IIRC these are also more robust against such injuries as retinal detachment, and don't have blind spots where the nerve attaches. Or so say experts who argue with creationists.epepke said:
Gimme a USB 2 jack so I can plug in various wireless adapters. I'm smarter when I have Google handy...
epepke said:
Yeah, well, that's what you get when you let interaction with the environment over millions of years design something for you.jay gw said:
Again, this depends on what something is "optimal" for. Which niche? And currently, our niches change much more often than our generations, so natural selection is having a helluva time trying to keep up.
But it may be just right for a particular niche. Insects are tremendously successful, and they tend to be specialists, not generalists. I think your word "optimal" contains a lot of hidden assumptions.
Ours does, both short-term and long-term. If you lose your sight (um, optically, not cortically), your occipital cortex will gradually be used for other tasks, for instance.
"Because yes that's how it's designed"? No, that is how it is oversimplified. Your OP said we don't know much about the brain, and now we know enough to say how it is designed? Our understanding of "how it is designed" has changed tremendously over the years, and continues to change. I would argue with your opening premise, just a bit; we know a tremendous amount about the functioning of the brain. It is just that there is so much more to know.
Oh, it started way before apes...
Compared to what?
Would you say that the design of my computer lacks 'balance' because it does not make a good coffeepot?
Good design takes into account the costs incurred in manufacture. In terms of embryonic development, the human brain is already one of the most expensive structures in the biological world (so expensive in fact that the final stage is not actually even complete when the product is shipped). What you seem to be suggesting is implementing what has been called 'multiple superimposed functionality'. The difficulty in achieving efficiency in the face of the additional complexity this tends to involve, as well as the limitations in flexibility in future designs it imposes, make this a very rare feature in human-engineered devices. For example, I think you would be hard pressed to make a case for the idea of a math coprocessor which doubles as a graphics card during downtime being an improvement, once all things are considered. Nevertheless, one of the reasons why so little is known about the brain is that its design does appear to include examples of this property.
I'm so happy to dwell on that that I won't even quibble about your lack of hesitation in applying the word 'apes' to protohumans. What you refer to as 'deficiencies' arise from attempts to use the device to solve problems not included in the original design specs; you are complaining that the brain does not do things it was never designed to do. Within the parameters of the types of problem it was designed to solve, and within the margin of error natural selection found acceptable, the human brain is amazingly fast, powerful, and flexible.
These are good examples of tasks that are outside the original design specifications. Whatever enables us to do these things was designed for other purposes.
What you are suggesting is that there is some better thing the human brain might do. I don't disagree -- at least, while I think arguments for the virtues of sitting under a tree versus sitting in front of a computer could be made, I won't attempt them here -- but I wouldn't be too quick to install components dedicated to tasks which may become meaningless within a few years, decades, or even centuries. You would need to define meaningful objectives over thousands of years at least.
jay gw said:
To a degree. However, each is limited in many aspects, and can only borrow from a specfic set of general components. A Network card won't "borrow" from the graphics card, or sound card, or hard drive controller, etc. Each component has a specific function, they simply share a few things. This is similar to the brain as it is...our memory is a common pool that can be drawn on by all parts of the brain, while ability at art, math, spacial structures, etc are all in specialized parts of the brain.
Well, we can as much as a computer does. See my last explanation for how. You seem to want all parts of the brain to be able to do all things...in general, this is going to be a tradeoff. In all areas of design, both human and evolutionary, specialization has been a prime factor. You really don't have many general purpose organs or parts. If these were advantageous, you would. In engineering, trying to make general purpose systems is usually going to give less performance for the cost and energy than a specialized system.
How would that be superior?
As far as I know, there has never been a well-documented report of return to function after damage involving the neuronal cell body. Recent findings tend to confirm what neurologists have long suspected: that neurons are explicitly prevented from regrowing.
If you total a car, does that automatically indicate that the car was badly designed? We discard things all the time when repairing them is not practical. Does this necessarily mean they were not well designed? It is another example of a tradeoff. I would suggest that the brain is not explicitly designed to be damaged; that much of what the brain does is, in fact, ultimately dedicated to avoiding damage. But evolution has allowed for the possibility, by equipping the brain with far more neurons than it actually needs to get by. If damaged neurons are not replaced, it may not be due to unacceptable costs that would involve, but simply because it doesn't have to.
jay gw said:
But, it has. Regeneration simply isn't the way evolution chose to address the problem.
As Zombified has just pointed out again, nobody here is arguing that. The argument is that no such thing as 'perfect' exists. You are stuck on the idea that it does, and that superimposed functionality and neuronal regeneration are the best solutions to certain design problems. We're just trying to help you get unstuck.