain with functions linked to speech production."

DAVID: My sloppiness. I was thinking of the prefrontal higher conceptualizing region. Broca's is in a back lower area of the whole frontal region.

dhw: We all make mistakes, but in any case it doesn’t alter the fact that this article categorically opposes your theory that all the vital changes to the frontal lobe began with sapiens, and that the changes took place before they were required.

Broca's area was there long before language. I'll bet Erectus had it.

Memory formation

DAVID: Did our current uses occur 315,000 years ago? The neurons then anticipated the use today in the sense they easily handle them now.

dhw: Of course there have been new uses, and each new use – as would have been the case
with earlier brains until they needed additional cells – has resulted in complexification. You agree that new cells must have been used for something, as opposed to lying around doing nothing for thousands of years. Next, you’ll be telling us that God designed legs hundreds of millions of years ago in anticipation of humans wanting to play football. Once mechanisms are in place, they respond to new requirements as history marches on. Our brains respond by complexifying. I don’t know why you think they and earlier brains change/changed BEFORE they are/were required to do so.

Because I believe in God who designs new organisms prepared for their future uses.

Jumping spiders

QUOTE: Although these tiny arachnids have brains that could literally fit on the head of a pin, the work of Cross and other scientists suggests that they have capabilities we’d have no problem hailing as signs of intelligence if exhibited by animals with much larger brains, like dogs or human toddlers.
“'Jumping spiders are remarkably clever animals,” says visual ecologist Nathan Morehouse […]. “I always find it delightful when something like a humble jumping spider punctures our sense of biological superiority.”

DAVID: I'm educating everyone in ID. This article is from their website illustrating how the designer gives insect brains the ability to perform these feats.

dhw: As always, my thanks for presenting material which explicitly supports the case for insect intelligence – possibly designed by your designer – so vehemently denied by your own “large organisms chauvinism”.

Thank you.

DAVID: ID presented the recent book on insect brain algorithms: https://evolutionnews.org/2021/11/new-book-animal-algorithms-spells-fresh-trouble-for-d...

dhw: Of course you have the right also to support the case for your own algorithm theory.

multiple queen fire ant colony
QUOTE: …..the advantages of having multiple queens overrode the incompatibilities, and the genetic material repeatedly spread to other species from the one source species in which this new social form evolved.

DAVID: interesting new hybrid fire ant is old. Not true speciation.

dhw: I agree that it’s not true speciation, but it is still highly relevant to our discussion on the intelligent manner in which organisms discover and use new ways of improving their chances of survival.

Certainly more queens are better.