Brain question/idea

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The brain must perform a lot of 'physics' calculations in day-to-day activities, such as judging how to throw a ball, or catch something, working out the path of the object etc.; how to balance; how much strength to use to lift something. We intuitively know how objects behave.

So is it possible that the brain 'knew' a lot of the laws of physics before people consciously realized them?
 
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No, they are environmentally obtained by the brain.

Someone who has caught and thrown 10,000 balls will be better at it than someone catching their first ball.

Obviously the brain learns from experience, but does the brain of the person who has caught 10,000 balls have a complex set of physical rules to work out how to catch balls.
LOL wtf? no....

Brilliant.
 
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Obviously the brain learns from experience, but does the brain of the person who has caught 10,000 balls have a complex set of physical rules to work out how to catch balls and other like objects.

Sort of. Through the process of catching balls, the brain will improve at knowing how to carry out this task, starting from the very first ball.

EDIT: I just remembered that even babies have some sort of mechanism built in to help them survive. I saw a program where a baby is put on a 'cliff' type surface, and when the baby reaches the end, somehow the baby knew not to go over the edge.
 

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Obviously the brain learns from experience, but does the brain of the person who has caught 10,000 balls have a complex set of physical rules to work out how to catch balls.


Brilliant.

No, he simple knows how to make his muscles react in the correct fashion to accomplish a task he is familiar of. He would be no better at telling an elephant how to lift his trunk in the air though than someone else.

You could run for 50 years and still not be able to ride a bike until you've practiced at it.
 
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How to balance is a physiological thing, it's not conscious.

The rest of it is acquired knowledge with our experience of environmental encounters, such as with gravity.
 
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a baby does not know how to pick up a cup and drink from it without spilling it. it can not control its bodily movements until they are learnt through repeition and and memory certain actions are instinct like feeding other than that it has to be learnt
 
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How to balance is a physiological thing, it's not conscious.

That's my point. Does the unconscious, instinctual brain 'know' more mathematics and physics than the conscious mind knows?

Yeah, balance is to do with fluid in your inner ear.

But the brain has to work out how to process the inner ear sense data and co-ordinate the movement of the body in an incredibly precise way.

Assume that the brain is an incredibly complex machine. If the best mathematicians and physicists on earth tried to program a robot to be as agile as a cat, they would fail miserably. A cat has no conscious knowledge of physics, but does its brain perform these calculations?
 
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That's my point. Does the unconscious, instinctual brain 'know' more mathematics and physics than the conscious mind knows?
It is just very good at knowing how to do something but it can't say why.
But the brain has to work out how to process the inner ear sense data and co-ordinate the movement of the body in an incredibly precise way.

Assume that the brain is an incredibly complex machine. If the best mathematicians and physicists on earth tried to program a robot to be as agile as a cat, they would fail miserably. A cat has no conscious knowledge of physics, but does its brain perform these calculations?
It doesn't perform calculations though, all it does is do what it has done before and change the parameters. Many robots use machine learning to achieve what animals do because it's hard to know exactly how to do something.
 
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