Brain complexity: learning new tasks (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, December 21, 2017, 01:02 (2317 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I view the more complex brain receiving a consciousness that can be be used more complexly. I explained this before.

dhw: Bearing in mind that you are a dualist, let’s keep it simple: do you or do you not believe that consciousness (not the brain) conceives concepts, and do you or do you not believe that consciousness uses the brain to implement its concepts?

I believe that consciousness/soul uses the brain to develop concepts and implement them. Consciousness is the software and the brain is the hardware. Since I am connected to my consciousness through my brain, and since I am the sole administrator, I run the show. Seamless.

DAVID: I believe it was highly complex to begin with, waiting for us to use it, but we had to learn to use it.
dhw: So instead of claiming it was the large brain hanging around waiting to be used, you now say it was the complex brain that was hanging around to be used. Of course it was highly complex to begin with, but now it is even more complex.
DAVID: You've simply repeated my point.

dhw: Good. Then you agree that what was “waiting to be used” was not the size of the brain or the existing complexities of the brain which had resulted from previous usage, but the plasticity of the brain which enabled it to complexify still further through new usage.

No. 300,000 years ago a newly enlarged brain, which came from a much more complex pre-frontal cortex, was now available for much more complex conceptual use when we finally learned how to use it 10,000 years ago as real civilization began.

DAVID: I'm working in a library since our internet is out at home. Help may come next Wednesday. This computer is confusing, hard to work. And sitting here your above statement is confusing and the reasoning doesn't follow along. I view a big new sapiens brain as a gift from God, capable of much more than previous brains. I'll answer next week.

dhw: Sorry you’re suffering from technical problems. You have my sympathy! I agree that each new-sized brain was capable of more than previous brains. Once pre-sapiens had learned to knapp flint, attach it to a rod, throw it etc. his enlarged brain was capable of doing things he had not done before. Sapiens’ big new brain was likewise capable of doing all the things that had led to previous expansions plus whatever had led to its own expansion. But as we know, sapiens' brain did not get any larger, and so whatever new actions were required of it led to further complexification. It was the brain’s plasticity, not its size or existing complexities, that allowed this.

Your summary simply fits my thoughts. Bigger brain, then bigger use. Size and complexity of cortex arrives and then is used with more complexity of thought and with plasticity responses to mold the brain to the new uses.