[quote name='SteveDeFacto' timestamp='1320280398' post='4879962']
[quote name='Servant of the Lord' timestamp='1320279546' post='4879957']
[color="#1c2837"]Wait, so the mind has a body again? Or, what do you mean by 'physically change' if you are taking out everything physical?
[color="#1C2837"]
Thinking more of a paralyzed, deaf, blind, and entirely senseless person. Under an MRI would the brain change structure from a normal person's brain?
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Well, the MRI scans show changes even when in certain types of comas, I thinkgoogle says.
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Comas are a near complete shout down of the brain. The question is if the brain is completely up and running but without any inputs.
But my point is, if the brain is near completely shut down, and it still can shift and change, then if it's up and thriving (though with no environmental input) I'd imagine it can change as well.
We are all products of our environment but to what degree? What happens if a mind is completely separated from any form of input and left to develop for years? Without language how can a mind process information with any level of depth? Without any experiences what would a mind think about? It can still experience emotions right? Would it be overwhelmed with a sense of aloneness and boredom? What happens if these feelings persists for countless years? Would the mind physically change structure? What would happen if all senses were restored on the mind's 20th birthday? After this point if the mind were to develop language would it remember the endless void or would it even have the ability to remember anything at all? How can you remember nothingness?
First - are you talking about "mind" or about "brain". I personally have certain Buddhist position and would say, that without sensory input there is no mind.
Second - how much of inputs you are cutting? There is enormous level of internal inputs - from our body. These are probably crucial for the development in fetal stage already.
Also - it is not clear if there are well-defined psychological features corresponding to emotions at all. If it is so, I doubt the deprived mind is capable of feeling "motions" in our sense - maybe only some vague feelings like "at ease" or "alerted", maybe even not those.
[quote name='SteveDeFacto' timestamp='1320232120' post='4879611']
We are all products of our environment but to what degree? What happens if a mind is completely separated from any form of input and left to develop for years? Without language how can a mind process information with any level of depth? Without any experiences what would a mind think about? It can still experience emotions right? Would it be overwhelmed with a sense of aloneness and boredom? What happens if these feelings persists for countless years? Would the mind physically change structure? What would happen if all senses were restored on the mind's 20th birthday? After this point if the mind were to develop language would it remember the endless void or would it even have the ability to remember anything at all? How can you remember nothingness?
First - are you talking about "mind" or about "brain". I personally have certain Buddhist position and would say, that without sensory input there is no mind.
Second - how much of inputs you are cutting? There is enormous level of internal inputs - from our body. These are probably crucial for the development in fetal stage already.
Also - it is not clear if there are well-defined psychological features corresponding to emotions at all. If it is so, I doubt the deprived mind is capable of feeling "motions" in our sense - maybe only some vague feelings like "at ease" or "alerted", maybe even not those.
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From the very moment a child is born it has a natural fear of being alone. I am also fairly sure they have fully developed amygdala which means they surely do feel emotions but they may not be able to fully interpret them.
We are 100% the result of our environment, if we take an inclusive notion of 'our environment'. That is, including which sperm hit which eggcell and whatnot.
Clearly the brain has a lot of 'knowledge', and even a lot of very accurate knowledge, about the world it will be born in, before that even happens. For instance, our visual systems are already wired to perceive and interpret a 3d world before we first open our eyes. Nonetheless, thats still empirical knowledge, deduced from our environment, except by natural selection rather than deduction 'at run time'.
[quote name='Waterlimon' timestamp='1320254524' post='4879765']
I think pretty much all of the brain is formed based on what input it gets. However it is evolved in a way wich makes certain kind of input always be focused to the same area.
To stop the brain from developing you would need to block all inputs (=Cut some nerves) but even then if the brain gets any input from anywhere, it will develop (assuming its not just completely random noise).
If there was no kind of input, and the neurons did not get damaged permanently, i think that if the person was let out of the dark, he would live a normal life, because he couldnt remember anything from the time when he had no input since memories are formed of sensations. Not sure if emotions would be remembered or not, those are kind of input too so they need to be eliminated.
Well, again assuming that his brain is still in the state wich it needs to be to learn like he was a fetus xD
Though the brain propably forms connections as it grows, so if the brain is let to grow to full size and then input is applied, it might not develop a very good structure. (Its possible that it does though)
If the brain of a person who has liven his life for a while already is cut off the world, it would propably go into a dream like state in no time. His memories would soon be corrupt by the randomness of his dreams as he forgets what something really felt like or how something was really done. Then it would slowly stop functioning as nothing is rewarding the brain for action anymore. (Not sure if thats required?)
I personally think the connections in grey matter are formed by what we experience and all parts that make up the limbic system are predetermined by our genetic makeup.
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But wouldnt that like... Waste tons of genetic material just to set up connections that would propably be formed without genetic guideance?
Though i believe some parts of the brain have their structure very accurately defined by our genes, but the connections will be formed by input (as theyll pretty much have to go right because the structure is "designed" to work in a specific way)
I imagine it would be pretty hard to have the connections defined in the genes since it would need to make every single neron a bit different. It might work better if the genes just say "Ok here comes a bunch of that kind of neurons and put bunch of these things between this and that so the parts wont communicate and then build a fat neural path from here to there k?"
From the very moment a child is born it has a natural fear of being alone. I am also fairly sure they have fully developed amygdala which means they surely do feel emotions but they may not be able to fully interpret them.
Certain psychologists doubt that there are certain "natural clusters" of emotional states even in normal grown-ups. What we normally see is heavily influenced by language and social interaction.
I cannot say I subscribe to this view, but it illustrates that you do not need "emotions" to describe certain states. Like instead of "being afraid of being alone" children is simply in negative alert state (and not necessarily having any conscious trace about why it is in such state).
[quote name='SteveDeFacto' timestamp='1320274906' post='4879917']
[quote name='Waterlimon' timestamp='1320254524' post='4879765']
I think pretty much all of the brain is formed based on what input it gets. However it is evolved in a way wich makes certain kind of input always be focused to the same area.
To stop the brain from developing you would need to block all inputs (=Cut some nerves) but even then if the brain gets any input from anywhere, it will develop (assuming its not just completely random noise).
If there was no kind of input, and the neurons did not get damaged permanently, i think that if the person was let out of the dark, he would live a normal life, because he couldnt remember anything from the time when he had no input since memories are formed of sensations. Not sure if emotions would be remembered or not, those are kind of input too so they need to be eliminated.
Well, again assuming that his brain is still in the state wich it needs to be to learn like he was a fetus xD
Though the brain propably forms connections as it grows, so if the brain is let to grow to full size and then input is applied, it might not develop a very good structure. (Its possible that it does though)
If the brain of a person who has liven his life for a while already is cut off the world, it would propably go into a dream like state in no time. His memories would soon be corrupt by the randomness of his dreams as he forgets what something really felt like or how something was really done. Then it would slowly stop functioning as nothing is rewarding the brain for action anymore. (Not sure if thats required?)
I personally think the connections in grey matter are formed by what we experience and all parts that make up the limbic system are predetermined by our genetic makeup.
[/quote]
But wouldnt that like... Waste tons of genetic material just to set up connections that would propably be formed without genetic guideance?
Though i believe some parts of the brain have their structure very accurately defined by our genes, but the connections will be formed by input (as theyll pretty much have to go right because the structure is "designed" to work in a specific way)
I imagine it would be pretty hard to have the connections defined in the genes since it would need to make every single neron a bit different. It might work better if the genes just say "Ok here comes a bunch of that kind of neurons and put bunch of these things between this and that so the parts wont communicate and then build a fat neural path from here to there k?"
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I do think that is how a large portion of the brain works but there has to be a predefined stimulation system to promote further development (Probably the Amygdala). I found an interesting paper that explains what is known about this very topic: http://brainmind.com/Environment.html
All of it technically... That's being inductive though, as the genetics we inherit from our parents were naturally selected, as better genetics could handled interaction with the environment (through sensory input) more efficiently. Granted, there's still a great deal of divergence in our gene pool, but the sensory shaping still stands. Though at some point, we'll say "before neurons," sensory input couldn't exist, per say. Though we can argue what sensory input is period, and realize it's a form of physical interaction, which definitely helped shape our genetics "before neurons."
There's lots of context to that statement though. And I feel like you're asking on a more individual level - within a lifetime. The macrostructure of your mind is determined by your genetics. The myelencephalon, the metencephalon, the diencephalon, and the telencephalon all have, for simplicity's sake, "location, size, cell type" controls within the our genes. There's some substructure information, varying in nature and depending on what part of the brain we're talking about. On a cellular level, microstructures form depending on the type of neuron, due to interactions and reactions, once again determined by genetics. However, genetics will never fire a neuron, only determine how they grow and methods of connection. Sensory input DOES change neural structure on a cellular scale, long-term potentiation being a prime example. So microstructures in the brain can be modified quite a bit by the senses. So while your genetics determine the macroscale "process" of interpretation, it does not change microscale interpretation.
This is why species can communicate and relate with one another - their methods of comprehension are nearly identical. But it still leaves plenty of room for diverging experiences and, therefore, differing opinions. It's a very interesting concept, as within each lifespan, we evolve by large orders of magnitude, yet it's NOT passed on genetically. It's passed on via sensory communication. It puts a lot of responsibility on society and human interaction then. This idea is a pillar stone in the opposition to the philosophy of free will. There are several other commonplace ideas that this questions, but I won't dive into those.
