020. Learning

[electroniccrane]

[audio // EnglishIn humans, neural complexity begins to increase from birth, peaking at around age 11. After that point, the nervous system begins the process of pruning the unused neurons, moving the brain toward its adult configuration, which is set by around age 15. Some neurogenesis does occur after that, since adults are capable of learning

Comments

[morequartersplz]

Damn kids, get offa my lawn!

[electroniccrane]

You were a child once.

[morequartersplz]

I know! Christmas used to rock!

[electroniccrane]

Why did it stop?

[ttlynotawizard]

And what sort of trauma did you go through in childhood, Major?

[electroniccrane]

...Extensive.

[ttlynotawizard]

Physical? Emotional? Both?

[electroniccrane]

Physical trauma is always accompanied by emotional trauma.

[lemonmeringuepi]

That's very interesting.

I don't know that trauma can be so well hidden though. I've met some people who got stuck on their childhood traumas, never moved on, and then killed people because of said traumas and hoped that it would fix things. And then there're those who've suffered through childhood traumas that end up defining the rest of their lives, though they don't necessarily become murderers.

[A la himself.]

Some of them can be very pleasant indeed, right up until the moment they try to kill you, and then it's like seeing calm waves above and being swept away by a strong current below, never to see land again except as a dead and lifeless corpse. [A very short pause.] A not very pleasant notion.

[electroniccrane]

[Chuckle.]

Have you met a man named Verrim?

Regardless. On the individual level, those are adaptive responses to trauma--keeping the psyche functional, despite damage. It's only on the societal level that they fail.

[ttlyisabard]

[Kate sighs and rubs her forehead; she was bright, but this level of science was beyond her experiences.]

Major Kusanagi, are you talking about how children learn? On my world, a few scientists have theorized that the brain is the vessel of the mind, since injuries to the brain can affect memories, but common believe says the mind is separate from the body, as evidenced by spirits who live divorced of their bodies.

I ... might be a slow student on such advanced topics, but I would very much like to learn of your sciences. Your world must be so far ahead of mine. Would you care to teach me? Perhaps we can exchange lessons?

[Kate still wasn't aware of Kusanagi's cybernetics; THAT would be an interesting topic.]

[electroniccrane]

Consciousness requires a substrate. It doesn't necessarily have to be organic, but in unmodified humans, the brain is the seat of the mind.

[She's ignoring the "lessons" part because she's not interested in Kate's world at all.]

[ttlyisabard]

Hmm ... so what is consciousness? I mean, what causes it? I have heard of golems that can move because of spirits bound within them, but what is it that our wizards are binding?

[electroniccrane]

It's an emergent property that results once a sufficiently complex neural network is in place.

Of course, it could be entirely different where you're from.

[electronichound]

All that is well and good, but entirely irrelevent to us.

[He does the cyborg head-cock. She's in the gym.

Batou gets up and heads towards it.]

[electroniccrane]

Is it?

[She's examining the damage she caused, resulting in various clanking and dragging noises.]

[electronichound]

Of course. A cyberbrain means that it's possible to learn entire languages in minutes, even without biological neuroplasticity or neurogenesis.

[Batou bends down and leaps up each flight of stairs ceaselessly, and his breathing doesn't change a bit.]

We are highly adaptable, Shousa.

[electroniccrane]

Tch.

[They can discuss it in person, since she doesn't feel like talking about being cyberized as a child over the comms.]

Humans are highly adaptable. We're just an extrapolation of the trend.