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Brain network detected that supposedly gives humans superior reasoning skills

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n it comes to getting out of a tricky situation, we humans have an evolutionary edge over other primates. Take, as a dramatic example, the Apollo 13 voyage in which engineers, against all odds, improvised a chemical filter on a lunar module to prevent carbon dioxide buildup from killing the crew.

UC Berkeley scientists have found mounting brain evidence that helps explain how humans have excelled at “relational reasoning,” a cognitive skill in which we discern patterns and relationships to make sense of seemingly unrelated information, such as solving problems in unfamiliar circumstances.

Their findings, reported in the Dec. 3 issue of the journal Neuron, suggest that subtle shifts in the frontal and parietal lobes of the brain are linked to superior cognition. Among other things, the frontoparietal network plays a key role in analysis, memory retrieval, abstract thinking and problem-solving, and has the fluidity to adapt according to the task at hand.

Against all the odds. But just sort of happened.

Yeah.

See also: the human mind

Comments
DonaldM: But since it is based on what is, by definition, a purely unguided, undirected process, on what basis do we know we’re rational?
What do you mean by "we"? There is no "we" that can be rational. Consciousness is an illusion. Rosenberg again:
FOR SOLID EVOLUTIONARY REASONS, WE’VE BEEN tricked into looking at life from the inside. Without scientism, we look at life from the inside, from the first-person POV (OMG, you don’t know what a POV is?—a “point of view”). The first person is the subject, the audience, the viewer of subjective experience, the self in the mind. Scientism shows that the first-person POV is an illusion. Even after scientism convinces us, we’ll continue to stick with the first person. But at least we’ll know that it’s another illusion of introspection and we’ll stop taking it seriously. We’ll give up all the answers to the persistent questions about free will, the self, the soul, and the meaning of life that the illusion generates. The physical facts fix all the facts. The mind is the brain. It has to be physical and it can’t be anything else, since thinking, feeling, and perceiving are physical process—in particular, input/output processes—going on in the brain. We can be sure of a great deal about how the brain works because the physical facts fix all the facts about the brain. The fact that the mind is the brain guarantees that there is no free will. It rules out any purposes or designs organizing our actions or our lives. It excludes the very possibility of enduring persons, selves, or souls that exist after death or for that matter while we live. Not that there was ever much doubt about mortality anyway. This chapter uses the science of Chapter 8 to provide scientism’s answers to the persistent questions about us and the mind. The fact that these answers are so different from what life’s illusions tell us from the inside of consciousness is just more reason not to take introspection seriously.
BTW Nowhere in his book Rosenberg explains what/who is having the illusion ...Box
December 8, 2014
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So let's grant that these guys are right. Fine. Where does that leave us? It would still mean that the blind, purposeless forces of matter and energy interacting over eons of time through chance and/or necessity is the only explanation for that which we call our human rationality. But since it is based on what is, by definition, a purely unguided, undirected process, on what basis do we know we're rational? This is the question that persists regardless of how many just so stories the Darwinists concoct to explain our rationality. Like every other materialist explanation, they assume logic and reason in order to claim explanation for logic and reasoning. Could someone kindly sit these guys down and explain the concept of circular reasoning to them! Please! And now!!!DonaldM
December 8, 2014
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A. Rosenberg:
There are just fermions and bosons and combinations of them. None of that stuff is just, all by itself, about any other stuff. There is nothing in the whole universe—including, of course, all the neurons in your brain—that just by its nature or composition can do this job of being about some other clump of matter.
Box
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Andre at 1 :) OT: Mystery at the Heart of Life - The secret life of cells / Ann Gauger - Nov. 27, 2014 http://www.christianitytoday.com/behemoth/2014/issue-10/mystery-at-heart-of-life.html Subscription required but a free 30 day trial subscription is available.bornagain77
December 8, 2014
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Unguided evolution can fix filters on spaceships... Darwinism again explains everything. Amazing!!!!Andre
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