Brain complexity: learning new tasks (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, December 08, 2017, 21:10 (2329 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: You reminded me earlier of your dualistic belief that the brain is NOT the source of ideas, but clearly I am supposed to ignore the obvious contradiction when you say: “Only a larger more complex cortex can think of new more complex concepts.”

You continue to ignore this contradiction.

I maintain that only a larger more complex brain (pre-frontal cortex) can conceive of more complex concepts. Our sapiens brain arrived 300,000 years ago, but it took until 10,000 years ago that we began to form all the concepts and knowledge we have today.

DAVID: You do not seem to understand my theory, A small brain is limited in the concepts it can develop. Pre-habilis could not understand the concept of spear. It took a habilis-sized brain to have the concept and implement it, both occurring in the same brain, not a subsequent larger addition.

dhw: I do not understand a theory that contradicts itself.

DAVID: This is a total misinterpretation of what I have presented. It leave out brain contraction ability. What happened to your noting that my theory that brain enlargement and contraction occurred in all previous pre-sapiens might be correct.

dhw: It might be correct, but even if it is, clearly it could not contract enough to cope with certain new concepts, and that is when it had to expand permanently, just as you have described.

DAVID: All enlargement from implementation was followed by complexity reorganization and thus contraction, occurring in the same size skull at each stage of evolution. Thus on the way from Lucy (400cc) there were rough jumps of 200cc in each stage. And in each stage new concepts could be developed by the larger brain and implemented meaning even further slight enlargement within the same sized skull. You leave out the contraction part!

dhw: Contraction remains a “might be correct”, but it is you who quite rightly left it out of your description because it is irrelevant to the permanent expansion (the approx. 200 cc jump) which we are trying to explain and which you have described so perfectly.

I've never left out the idea that pre-sapiens brains had the same plexification/contraction ability we see now.

dhw: Do you now wish to rescind all the above? If not, how do you square it with your insistence that your God had to enlarge the brain BEFORE the idea (which did not change the brain) and BEFORE the implementation (which enlarged the brain)? In other words, why must the brain be enlarged before it enlarges itself?

DAVID: I don't have to rescind what I did not present. You have attemped to imply that when I discussed expansion that forced a 200cc expansion.

dhw: What else could it have been? You specified that once the implementation process was complete, the brain had enlarged. And that makes perfect sense!

It enlarged and then contracted as I've maintained over and over!

DAVID: I have never presented that view. I will maintain that artifacts prove the full abilities of the size of the brain being considered. And that size brain must be present to produce the artifacts , but first also develop the concepts from which the artifacts come.

dhw: Yes, the artefacts appeared when the brain had reached its next size, precisely as you have described. Please reread what you wrote (reproduced above).

Reproducing what you have misinterpreted gets us nowhere. The development of concepts in sapiens as described shows a big brain must appear and then information, knowledge and concepts are developed, a slightly smaller brain as a final result. The key is the apperance of a highly complex pre-frontal-lobe cortex, which Neanderthals with a bigger brain probably did not have. And of course I think God created the sapiens development.