Re: What is innate and how can we determine it?

On Jun 23, 6:21 am, Wolf K <weki...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
casey wrote:
Selected comments made by Curt,

Why did evolution use the same "blueprint" to build
the entire cortex, and use different "blueprints" for
every other module in the brain?


Clearly, there is something unique about the cortex
which makes it different from how evolution chose to
"hardware" the rest of the brain.


And yet you say it is "conditioning all the way up"?

The neural connections result from changes within the
neurons (neural chemistry is changed). These changes
require the activation and subsequent deactivation of
genes, among other things.

Assume that learning requires the a) input from the
environment, and b) creation/destruction/reorganisation
of neural networks. (Personally, I can't see any other
reasonable way of characterising learning, at any level.)
Then every time you learn something, some genes are
activated and deactivated.

If the above description is reasonably close to the
truth, then the innate/conditioning (nature vs. nurture)
dichotomy is pointless. No "innate" behaviour can be
expressed without some "external stimulus". No "external
stimulus" can have an effect unless there are genes that
can respond to it.

It's not "nature vs. nurture", but "nature AND nurture."

I don't know that many people would have an issue with
what you have written. Unlike logic gates in a computer
neurons have a life of their own. But there are levels
of explanation. Given the i/o of a neuron and given a
set of connections between neurons, how would the whole
behave? This behaviour may bottom out at the level of
genes being turned on/off in the dna of the cells but
we can also understand it at a higher level.

For example a single neuron may oscillate (send pulses
out at some frequency). Or it may not have that ability
and yet if wired up in a certain way with other neurons
the resulting network of non pulsing neurons may become
a pulsing network. This is a simple example of how the
behaviour of the whole is not found in the behaviour of
the parts even if it depends on the behaviour of the
parts. Neurons may have memory at the level of genes
being turned on/off and yet at another level the network
may have memory by using feedback to lock/unlock various
connections.

Two electronic circuits may be made up of the same parts
and yet behave very differently because of the way they
are connected. We use feedback to stabilize a circuit
and we can use feedback to cause it to oscillate. We can
wire it up to produce different kinds of oscillations.
The difference is not simply in the parts used but in
how they are connected.

In other words to understand the whole you must not only
understand the parts but how they are connected.

At a behavioural level we can leave out what the parts
are and just describe the behaviour. We assume this when
producing behaviours by a machine which people would call
intelligent if done by a human (or other animal).

I would also add that you can use circuits in the form
of modules (ic) without knowing anything more than their
behaviour at the level of the i/o of the circuit used.
And that can apply to neural networks. In other words a
neural network module may have consistent i/o behaviour
without you needing to be concerned with genes being
turned on/off in its components in order to use it.

Whereas Curt sees the brain as one big spaghetti program
I see it as being composed of modules. Sure the cortex
circuits may all do something similar or the same and
their activity will reflect not just an innate structure
but be determined by the kind of input they receive.
In a simple sense that is what happens in a memory
circuit of a computer. They all show flip flop behaviour
but how they flip or flop depends on the input pattern.
The same is true for the logic circuits in the cpu.

However the cortex by itself does not make a brain
even if it is an essential component for human level
intelligence. Some types of learning can take place
without the cortex. For example you can associate a
ringing bell with food without a cortex however it
appears the cortex can allow finer distinctions such
as associating food with more abstract concepts such
as something new. (Food is found under the new object).

JC
.

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