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The extendability of our sensory modes does not disprove that we and other animals come pre-programmed in various ways in both our input and output. I went int
by nooneelse 16y ago
The extendability of our sensory modes does not disprove that we and other animals come pre-programmed in various ways in both our input and output. I went into a developmental neuro-biology course thinking much as you seem to be, trying to tear all the "it's inborn" B.S. away from the functionally super-flexible neurons. But the experiments and scientific observations just don't support that project in all cases.
To name two: brain regions fully formed for spatial management/processing of visual signals in the absence of any signals from an eye being allowed to ever reach them, transplanting the song/chirp patterns from one species of bird to another by splicing neurons from a developing embryo of the first to the developing embryo of the second. How are these to be explained if not by something that clearly qualifies as some form of "pre-programming" of the neural substrate for sensation and behavior?
Extendability and plasticity are not necessarily defeaters to innateness. They can coexist.
- joeyo 16y agoWhat you say is true, but it's worth noting that, as a rule, phylogenetically "higher" organisms do tend to have more plasticity and (perhaps as a consequence) less ability to regenerate neurons). Your songbird example is a good one. There are many species of birds that develop near normal song repertoires in the absence of con-specifics (or even, in some cases, hearing!) but trying to extrapolate that to human speech processing, or even mammalian auditory processing, is fraught with problems.