> and when the neurons grow that's increasing your potential brainpower
No, not exactly.
> I get the idea that as a baby you think anything is possible
Also, no.
> But what I don't get is this: say you read an article about something you didn't know before, doesn't your brain make new connections (synapses) between neurons? How are those and neuron growth different, and how does the synapse learning fit into the paint model? Or am I misunderstanding how synapses work?
Exactly.
The thing that is growing by pruning is the ability to learn. NOT the learning itself.
A babies brain is disorganized, and doesn't have thought like an adult brain. Over time it learns how to learn, it learns about cause and effect. It learns there is an external world, and that it can effect that world.
It learns that it can reason about that world - if I do this, this happens - and I thought of it.
It's like having raw hardware, without software. A baby creates the software on the fly.
Later in life it fills the memory of the program with information, but the program itself is learned early.
And by program, a better term might be firmware, since a person can learn new way to think later in life. It's the machinery of thinking itself that a baby creates.
That's why the environment during infancy and childhood has such a massive effect later in life. It's why babies in almost any situation will adapt and mange.
No, not exactly.
> I get the idea that as a baby you think anything is possible
Also, no.
> But what I don't get is this: say you read an article about something you didn't know before, doesn't your brain make new connections (synapses) between neurons? How are those and neuron growth different, and how does the synapse learning fit into the paint model? Or am I misunderstanding how synapses work?
Exactly.
The thing that is growing by pruning is the ability to learn. NOT the learning itself.
A babies brain is disorganized, and doesn't have thought like an adult brain. Over time it learns how to learn, it learns about cause and effect. It learns there is an external world, and that it can effect that world.
It learns that it can reason about that world - if I do this, this happens - and I thought of it.
It's like having raw hardware, without software. A baby creates the software on the fly.
Later in life it fills the memory of the program with information, but the program itself is learned early.
And by program, a better term might be firmware, since a person can learn new way to think later in life. It's the machinery of thinking itself that a baby creates.
That's why the environment during infancy and childhood has such a massive effect later in life. It's why babies in almost any situation will adapt and mange.